Books Read: Liz Fenwick - A Cornish Affair

Running out on your wedding day never goes down well. When the pressure of her forthcoming marriage becomes too much, Jude bolts from the church, leaving a good man at the altar, her mother in a fury, and the guests with enough gossip to last a year.

Guilty and ashamed, Jude flees to Pengarrock, a crumbling cliff-top mansion in Cornwall, where she takes a job cataloguing the Trevillion family's extensive library. The house is a welcome escape for Jude, full of history and secrets, but when its new owner arrives, it's clear that Pengarrock is not beloved by everyone.

As Jude falls under the spell of the house, she learns of a family riddle stemming from a terrible tragedy centuries before, hinting at a lost treasure. And when Pengarrock is put up for sale, it seems that time is running out for the house and for Jude.

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Having doubts about whether you're marrying your partner for the right reason, because you love them and not because it's what your mother wants, at the church doors was probably not the best timing that Jude could have chosen.  Nor is deciding not to go ahead with the wedding after all and leaving your fiance John and family in the lurch at the church...

As she'd already leased her flat and given up her job, as she and John had been planning to move to England for his job, Jude decides to head over to England anyway to stay with her godmother who soon gets her a job in Cornwall where Jude is able to put her talents to use helping Petroc Trevillion to catalogue his research.  But she soon discovers that Petroc is more interested in investigating an ancient mystery, much to the disdain of his son Tristan, that he thinks will earn him a windfall to save his crumbling home...

I wasn't really sure what to expect when the opening chapter involved a runaway bride, would it all just be the repercussions of her cold feet but as I soon discovered there is so much more to this story than that which made me want to keep turning the pages.  I loved the whole mystery element and probably would have liked this to have been developed even further.  And yes there was also the inevitable romantic ending but I didn't mind that all.

A Cornish Affair is the first novel that I've read by Liz Fenwick, although I have now bought a copy of her debut novel The Cornish House, and also have a copy of her newest book A Cornish Stranger, both of which I'm looking forward to reading as soon as I can find the time!

I'd like to thank Harriet at Orion Publishing for sending me a copy of this book to review.