Love is in the air in the little village of Welford . . .
Mandy Hope is on cloud nine. Hope Meadows, the animal rescue and rehabilitation centre she founded, is going really well. And she's growing ever closer to handsome villager Jimmy Marsh. What's more, James Hunter, her best friend, is slowly learning to re-embrace life after facing tragedy.
But when an unexpected crisis causes Mandy to lose confidence in her veterinary skills, it's a huge blow. If she can't learn to forgive herself, then her relationship with Jimmy, and the future of Hope Meadows, may be in danger. It'll take friendship, love, community spirit - and one elephant with very bad teeth - to remind Mandy and her fellow villagers that springtime in Yorkshire really is the most glorious time of the year.
Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for my copy of Springtime at Wildacre to review via NetGalley and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Springtime at Wildacre is the third in the Hope Meadows series by Lucy Daniels. As it had been some time since I had read Christmas at Mistletoe Cottage I was glad that the first few chapters were really catching up on previous books providing me gentle reminders as to who was who and what had happened to them before. I think this is also really beneficial to those who are new to the series and it means that you can slot right into this series never having read any of the previous stories. The entire series is called Animal Ark Revisited and is a grown up version of the Animal Ark series which thrilled many young readers.
I had never read any of the books aimed at the younger market as I was way past that age when they were first published and became so popular. So I have come to this series with fresh eyes and didn't really know all the animal escapades our main female character Mandy and her best friend James got up to when they were younger. Now I think we see a grown up and for the most part a more mature Mandy whose love and devotion towards all animals shines through from every chapter. She is not without her faults though and I enjoy that the author in this book gives her a bit of a tough time where she has to work through things mentally and step back a bit and take stock.
This series of books are really light, easy, not too taxing reads and perfect for animal lovers. Even if you are not the biggest devotee of animals all the non human characters will certainly bring a smile to your face - the two donkeys for sure I always love to see being mentioned.The first half of the book had a very slow and gentle pace and to be honest it felt a bit repetitive as Mandy goes about her daily business. She works as a vet in her parents practice Animal Ark having not long ago moved back from the city and also having broken up with her boyfriend. She slowly has resettled back into the rhythms of the town of Welford and the surrounding countryside and is now in a relationship with Jimmy who runs an Outward Bound Adventure Centre.
Alongside her veterinary work which keeps her on her toes is the rescue centre Hope Meadows which Mandy has opened adjacent to the surgery. So she has lots to keep her going and as I have said the first half focused on the daily routine of various appointments and then working at the rescue centre - cleaning, rehabilitating and attempting to re-home the various animals that come into her care. Don't get me wrong this was all lovely but I just thought the entire book can't go on like this. There were some nice little mini stories of meeting people who wished to re-home an animals but I felt something needed to happen, something exciting and challenging for Mandy.
Mandy needed a few curve balls thrown in her direction as continuing just to describe her days was becoming a bit stale. Thankfully just past the halfway mark, I thought the book turned a corner and things really got going. I loved how we saw many different sides to Mandy emerging and to be honest at times her attitude frustrated me but I view this as a good thing because I don't think it's right to have her coming across as all sweetness and light the entire time and where everyone has to agree with her opinions. I wouldn't say she had a total personality transplant and went from being kind and nice to some one people would detest. Instead I just felt her attitude towards certain situations was very one sided on her part. She came across as very entrenched in her views and there was no changing her stance once she had made up her mind.
When she learns of a planning application for a furniture factory on a site where woods stand next to Hope Meadows Mandy doesn't get too up in arms. But it's when Jimmy's twins Abi and Max make a startling discovery in the forest things are set to change. When out playing, the twins discover a baby red squirrel on the forest floor. Mandy is convinced red squirrels which are endangered are nesting in the area and if that is the case than the area is protected and no planning should have been granted for the new factory. I totally understood Mandy's position on this and being so devoted and dedicated to all kinds of animals she couldn't see a habitat destroyed which contained a rare animal. But what frustrated me is that she was so gung ho in her attitude regarding this that she couldn't see fellow towns people’s opinions. That the factory would bring much badly needed employment to so many people and the town itself would thrive. Mandy is very blinkered in her approach and I thinks she needed to step back and realise there are two sides to every story and she needed to think a bit more about the overall picture. Having said that I really enjoyed the way this aspect of the story developed and my own viewpoint did change several times over. Mandy began a bit of super sleuthing so to speak and then I began to think her actions were justified, I was intrigued to see how everything was going to come together.
Aside from this Mandy faced plenty of issues in both her professional and personal life. She has the constant worry of keeping Hope Meadows going with more funding desperately needed to keep things running but also on the home front things aren't always great. The storyline as featured in the previous two books about her mother Emily began to come to a head now and my suspicions had been proven correct but I thought this was handled with sensitivity and tact. As for Mandy's relationship with Jimmy, I think she thought stormy weather was approaching whereas Jimmy viewed things as being all fine and dandy. Having to deal with developing a connection with the twins who view Mandy as an interloper and taking them away from their dad is not easy. I thought Mandy worried unnecessarily and should have taken things easy with them and let nature take its course. Time would tell a lot. I think in general Mandy is a person who takes so much on her shoulders and brings worry and upset to her door where there really is none. If she could only relax a little bit and just go with the flow a bit more as there are always others there for her doing their bit. I especially loved how one close friend/co-worker had their own little role to play in bringing this about.
Summer at Hope Meadows was a very good addition to the series that definitely got much better around the midway point. I especially loved the mini storyline towards the end featuring a very surprising animal that wouldn't normally be found around Welford. I loved it even more for how it helped with a bigger storyline and creating unity where needed. I do think the series needs to branch out a bit from Mandy and focus on different characters who perhaps have had a more background role up to now. That's not to say Mandy, Jimmy and co should be forgotten at all but I think it's time they took a step backward and allowed others to come to the fore and share their stories. I still have book four to catch up before book five Summer Days at Sunrise Farm is published in May so I will definitely be getting around to Snowflakes over Moon Cottage in the next week or two. I've just read the blurb and am glad to see what I hoped would happen as mentioned above that the focus now turns to Susan Collins and her story. I think moving away from Mandy will take the series in a new and welcome direction but I certainly have enjoyed the three books which have featured her so far.
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