Sweetness, light, small village, great descriptions of the
place, people and emotions – this is such a lovely, lovely book.
Poppy Jenkins is a happy soul (some adjectives used for her
in the book: the most joyous person and the nicest human being) living her life
in a small village in Wales. She owns and manages a café, looks after her
sister and lives with her family including an easy-going father, a slightly
flaky mother (who really isn’t all that flaky), terror of a grandmom and a teen
sister. Poppy is happy in her world. And then Rosalyn Thorn returns.
Poppy’s best friend during her growing up years, Rosie broke Poppy’s heart by
inexplicably snatching away her friendship and being downright cruel to Poppy
when they were sixteen. A reality Poppy has buried deep in her heart. When Rosalyn
returns to the village, all sorts of emotions tumble around Poppy causing turbulence
in her placid life.
Guileless, somewhat naïve, endearingly innocent and a right
ray of sunshine – Poppy Jenkins is a totally loveable character. Cast darker, somewhat
broody, Rosalyn Thorn is a perfect partner for Poppy. The chemistry,
attraction and deep emotions between the two are beautifully captured. Their friendship
is so real. Rosalyn’s behaviour at sixteen is quite awful, but completely
believable. It can really happen that way.
The bad guys are so transparent that their acceptance by the
village seems a little hard to digest. There are quite a few things that we can
nit-pick about, but – oh, really…it doesn’t matter – because the book is just
so lovely.
⭐⭐⭐⭐★
