Wednesday 30 March 2016

Kelly's Review: Room for Love by Sophie Pembroke

Reviewed by Kelly Spillane

Can she make room for love? 

When wedding planner Carrie Archer inherits the crumbling Avalon Inn where she spent her childhood summers, she knows she’ll do whatever it takes to make it home. With no money for renovations, that means finding investors if she ever hopes to turn the Avalon into a dream wedding venue.


But Carrie has been left more than the inn—she’s also inherited its occupants, including three senior citizens, a single-father chef with childcare issues, a panicky receptionist, and one very gorgeous gardener.


So when her cousin Ruth declares her intention to get married at the Avalon on Christmas Eve, Carrie finds herself juggling decorating with dance nights, budgeting with bridge games...and sabotage with seduction.

Amazon link: Kindle

Carrie is shocked that she has inherited her Grandmother's hotel, the place that she has so many fond memories of from the many childhood summers that she spent there.  She is even more shocked to discover that the running of the gardens has been left to Nate, the gardener that her Grandmother hired and became very attached to.  Carrie's cousin Ruth has just gotten engaged for the fourth time, and this time she is determined to make it up the aisle.  With Ruth hoping to hold her wedding reception at Avalon House, Carrie has just a few short weeks to ensure that the hotel is up to the standards of her aunt and uncle, who are also investing in the hotel on the condition that Carrie can have it up to their standards for their daughters wedding. Carrie has only a few short weeks to get to hotel looking its best or she risks having to sell up, but with the help of some friendly locals, who were friends with her Grandmother Nancy, Carrie might just be able to make this a possibility. 

I very nearly gave up on this book in the beginning.  It's safe to say that it's not what I expected, but I am glad that I stuck with it because the second half of the book was exactly what I needed to read.  It’s not even that the book got off to a slow start, it didn’t, it got straight into the story which I loved.  For me it was the fact that I didn't like the main character for the first few chapters.  To me, Carrie came across as spoilt and ungrateful for the first 30% of the book.  After that however, I began to like Carrie more and more with every page and I realised that I had misread her character completely.  Other characters such as Nate, Jacob and Ruth, I loved from the off, and I feel that they really added to the story. 

Room for Love is an easy read and is extremely light-hearted, it had just the right amount of humor in it and most of all, the story is relatable.  There was also just the right amount of drama involved that really kept me interested.  I loved how there was a few small twists and turns throughout the book.  Room for Love really is a great romantic comedy, it left me with a smile on my face. The romance in this novel is really the driving feature.  The more the romance blossomed, the more interested I became into the story. 

Even though I liked the book, it left me indecisive as to whether I really liked it or not.  It has great promise, I just expected more from this particular read.  So many people who have read this book have loved it and I'm sure that many more will love it in the future, this is just a case of my own personal tastes not being the same as everybody else's, I am looking forward to discovering more of Sophie's books in the future.   

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