A Cottage by the Sea

• Book: A Cottage by the Sea
• Location: Pembrokeshire
• Author: Carole Matthews

This has to be up there with the best summer reads. I fell in love with the warm and picturesque descriptions of Pembrokeshire and indeed would love a visit to Cwch Cottage myself!

From the opening pages, with the Sat-Nav instructing Grace and Harry that they’ve reached their destination when clearly they are in the middle of nowhere (and who hasn’t had that argument with a Sat-Nav?) I knew I would be soaking up this novel like Bounty tissue soaks up spills! Add to that the glorious pictures of rural Wales which Carole paints with vivacity and the eclectic mix of characters and you know you are on to a winner.

Grace, Ella and Flick are old University friends who in the ten years since leaving Uni have gone their own ways in life but have always kept in touch. Grace, always the sensible one, is married to safe dependable Harry, has a secure job as an accountant with a steady income and nothing at all to worry about until recently when Harry has started drinking quite heavily and their marriage seems to have become a bit too dull and tensions lie beneath the surface.
Ella has had some success as an artist but no success in tying down her long term lover Art, music manager and free spirit and Ella is starting to think she wants a bit more out of life and a bit more commitment from Art.
Flick, always the party girl who has been quite happy with other people’s husband’s and brief flings shows up at the cottage with Noah, her latest squeeze, and seems determined that he WILL be the one but with tensions mounting in the cottage, relationships off kilter and an undercurrent that all is not as it should be, this week of relaxation could throw up more surprises than could ever have been expected.

Such brilliant writing, I almost felt I was a voyeur in the cottage as the tension mounted, quite happy to sit and observe what this group of friends were doing and notching up the clues as they happened and nodding sagely to myself. Fabulous characters that light up the pages and make this a truly warm and engaging read.

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