Published By: Boldwood
Pages: 408
Released On: 06/04/2023
As her summer wedding to Jake approaches, Hollie is excited for their new beginning as a family. But when some unexpected news threatens the future she and Jake had hoped for, Hollie will need to find the strength to overcome heartache once more.
A fragile heart….
Single mum, Kerry, loves her job at The Starfish Café, but behind the brave smiles and laughter with customers there is a sadness deep within. So when someone from her past re-appears in her life, Kerry can either hide away or face her demons and try to finally move on from her heartbreak.
A summer to remember…
For Hollie and Kerry it promises to be an emotional rollercoaster of a summer, but the community at The Starfish Café will always be there to help them through – after all, with courage nothing is impossible…
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I will NEVER stop shouting about my love for Jessica Redland’s work. Every time she brings out a new book, I jump (not literally, I don’t want to break a hip) at the chance to read it as I just know it’s going to be perfectly gorgeous.
This is book number 3 in the Starfish Café series and I am loving it. You get some series that, whilst set in the same ‘universe’, focus on different people. And then others, like this one, follow the same characters’ stories. And I’m loving that. These characters feel like friends, feel like family, and it’s really exciting to see what they’ve been up to and be a part of their story.
I love that we get, not only a continuation of Hollie’s story, but we also get Kerry’s story. It gives us more to feast on about some of the characters we’ve come to love over the series.
Like the others in the series, it’s fun and light-hearted and exciting, but it doesn’t hide the harsh truths. The deaths and grief, disappointments, relationship struggles, anger, terror. It’s real life in all it’s raw glory. And unfortunately, some people get more bad news than one person should (and I resonate with that), and whilst that almost sounds like it’s been made up for entertainment purposes, this is real life and it’s awful and difficult, but it really makes the happy times shine.
I was really hoping this wouldn’t be the last in the series but it looks like it is. I completely understand why she’s finished it, it’s finished off very nicely, but I never wanted to leave it. But I am looking forward to seeing what new series she comes up with now.
I’ve cried at moments in all the Starfish Café books, but this one even more. For good reasons and sad. For what I would call a happily-ever-after type book, it is full of emotional scenes.
The pace of it is just right, it never feels too slow, and also never rushed. It’s easy to read (I read it in just one day) and you’ll find yourself absorbed right from the start.
I can’t 100% say that you can read it without reading the other two first. I’m sure you could, but you probably won’t get everything out of it that you could. By reading the full series, you get sucked in to the stories and you can fully appreciate the ending as if it was happening to your family.
I think it’s fair to say my obsession with Jessica Redland and her books is not going to go away any time soon. She’s just a stupendous storyteller that she’s bound to end up with her own shelf on my bookcase.
Books By Your Bedside 