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The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea–disappearance in the cove
The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea
By Liz Eeles
The chapters in this book alternate narrators from Clara who returned to Heaven’s Cove to help her mother when her father became sick; to Geoffrey, the Lord of the Manor; to River, Geoffrey’s estranged son. Clara’s mother, Julie Netherway, housekeeper and cook for the manor, still lives in the little house on the manor property where Clara was raised. She is dedicated to caring for Geoffrey and the manor as were all Netherway women who came before her.
Geoffrey was a gruff father, but actually loves his son. His wife left her husband with River when he was a teenager to live in a commune in Australia. It was hard to have a relationship with his father, and he cut ties completely with Clara who had been his friend from childhood.
River is called back to Heaven’s Cove as an adult because his father is in financial straits and Cousin Bartie is convincing him that he needs to sell the manor, the only home Geoffrey has ever known and his family heritage.
This novel has gentle romantic tones, but dives deeply into the characters and their motivations. Most interesting to me is the mystery of why Geoffrey’s beautiful and adored stepmother Audrey had committed suicide when he was just a child. Sadly, he actually saw her walk into the ocean to her death. He has always wondered why he was not good enough.
Clara discovers Audrey’s diary which seems to have coded messages in it. She is fascinated by this woman and the sad tale of her death which so many years later has affected Geoffrey and River in turn.
I highly recommend The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea for its intricate plot and interesting characters. I have read several books in this series and have enjoyed all of them. The author is a very good storyteller.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Notes: #7 in the Heavens Cove series, but should be considered a standalone as the setting is the main element that connects these novels.
Publication: July 8, 2024—Bookouture
Memorable Lines:
Sunbeams were dappling through the trees at the cove’s edge and River realised that he was literally walking in his cousin’s shadow, just as he always had metaphorically.
…she nodded anyway, glowing at being called a swan. Though that did imply she’d once been an ugly duckling.
He’d long prided himself on being an unsentimental man, yet all kinds of emotions were now bubbling to the surface of his mind, like bleached bones rising from the depths of the ocean.
Winter Wishes in the Scottish Highlands–connecting at Christmas
Winter Wishes in the Scottish Highlands
by Donna Ashcroft
This story is about friendship, handling grief, and being controlled by others. Ross feels guilty over his parents’ deaths and his grandmother and older brother Simon seem to blame him as well. Grandmother Miriam is extremely harsh and controlling and has been grooming Simon for his role as Laird since his parents’ passing. Anything to do with Ross warranted only a passing thought.
Ivy Heart had lost her father to a heart attack. Her mother had to try unsuccessfully to salvage his failing business and wants her daughter to never have to struggle to survive. So she tries to control Ivy’s career choice.
There are interesting characters along the way—supportive ones like Connell and Bonnibell, part owners of Christmas Resort where Ross works as an adventure guide, and the curmudgeon loner Grizzle, a reluctant friend to Ross. Ross has two pets: a golden retriever Moose and a wild boar Snowball.
Ross and Ivy are attracted to each other, but Miriam’s manipulations cause trouble. Ross and Ivy have to come to grips with their pasts and what they want for the future.
Ivy and Ross were not really characters that drew me in. I liked the animals in the story better than the people. I found Ross’ relationship as an adult with his grandmother and Ivy’s with her mother to be unrealistic. The expectations of the adults were intertwined, but focused on their own emotional needs more than those of Ross and Ivy.
I enjoyed Winter Wishes in the Scottish Highlands to the extent that I wanted what was best for the protagonists, but I wasn’t engaged in how they accomplished that end.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Romance, Women’s Fiction
Notes: 1. #4 in the Christmas Village Series, but can be read as a standalone
2. Contains one open door bedroom scene.
Publication: September 18, 2024—Bookouture
Memorable Lines:
…he turned and headed towards the hallway, leaving Ivy feeling even more confused—because this was a man who wouldn’t speak to his own grandmother, but who’d brave bad weather to check on a friend.
“It takes a brave person to risk love and a stupid one to think they’d be happier without it.”
His whole life felt like it had just been through a washing machine cycle and everything he used to take comfort from had been rinsed away.
Christmas in the Scottish Highlands–feel good Christmas romance
Christmas in the Scottish Highlands
by Donna Ashcroft
Join Belle Albany as she tries to fulfill the elderly, lonely Edina’s Christmas wishes. Edina has separated herself from people and life in Evergreen Castle. It takes an accident to show her what she has been missing. Not only has she distanced herself from the townspeople, but she also needs to finally meet an adult grandson Jack and see her daughter Tara more often. Christmas in the Scottish Highlands is character generated and propelled. The stories that motivate the main characters are key, but the supporting characters are vital to the plot too. A surprising and important character is Bob, a delightful donkey that lives at Evergreen Castle.
Christmas is critical to the plot, not just a backdrop. You can anticipate lots of Christmas traditions. Belle’s students at Christmas Village Primary School put on the annual Nativity program. A lot of effort is devoted to reviving the tradition of a huge Christmas party at the castle—enough that you might coin a new saying: “it takes a village to celebrate Christmas properly.”
Front and center next to the frivolity are deep and sometimes painful relationship issues: abandonment, estrangement, and communication. There are also three romantic threads and one other disclosed third hand as Jack is a divorce lawyer, better at splitting assets than at mending relationships. Several characters need to learn that there are often two sides to a story and author Donna Ashcroft does an excellent job of helping her readers understand that.
I enjoyed my visit to the Scottish Highlands in this book with its snow, castle, small village feel, and Christmas Cairn. Ashcroft sprinkles the text with just enough Scottish dialect (nae, dinnae, wee, lass/lassie, lad/laddie) that as I read dialogue I heard a Scottish brogue.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Romance
Notes: There is one scene in the book where the sex could have been implied. It was not terribly graphic, but I prefer romances with closed bedroom doors.
Publication: October 11, 2021—Bookouture
Memorable Lines:
Belle said his name slowly, layering it with a dollop of irritation. Kenzy quirked an eyebrow. “Is Pollyanna having an off day? I know you weren’t that sure about him, but I thought your mantra was “there’s good in everyone”. Not that I’m complaining. You could do with toughening up—the world’s filled with sharks, it’s good to have your harpoon sharpened when you meet them.”
“Ah, lass, it’s been a lot of years since anyone’s said anything so nice. The last compliment I got was from my dentist—and she just admired that I still had my own teeth.” Edina’s face lit with mirth and Kenzy snorted. The older woman had a wicked sense of humour and often had Belle belly laughing.
He’d had a quiet few days in Evergreen Castle, feeling slightly more popular than an axe murderer, but less welcome than someone with a really contagious cold.
I Capture the Castle–class structure in mid-20th century England
I Capture the Castle
by Dodie Smith
To label I Capture the Castle as a “coming of age” story is true, but the novel is so much more. It is related in her journal by Cassandra who lives in poverty under the leaky roof of a crumbling castle. Her father Mortmain is a writer with one successful book to his credit before he hit a writing desert. He secured a forty-year lease on the castle on a whim. The other residents are his son, another daughter, a boy taken in when his servant mother passed, and Topaz, the children’s stepmother. All in the family realize that the only way out of their financial straits is for at least one of the girls to marry into a rich family.
Author Dodie Smith has gifted us with a book full of nonconventional characters, a beautiful romantic background, and moral dilemmas. The plot begins with touches reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice but deviates fairly quickly. There is a similar theme of class differences, but without Austen’s use of satire. Two of the potential romantic interests grew up in America, one in the East and one in the West. Their backgrounds add another layer of social and cultural differences. Cassandra’s family is caught in the middle. They clearly had money in the past, but they have sold off most of their belongings and are reduced to very meager meals and one or two threadbare outfits per person. They have to be very creative to be acceptable in the social milieu to which they aspire.
I Capture the Castle has the depth necessary for a book to stand the test of time and appeal to a wide audience. It includes topics like women’s roles, art and sexuality, depression, literary criticism, and the laws of inheritance in Great Britain. While it addresses these issues, it remains an interesting and well-told tale with an ending that does not tie everything up neatly. Instead, it gives the reader the opportunity to speculate on the characters’ future decisions and actions which is a good way for this novel to conclude.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Romance, General Fiction
Notes: 1. There are discussion questions at the end.
2. The book has been made into a movie.
Publication: 1948—St. Martin’s Press
Memorable Lines:
I am writing this journal partly to practice my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel—I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious.
The taxi drew up at a wonderful shop—the sort of shop I would never dare to walk through without a reason. We went in by way of the glove and stocking department, but there were things from other departments just dotted about; bottles of scent and a little glass tree with cherries on it and a piece of white branched coral on a sea-green chiffon scarf. Oh, it was an artful place—it must make people who have money want to spend it madly!
In the end, Topaz got Stephen to take the hen-house door off its hinges and make some rough trestles to put it on, and we pushed it close to the window-seat, which saved us three chairs. We used the grey brocade curtains from the hall as a table-cloth—they looked magnificent though the join showed a bit and they got in the way of our feet. All our silver and good china and glass went long ago, but the Vicar lent us his, including his silver candelabra.
The Princess and the Goblin–multi-layered fairy tale for all ages
The Princess and the Goblin
by George MacDonald
Ready for another, good-for-all-ages fairy tale? My book club read The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, a Scottish minister, poet, and novelist, who inspired and influenced many authors through the ages including C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, and Madeleine L’Engle. Like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Princess and the Goblin is first and foremost a fun fantasy tale, beautifully written. As it progresses, layers of symbolism are added with themes of courage, honor, belief, trust, virtue, and faith. As any good fairy tale does, The Princess and the Goblin differentiates between good and evil. Children and adults are living in a rather messy world today where ethics often are blurred, but there are still truths that need to be valued. There are morals that hold us to a standard that forms a good society.
With the author’s great descriptive powers, all of the characters are detailed both physically and morally. The goblins are all evil with designs on the full destruction of the human race. The humans in the story are not perfect, but demonstrate character development based on their experiences.
Irene is a little princess who lives in a country castle. Her noble king-papa visits her regularly as he tours his kingdom staying in touch with his people. Irene discovers her great-great-grandmother living in a section of the castle. No one else has seen her or her rooms. She acts as a God figure in the story, guiding Irene to safety and to belief. A very wise woman, she helps Irene understand that not everyone is ready to believe at the same time. This is apparent in Lootie, Irene’s nurse, who has responsibility for the child’s safety and in Curdie, a clever and brave young miner who befriends and helps Princess Irene. The goblins desire the little princess as a mate for their prince.
There is a lot of adventure in this tale as Curdie works underground (literally) to discover the goblin plots and thwart them. The Princess and Curdie are at odds as he does not initially see what Irene sees because the great-great-grandmother does not actually disclose herself to him.
The settings include a castle with lots of hallways, some beautiful mountains, a small miner’s cottage, pitch black caves where miners toil away picking out ore, and goblin caverns and tunnels. These are the backdrops for the dramatic action of the goblins’ convocation, the Princess’ wanderings, and Irene and Curdie’s courageous rescues of each other. The battle scenes are well played out as Curdie defeats them with poetry and foot stomping.
This is a book that I am sorry I missed earlier in my life. I would love to have shared it with my children and grandchildren when they were younger, but I am happy to pass on the word now to new generations looking for well-written books with substance and value. I look forward to reading The Princess and Curdie, which was written eleven years later, as well as some of MacDonald’s other works (numbering over 50) which encompass a variety of genres. I believe that even reading a biography of this author’s life and influence would be quite interesting as his work did not take a straight forward path. He and his family were plagued with health issues, and despite his success and the admiration of his colleagues, he was not always financially solvent.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Fairy Tale, Fantasy
Publication: November 16, 2010—Project Gutenberg (which includes beautiful illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith from the 1920 version.
First published by Strahan & Co. 1872
Also published by David McKay Co. 1920
Memorable Lines:
Her fear vanished: once more she was certain her grandmother’s thread could not have brought her there just to leave her there…
“But it wasn’t very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth.” “People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it.”
…Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble toward them.
The Enchanted April–looking for happiness
The Enchanted April
by Elizabeth Von Arnim
In an exceptionally rainy and dreary March in England, four strangers decide to get away by sharing the rent on a medieval castle in sunny Italy for the month of April. Lotty Wilkins, who can “see” or visualize people at their best and happiest initiates the effort, recruiting Rose Arbuthnot. Both in their early thirties, they do not have happy marriages. Lady Caroline is a little younger and extremely attractive, but is tired of the superficial cloying of people bewitched by her good looks. The very authoritative Mrs. Fisher in her sixties is still wearing mourning blacks years after her husband’s death and focuses her thoughts and conversations on childhood memories of encounters with famous people, particularly authors. This fictional account relies strongly on character development as these ladies’ situations are examined and they react to each other and to their temporary environment for the month. As I reread the many lines I had highlighted, I found that the writing is indeed exquisite.
The Enchanted April is the kind of book that holds beauty and introspection and gently insists that readers immerse themselves in the deliciousness of a sunny month of flowering plants and enticing foods. There are humorous situations thrown in as Lotty and Rose speak no Italian and the other two ladies don’t want to undertake the bother of dealing with the servants or managing the finances. There are also some surprising plot twists at the end of the tale. If you join the ladies in their Italian castle, your only regret will be saying “Arrivederci” at the end of the stay.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Fiction
Notes: Originally published in 1922.
Publication: July 19, 2005—Project Gutenberg
Memorable Lines:
She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most…Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them?
“Oh, but in a bitter wind to have nothing on and know there never will be anything on and you going to get colder and colder till at last you die of it—that’s what it was like, living with somebody who didn’t love one.”
In heaven nobody minded any of those done-with things, one didn’t even trouble to forgive and forget, one was much too happy.
A Royal Christmas Fairy Tale–traditions to fairy tale
A Royal Christmas Fairy Tale
by Karen Schaler
A Royal Christmas Fairy Tale is perfect for readers who enjoy a book infused with:
*the spirit of Christmas
*beautiful snowy backdrops
*Christmas traditions
*the importance of family
*magical, romantic possibilities
*a belief that wishes can come true
*a kinder, gentler way of interacting with others
*royalty who love and respect the citizens of their kingdom
The story centers on:
Alexander—handsome, widowed prince
Isabella—perceptive and generous queen
Anna—precocious princess, enthusiastic, but respectful
Blixen—charming Vizsla dog
Kaylie—investigative reporter
What happens if you are expecting a promotion, but discover at Christmas that the company is making cuts? You accept any job, even if it is a mystery assignment, if it might lead to greater things.
What do you do if your wife dies, and the paparazzi are ruthless in their hounding? You escape to the Caribbean.
With a little royal manipulation, the two are thrown together, with a comfort zone nowhere in sight.
My favorite character is the princess, mature in manners and understanding of the grownup world of royalty, but young in her enjoyment of life. My favorite scene is Kaylie’s arrival in Tolvania, unaware she will be working in a real castle inhabited by royalty. She is greeted by the princess, but thinks it is all pretend and plays along with what she thinks is an imaginary scenario. Confusing and embarrassing for Kaylie. Amusing for the reader.
Along the way I could tell that Kaylie had stepped over a boundary, a law actually. That decision was complicated by a mistake that I knew was coming and which added tension to several chapters as I waited for the issue to explode. If you want a true Christmasy, romantic escape, A Royal Christmas Fairy Tale was written just for you.
I would like to extend my thanks to NetGalley and to HawkTale Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: General Fiction (Adult), Romance, Women’s Fiction
Notes: This standalone includes three recipes and two activities in a bonus section.
Publication: October 5, 2021—HawkTale Publishing
Memorable Lines:
She wondered, if she’d had an inspiring art teacher who had encouraged her, instead of telling her all the things she was doing wrong, maybe she would have liked art more.
Kaylie was once again impressed by how many of the royal family’s Christmas traditions included the entire village of Tolvania and focused on giving back and bringing people together.
“Christmas spirit is the heart and soul of Christmas because it celebrates family, faith, friends, community, hope, and love,” the queen said. “You can tell a lot about someone by the way they celebrate and honor Christmas.”
education pathways 