Reviewed by Emma Crowley
With her back to the sparkling sea, single mum Nessa stands in the doorway of the stone cottage her grandmother left behind. If she can just fix up the crumbling walls and make the empty hearth cosy again, it will be the perfect home for her little daughter Lily – and their only option if they want to stay in the village of Heaven’s Cove. But a rap on the door soon shatters her plans…
Although Gabriel Gantwich has a smile on his handsome face, the papers he’s clutching say his father’s company owns the house. They plan to knock it down, destroying Nessa’s last link to her family history – and Lily’s last hope for a home in Heaven’s Cove.
Reeling, Nessa is furious that an outsider could take away her child’s future. She has just thirty days to renovate the cottage – and prove it’s hers. As she and Gabriel clash over every detail, Nessa barely notices that even though they argue, their talks are fuelled by the same passion. And beneath his tough exterior, Gabriel appreciates the beauty of the sunset bathing the clifftop cottage in soft pink light as much as she does…
But one stormy night, Nessa gets a desperate phone call about Lily. Forced to choose between her family’s past and her daughter’s future, will she end up losing everything? Or will Gabriel finally realise what truly matters, and help Nessa make this beautiful place a home?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Key to the Last House Before the Sea to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Key to the Last House Before the Sea is the fourth book in the Heaven’s Cove series by Liz Eeles. All the books can easily be read as standalone stories but as the series is so enjoyable you’ll really want to go back and read the previous books. Liz has that ability to make you feel at home in whatever setting she writes about and I am still desperately wishing that Heaven’s Cove was real. It’s a tight knit community where people find solace and comfort and where problems can be shared and worked through. The book opens with a brief but dramatic prologue set in 1946 as a violent storms approaches Sorrel Cove. Several people and houses are lost and the people that remain are deeply affected by what they witnessed and the after effects are felt for many years right up to the present day. Before long Sorrel Cove becomes a ghost town but in the present day this little village has not been forgotten and it may just be the saving grace for our main character Nessa.
Nessa is a single mum to her daughter Lily and right from the first time we meet her the reader can sense she has been through a lot and that the difficult times are still ongoing for her. So much went against her throughout the story and she is very down on herself at times but yet there is a resilience about her and a steely determination that once she sets her mind to something she will see it through to the bitter end no matter if the outcome could potentially not go her way. I loved that Nessa always had Lily and their future at the centre of everything she did. To me it seemed that that choices for what Nessa could do were very limited and if only her ex Jake could get his act together and start paying regular maintenance than Nessa wouldn’t be in such a tricky position. But that seemed unlikely as he barely acknowledged that Lily even existed. But fair play to Nessa she knew she needed to strike out on her own and take matters into her own hands and not rely on a man who was useless and shied away from his responsibilities. Nessa is a character who deserves nothing but admiration and respect and I found myself rooting for her from the get go.
As Nessa scatters her grandmother Rose’s ashes in the abandoned village which changed the fate of Nessa’s family forever she knows this is a turning point for her. She has no place to call home as the landlord is selling the house in which she lived with Ruth and now she has also lost her job as the shop she worked in is now closed and being sold. Nessa is at a very low point and has lost her way. Worry is not a strong enough word to convey the emotions that she is feeling and I felt desperately sorry for her. This wasn’t the way her life was supposed to go. She was meant to have a fulfilling career, a comfortable home and a loving partner and she has none of that. But Lily is her driving force and she won’t give up until she finds some sort of solution to their living crisis. Rosie who runs Driftwood House provides a temporary refuge for Nessa and Lily and it was brilliant to see her feature again as I loved her story which was told in Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea. It’s here that Nessa meets one of the guests Gabriel and this is where the story really took off for me.
Gabriel is a businessman who comes across as uncaring, arrogant and he acts like he can do whatever he wants in particular walk all over people’s emotions. When Nessa hears of his company’s plans to build over the abandoned village she is distraught. It’s her last remaining link to her grandmother and in the absence of a loving supportive family she feels scared and alone and hasn’t anyone real close that she can turn to for advice and ideas. When a box with papers is discovered in Rosie’s old house Nessa fortunes begin to change but in order to reach that end point there is a long journey to go and to me it seemed an insurmountable task. She has to stay in the cottage for thirty days and nights and then it will stay in the family. But the cottage is in an awful state and inhabitable. How can she do this with the odds very much stacked against her? But Nessa needs a home for herself and Lily and her passion and love shine through even if Gabriel and in particular his father are determined that the remains of the village will be knocked to the ground and a new housing development built in its place.
It was obvious that Gabriel and Nessa had that little spark or connection but for the most part they rubbed each other up the wrong way and had false impressions of each other and really you couldn’t blame Nessa for this given that he potentially was going to shatter the last thread she was clinging to in order to get some sort of security for herself and Lily. But really Gabriel, was such an enigma. He had that stern, corporate side to him in that he had to stay rigidly to deadlines and it was almost as if he was afraid of his father and not seeing business opportunities through to their conclusion. But on the other hand, the longer he remained in Heaven’s Cove the more he loosened up and started to see life in a different way. The gentler more creative side of him started to emerge and I really thought that if the businessman bravado could disappear that with the help of Nessa he could really change and become the man he secretly wanted to be. But with so much going against both Nessa and himself with their own personal circumstances I questioned whether a positive outcome for anyone could be reached at all? And as for Nessa’s interfering mother-in-law Valerie well she was someone who I detested for the majority of the book and then when you dig a little deeper I did feel some sympathy for her,
Whether Nessa completes her challenge and finds the security and happy ending she so desperately craves and deserves well you’ll have to read this wonderful book for yourself to discover the answer. I loved how the conclusion was a little bit different from what I had expected given the way certain things were developing during the course of the book. It felt real and believable and it threw an interesting slant on things. There is heartbreak in the story but also moments of hope, courage and strength throughout too that keep you rapidly turning the pages. I really hope this won’t be the last in the series as Heaven’s Cove and all the characters I have met there really have captured a piece of my heart and I want to continue to hear their stories and learn more about them.
No comments:
Post a Comment