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Monday, May 26, 2014

A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware courtesy of Open Library

A Cottage by the Sea


This was several genres nicely put together. We had the romance and heart break first. Blythe going through the trauma of a very messy divorce from her world famous Hollywood husband. He trying very hard to come across as the aggrieved party, despite being unfaithful with of all people Blythe's very own sister. She is also now incidentally pregnant and this has broken Blythe because the husband point blank refused to even consider having children as he considered them getting in the way! 

To escape the papparazzi Blythe goes away to a remote Cornish hideaway - a place which her Wyoming grandmother spoke of fondly as being beautiful and remote. It is the remote tag which attracts Blythe as she wants to hide away and lick her wounds in private and come to terms with the break up of her marriage.

Meeting Lucas Teague the Lord of this particular part of Cornwall was not part of her initial scheme but he is also the landowner of the cottage which she is renting. Becoming friends with him she begins to know the extent of Lucas's troubles. Not just being widowed and left with a young son, but also financial burdens which farming alone will not help to evade eventual bankruptcy.

At this point the next genre kicks in! Blythe is drawn to the genealogical map found in Lucas's study and she is very keen to see where her connection to the Teague family come in. Bearing the same name of her famous fore-bearer it is too much of a coincidence that the same fore-bearer also married someone of the same name as the present day Blythe's husband.  It seemed surreal.  Blythe accidentally goes back in time to the former Blythe's era and slowly over a number of going backs, unravels the mysteries and secrets of ancestors of days gone by.  

The mixture of genres was for me cleverly done, not one overly overlapping the other and one not completely hijacking the present day story of Lucas and Blythe.

My first read of this author. Liked this book, courtesy of Open Library.

4 comments:

  1. Glad you enjoyed it, it's on my kindle waiting patiently :)

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  2. Ciji shifts between narratives very well. Glad you enjoyed this book.

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  3. This sounds great! It takes a talented writer to balance multiple storylines.

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  4. I got this one some time ago and somewhere along the way it got culled from the piles of books, not sure it was something I would enjoy. What a mistake it sounds like I made!

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