Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Sun, sand and secrets at the bay!
As a kid, Nina O'Brien spent all her summers at her grandparents' cabin by the beach at Stepping Stone Bay. Long, sunny days full of fun and laughter with her best friends, Leo, Adrian, and Maeve, her friendship with Leo slowly blossoming into love. Until one fateful night changed everything for them all...
Twelve years later, Nina must return to the bay to renovate the old cabin and pass it on to a new owner. But not only does Leo still live in the cabin next door, he works at his family's boathouse right there in the bay. As they begin to work through their differences and what happened all those years ago, can Nina really walk away from him twice?
Maeve has finally returned home to face the past. Her eleven-year-old son, Jonah, loves the sea, unlike Maeve who is terrified of it. But she knows she can't keep Jonah away from the sea or the truth forever..
Many thanks to Orion via NetGalley for my copy of The Boathouse at Stepping Stone Bay to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
It’s mentioned in the introductory pages that Helen Rolfe writes stories about family, friendship, secrets, community and characters that often face challenges and must fight to overcome them but there is always a happy ending. Those words sum up in a nutshell what her new book, The Boathouse at Stepping Stone Bay, is all about. It has the most gorgeous, inviting cover and I loved the title so that’s what made me want to give it a go. Given the nature of the cover, I expected this to be a lovely, light and easy read and to be honest I thought it would be the usual girls meets boy and there is a bit of back and forth before they give into their feelings. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth I found in the story as it deals with the continued fall out from a tragic incident in Stepping Stone Bay over 12 years ago. The majority of the group of friends who experienced said event have mostly scattered and moved away from the area. All except for Leo Magowan but now the group are slowly starting to trickle back for various reasons and perhaps the time is ideal for past ghosts, emotions and words to be put to rest? Is everyone willing to go along with this or has too much water flowed under the bridge?
Nina O’Brien has stayed away from Stepping Stone Bay and the nearby coastal town of Salthaven for more than a decade but now that her grandfather Walt is selling the family cabin that holds so many memories for Nina and her brother William, she has taken time away from her nursing job and is going to bring the cabin up to date so it can be sold. It’s a bittersweet time for her. It’s where she felt safe and secure and loved by her grandparents. Especially, when her parents were always away travelling for work and she felt abandoned and unloved. She carries these feelings with her right through to the present day believing that she is not good enough and the feelings of self worth and doubt have come back with her to the bay. Nina is anxious about coming back to the bay for there is someone she left behind. Someone who meant the world to her but she just upped and left leaving said person crushed and devastated and most of all angry and clueless as to the reasons for her sudden departure.
That person is Leo who resides in the cabin next to the O’Brien’s and close by is where he runs his boating business. The business and all that comes with it mean everything to Leo and he loves his life’s work but when he notices some activity around the O’Brien’s cabin he is cautious and the memories of the event that lead to Nina leaving and the mystery as to why she gave him no explanation haunt him. Nina had captivated him as a teenager and their friendship developed into something else. Something solid and real and what felt like it could be long lasting so to be left alone like that eats away at him. When he spots that Nina has returned let’s just say things don’t go that well and really you couldn’t blame him. There is an awful lot of emotions and hurt to process and the pair seem to tip toe around each other. Nina just wants to get the cabin renovated and get back to her job even though it’s so painful that Walt feels he needs to sell it. But at the same time she does understand that now he is on his own in his house having lost his wife Elsie not so long ago that he wants the money the sale of the cabin will bring to make sure he is comfortable in his home in whatever years he may have left.
Leo lives and breathes Stepping Stone Bay and he can’t imagine ever giving it up so that’s also another factor in the confusion and upset he feels surrounding Nina fleeing. But now that she is back it’s the prime opportunity for everything to come out into the open. I desperately hoped that Nina would pluck up the courage to try and at least make amends with Leo and provide him with a solid and reasonable explanation for her past actions. I totally understand the incident which I won’t go into detail about affected those present in so many ways but there had to have been something else that made her stay away for so long. I questioned whether if Walt hadn’t put the cabin up for sale would both Leo and Nina just gone about their lives as they had been without ever facing what still clung close to their hearts? It was evident they would make a great couple and I hoped they had the where with all to navigate the issues and stormy waters that had kept them apart for so long.
It’s not just Nina who has returned to the area, Maeve and her son Jonah have come back from Canada. She had emigrated with her parents many years ago and now that they have returned she feels the time is right to do so too. Maeve is similar to Nina, in that she is apprehensive about coming back. The incident still has not left her mind and she is super cautious when it comes to letting Jonah anywhere near the sea which really doesn’t help as he has struck up a friendship with Leo and helps him out at the boatshed after school. All this is unbeknownst to Maeve as she is busy working at the café at the end of the pier. Maeve is a single mum and has always tried her best when it comes to raising Jonah but I got the feeling her fears and insecurities were holding her son back. She was passing her own worries onto him instead of letting him live a little and experience life as a young boy in the town. You could see he loved spending time with Leo but in my mind Maeve over acted an awful lot. Well, that’s how it came across for a lot of the story until her reasons became clear and I understood her much more.
Leo’s brother, Adrian, has been married and divorced and similar to Maeve and Nina he has come back to the bay. But he is living in isolation and refuses to get back into life in the town where he grew up. Leo is really worried about him and both brothers have buried an awful lot of feelings which they need to work through. I felt that Adrian didn’t feature enough. That he seemed to be on the periphery of things either just mentioned by Leo which is how we got to know him or featuring more so towards the end. His aspect of the overall plot I thought was rushed. I did guess fairly early on as to a connection that becomes apparent and when it does I wanted more explanation and perhaps more of a fight from him instead of accepting things without question. Therefore, it made the ending quite rushed and I would have loved another chapter or two. Especially as I thought the rest of the story had been so carefully plotted and developed. But aside from that I thoroughly enjoyed every moment reading about a great set of characters trying to right the wrongs of the past and find some resolution and happiness in the present.
Characters from a previous book by the author, The Little Café at the End of the Pier, do make an appearance here and I was kicking myself as I have it for far too long on my tbr pile.It’s my own fault for leaving it so long to read that through reading this a lot of the plot of that book was given away here. So in fact, I think I’ll wait even longer to read it so the characters and events of that book aren’t so fresh in my mind. But for long time fans of Helen Rolfe the apperance of said characters will be a welcome pleasure. For me, I enjoyed reading of Nina, Leo and co and their story was covered in a respectful and sensitive way providing me with the depth I hadn’t expected but which I found to be handled well. This story gave its readers something a little bit different from the lighter end of the women’s fiction genre and I appreciated it all the more for it. It’s a heart warming, engaging and interesting story and I would definitely recommend it.
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