Reviewed by Emma Crowley
When Rosie inherits the café on Marigold Marina after her husband’s tragic death, she is determined to pour her heart into his dream. Nine months later, as she serves coffee and cakes to customers, she is all smiles and laughter. But when the sunshine-yellow doors of the café are closed, she allows her heart to break all over again.
Rosie doesn’t have much room in her life for anything but the café. But when Kit, the mysterious owner of a bookshop barge, starts to come by regularly for lunch, she finds it difficult to ignore his dark eyes, dishevelled curls and the fact that he has his own sorrows. Rosie finds it easy to talk to Kit and as they swim together in the sparkling marina waters she hopes she can help Kit the way he has helped her.
But just as she is letting herself open her heart, she learns the shocking secret that the husband she loved for so many years kept hidden from her. And when she discovers that Kit is hiding things too, she fears she has been foolish to trust again. Should she close her café and move away from the marina? Or take a risk and give love another chance?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Café at Marigold Marina to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Café at Marigold Marina is another great read from Tilly Tennant. It has a gorgeous cover that sets the scene for the story that awaits you. It’s a quick read but an enjoyable one as you become caught up in the trials and tribulations that face the main character Rosie who is left bereft when her husband Fergus dies suddenly just as they were on the way to fulfilling a life dream of theirs. She has carried their plan through and is on the cusp of opening a brand new café at the delightful Marigold Marina. She has spent three months battling to get the café ship shape and ready for opening but at the same time she feels it’s all for nothing as the person who was meant to be by her side is gone. By keeping going with the project it’s Rosie’s way of remembering Fergus but deep down you can sense that perhaps this is not what Rosie herself wanted. There seems to be a reluctance and fear that surround her and it’s more like she owes it to Fergus to see their plan through to fruition. She feels that she doesn’t deserve the life that Fergus should have been gifted but at the same time she thinks maybe I should make the most of it?
Rosie was a complex character who I felt was really down on herself a lot of the time. I know she was caught up deeply in her grief, but I think this shrouded her overall viewpoint. She quite often failed to see her worth and that she could be strong enough to keep going on her own, it’s like she needed Fergus as a side kick or even a leader. It was as if he was the one with all the drive and ambition and now that he has been taken she needs to find these qualities for herself but when we first meet her she can’t see a way of achieving her goals or giving herself the kick she needed to really get going. Rosie is lonely and, who wouldn’t be without your life companion by your side, I thought she turned to anyone that came into her life and wanted them as a friend. Of course, some people are genuine and a friendship would be natural but I sensed that some characters weren’t all as they seemed and were hiding things. Things that if Rosie knew the truth about I doubt she would have been welcoming them with open arms into her life.
Rosie has had months of doubt, angst and second guessing herself? Is opening the café the right thing to do? Was it really Fergus’s dream and not hers? Is she only going through with it because she will feel guilty if she doesn’t? But once she opens up, she does feel a sense of achievement and she begins to settle into the marina. That’s not to say life is all plain sailing. In fact far from it and the author throws in plenty of twists and turns and shows how Rosie has to navigate a path that is filled with bumps before she can find true contentment in her new life and acceptance that Fergus is no longer by her side.
I loved the setting of the marina and all its residents. I found it so vividly described that I could picture it so clearly in my head. There were lots of secondary characters introduced but they weren’t just there for the sake of it, they all had a role to play be it big or small and in fact I wanted to know more about them. I definitely feel there is room for another book with some of the characters that featured here which would allow for them to develop more of their backstory. Nicole runs the gift shop, Layla and Tom have the farm shop, Hal runs river trips and Angel has her cocktail barge. Luca has a gelato boat, Julie has a sandwich barge and Grant has his boat hire business.
Newcomer Kit, who has a book barge, and his sister Tabitha feature heavily and I suppose Rosie felt a kindred spirit with Kit as they were both new to the area. Tabitha gets Rosie out of a hole and agrees to work in the café with her and a friendship is formed. Kit is handsome, warm, intelligent and full of genuine charm and I thought he could very well be the one to draw Rosie out of herself. Will she be willing to open herself up to love for a second time? Will the barriers she has constructed remain steadfast or will Kit be the one to bend and break them? I truly hoped so because the way they were both written it was like they were destined for each other. I think the following quote sums up Rosie to perfection and goes along way to explaining why I thought she was quite a frustrating character at times ’Even during quite moments there was a strange undercurrent, a vague background hum of menace, some hidden and unspoken anxiety waiting to drag her down whenever she felt as if she might just find contentment’. I think this was why she was so reluctant to believe that the café could be a success and that she could go to find happiness after Fergus’s death. It’s only when certain things come to light and very surprising revelations unfold that I felt Rosie was justified in feeling this way and I knew why she was so reluctant to be positive and all embracing. The discovery really throws Rosie of track and her reaction was spur of the moment and I think as soon as she made the decision she was regretting it. But as a reader, I was like, yes, my suspicions about a certain character were right and I hope they are now shunned and get the cold shoulder from all the residents as they truly deserve it.
Once again, Rosie is forced to revaluate her life and here again I thought you are being far too hard on your self especially when the reader learns a few of the things that Rosie herself has being hiding. The opinions you had formed about characters change and it makes you step back and view the story in a different light. I loved the way her relationship with Fergus was explored in much more detail in the later half of the book and it allowed me to make sense of how she was dealing with Kit in the present. Ki, has faith in her and believes she can do anything, he has given her self-belief and helped her find her freedom. But will she let all these wonderful characteristics that she has found slip through her fingers? Has she made too rash of a decision upon finding out things she wished she had never heard? Will Rosie find happiness or will the shadows of the recent past play too heavily on her mind? To find out the answers and to discover a wonderful engaging story then I would have no hesitation in recommending this lovely read.
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