Published By: Bookouture
Pages: 361
Released On: 01/07/2022
Amelie has lived in Cornflower Cottage since she was born. She did her homework at the scrubbed kitchen table and helped her mum hang washing from the line on the old oak tree in the garden. And when her beloved parents died, Cornflower Cottage became Amelie’s armour against the world.
The trouble is that Cornflower Cottage is too big for just her. With a broken boiler and a leaking roof, Amelie knows she must do something to make ends meet. When she meets Xander, a scruffy, brown-eyed nature documentary maker living out of his backpack in a nearby hotel, Amelie rents him a room, hoping a lodger will solve her problems.
She soon realises that her troubles are only just beginning, Xander’s muddy clothes all over the cottage and early morning jaunts to photograph otters are going to take some getting used to. But when an argument turns into a heart-to-heart, she finds herself confessing how lonely she has been.
Before long, laughter echoes round the cosy farmhouse kitchen once more and sparks begin to fly. But when a face from Xander’s past appears at Cornflower Cottage Amelie’s happy home is shaken once more. Xander has changed Amelie’s quiet country life forever. Should she open her heart to someone who has hidden things from her? Or let him leave, and lose the love that makes her house a home?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I came across Tilly Tennant’s writing last year with “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and it was really good and I was excited to read another of hers.
For all its eccentricities and issues, Cornflower Cottage sounded idyllic to me and somewhere I’d love to live.
The characters as a whole were a negative point for me sadly. There were definitely more characters I disliked than actually liked. Amelie’s boyfriend Decker and her boss Melvin aren’t nice people, and then a character called Imogen comes in and adds to the unlikeable people. I didn’t even like Amelie to begin with, I felt she was a bit of a martyr, a victim of her circumstances, and she really need to grow a backbone. But she did grow on me once she started to stand up for herself. If I’m honest, my favourite character was Salad, her pet rabbit.
I also felt the blurb was a little misleading. For me, the story wasn’t quite what the blurb said and so it wasn’t what I was expecting, but still fun to read.
For me, it wasn’t as good as her previous book. It went up and down but never fully settled into a rhythm for me. It was fun and enjoyable to read but not particularly memorable. It was very predictable, but that’s not a negative for me, as it meant I could concentrate fully on Amelie’s story without waiting for twists and surprises which would have felt out of place.
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