Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Thirty-year-old Jessie is heartbroken after being dumped just before reaching the altar. So she escapes to her favourite place in the world, the little Cornish Beach café in Indigo Cove. There she plans to spend her summer indulging in home-made lemonade and freshly made brownies. Except, on her first night, fate has other ideas and Jessie bumps into tall and brooding Ashton, the first guy she ever kissed…
Determined to protect her fragile emotions, Jessie swears not to get distracted by Ashton’s sea-glass eyes or the way being near him makes her heart hammer against her chest. Instead, she spends time with her beloved grandfather George, helping him to prepare for the café’s puzzle championships.
In the small community, she keeps crossing paths with handsome Ashton, who’s now a wealthy and successful businessman. They end up sharing sunny afternoons together, which turn into long evenings walking along the beach. As the temperature soars between them, Jessie’s heart begins to melt as she discovers the generous personality behind Ashton’s reserved exterior.
But when she discovers a secret from Ashton’s past, Jessie is left shaken. How much does she really know about him, and can she take a leap of faith and trust Ashton when he asks her to?
Will Jessie’s summer at the beach café in Indigo Cove be the biggest mistake of her life or will it turn out to be the fresh start she needs?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of Summer at the Cornish Beach Café to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Donna Ashcroft provides her readers with a welcome return to Indigo Cove in her latest book, Summer at the Cornish Beach Café. You needn’t worry if you haven’t read the previous book, The Little Cornish House, set in this picturesque village as different characters feature with a brand-new storyline so it’s easily read as a standalone book. Once again, Bookouture have created the most fabulous cover with such beautiful, bright and vivid colours that instantly have you wishing that Indigo Cove was real and that you could jump between the covers and pay it a visit.
This time around, the focus of the story is on Jessie and her grandfather George who are planning on spending four weeks in the village recreating all the photos from George’s wedding album which was lost in a recent house move. This should have been George and Dorothy’s wedding anniversary but George has been on his own for some time. Now Jessie hopes to bring some happiness to her grandfather who means so much to her but having been to Indigo Cove on holidays previously she is slightly hesitant at returning considering the last time she was there she suffered a humiliating episode with a gorgeous boy one night on the beach. The pair set out on a mission but little do they realise that it will bring them on a journey that will heal wounds and enable them to make some loyal friends and with plenty of adventure, friendship and romance along the way.
From the outset, I found Jessie to be very insecure in herself and it all stemmed from her stepmother Maria. She never had anything good to say about her and Jessie was made to feel ugly and worthless. She feels life has given her a battering and even more so as when she arrives in Indigo Cove she really should have been preparing to marry her fiancée Brendon. She had always hoped that she would find that special someone who would adore her and make her feel loved and valued. Believing she had found that with Brendon she was heartbroken to discover that he was a cheater. She is hurt and embarrassed over what has happened and sees herself as a misfit but maybe Indigo Cove and the people she meets there especially the gorgeous Ashton ( with whom she soon discovers she has unfinished business) will help her get her life back on track. When she encounters Ashton who now resides at Look Out House, a converted hotel that George stayed in on his honeymoon, well old memories and wounds are stirred as he was the one who caused her such heartache all those years ago on that fateful holiday.
The setting of Indigo Cove was once again brilliant and helped the story come to life. Not to mention the varied cast of characters that appear. Jessie and George visit the Beach Café run by Ella whom they rent Sea Glass Cottage from and here they meet the jigsaw queen Elsie and her cockerel Peaches. Trust me, it may sound daft having a cockerel as a pet but it really works throughout the story and provides plenty of laugh out loud moments. Elise was just a pure tonic throughout the book and I adored her as a character. She was witty and wise and as her connection to Ashton became apparent and all that she has done for him is revealed, you can see that she is like the matriarch of the book. Someone whom the characters can always turn for support and solid advice. She loves doing puzzles and as I am a jigsaw puzzle addict myself I loved how she set up the club and how the story of the jigsaws wove its way so wonderfully into the themes and plot of the book. It will bring a smile to your face. It was like Elsie put the situation that unfolds in terms of both a personal and romantic sense regarding Ashton and Jessie into little real life jigsaw pieces and through her actions, thoughts, words and deeds she wanted every piece to slot together correctly and to perfection.
Jessie needs to work out what she wants to do with her life and how she can find that elusive happiness that has evaded her for so long. She really got off on the wrong foot with Ashton when she first encountered him again and you couldn’t blame her as those feelings of hurt, anger and humiliation that occurred all those years ago have been festering deep inside her. She deserved to have someone who made her feel like she mattered and like she could do anything she wanted. That special someone had to build her up after Maria tearing her down for years shattering her self-confidence and faith in herself. I could sense from the beginning that Jessie needed to seek a resolution with Ashton or she could never move on in her life. Would it make her feel better and help to fix what has been broken inside of her? The incident on that holiday has left indomitable marks on her. Rejection hurts big time but I felt she had left things go on to long and I fervently hoped that this trip would help heal old wounds as well as helping her grandfather with his own personal journey.
Ashton has had good success in his work life as a cyber security consultant but as for his personal life the same can’t be said. He seemed to have cut himself off from the world when it comes to love and romance. He does have a good heart and is smart and funny but there is an air of sadness about him. He holds himself back in situations that would require exposing his feelings and even though he broke Jessie’s heart you can see that a spark exists between the pair even after all the years since they last set eyes on each other. The softer side to Ashton comes to the fore when it’s revealed what he has done for Elsie and how the pair came to know each other in the first place. It’s heart-warming and will bring a tear to your eye for you think they should never have had to meet one another under those circumstances.
As the layers behind Ashton are peeled back, we gain a deeper insight into his history and we discover why he decided at a very young age not to seek certain things in his life. He promised himself that he would never unlock his heart and when the reasons for this stance were revealed on the one hand I did understand where he was coming from. But then on the other I thought he was just being way too harsh on himself and creating unnecessary stress both for himself and the people his actions affected. He came across as a tortured soul who shared many similarities with Jessie and as the weeks pass and they share their insecurities and the emotional distance between them starts to narrow, the reader has their fingers crossed in the hopes that they can works things out as they were just the perfect for one another.
Summer at the Cornish Beach Café features an eclectic mix of characters but they all work together very well. It’s a heart-warming story that makes you feel good inside and it’s the perfect summer read. I loved how one or two familiar characters made a little appearance every now and again. But what I loved most of all was the sense of community that oozed from the pages the further the story progressed. There are lots of important messages and life lessons to be taken from the story and the most important of all is teaching everyone how to restart their lives and ultimately to find their perfect fit. I have my fingers crossed that Donna Ashcroft will bring us another book set in Indigo Cove as I really did enjoy this one so very much.
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