Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Ottilie Oakcroft can’t imagine living anywhere but the village of Thimblebury. Since moving there after her husband’s death, the villagers have welcomed her with open arms, and it’s been a long time since she’s felt this happy. Another reason for the sparkle in her eyes is her blossoming romance with Heath, who showed her that second chances at love can happen.
But when a chance meeting with Heath’s glamorous ex-wife Mila sparks a terrible argument between the pair, and with Ottilie’s patients keeping her too busy to repair the cracks in their relationship, things begin to feel a little shaky. Especially when Simon, a handsome new GP with dark eyes and broad shoulders, arrives in Thimblebury, and Heath shows a jealous side that Ottilie has never seen before…
Ottilie knows how lucky she is to have found Heath but when she discovers that Mila has been secretly visiting Thimblebury she fears the worst. Heath tries to reassure her but why did he keep Mila’s visits a secret? Did Ottilie make a mistake when she opened her fragile heart or is she letting the hurt from her past stand in the way of their future?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of New Dreams for the Village Nurse to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
New Dreams for the Village Nurse is the second in The Village Nurse series from Tilly Tennant. This can be read as a standalone book but the previous story was so good you’ll want to go back and make sure you read it as well. This new story picks up a year after the last book and Ottillie Oakcroft has settled in very well to the quaint and picturesque village of Thimblebury in the Lake District. Without giving too much away when Ottillie first came to the village she was full of sadness and was contemplating how could she overcome this but now thanks to the events of book one she is happy and content in her new life.
The village and its residents have given her new purpose and she adores her job as the village nurse working in Fliss’s practice. ’She was like the newest member of a vast, ungainly, slightly dysfunctional but ultimately wonderful family’. Her personal life is going progressing nicely with Heath although he hasn’t uttered the words - I love you - yet so that is a concern for her but still she is happy with the way things are meandering along and hopes that those words will come soon. As soon as I started this book, I felt like I as back on familiar territory as it as only back in March that A Helping Hand for the Village Nurse was published so the characters and their various storylines were very much fresh in my mind.
Ottilie is a fabulous character who has been through so much and is slowly starting to come out the other side. Yet, the echoes of the past still rear their ugly heads and until there is some form of concrete closure she won’t truly be able to move on. There was one particular subplot in relation to this throughout the book that I felt was done very well. When it was revealed it explained an awful lot as to why Heath had been acting the way he was for the majority of the story. It could have come across as just being too coincidental but it worked well and it was brilliant to see Ottilie showing some backbone and standing up for herself when push came to shove.
I think we can all find a bit of Ottilie within ourselves in that she is always doing things for others, always on the go and placating people. She puts her own needs on the backburner pretending her needs were less important than others. This makes her a people pleaser. Someone who is safe and reliable. Don’t get me wrong she is brilliant at her job as village nurse. She loves caring for others believing it’s a job that she has been called to do but at some point I questioned as much as this was in her nature surely she needed to step back a little bit and take time for herself and explore her relationship with Heath more. ‘She felt she owed Thimblebury so much that it was only right and fair she did what she could to make it a better place, to make others as being part of the village had made her’. Yes, she may have owed the village and her new found friends so much but that shouldn’t have meant that she shouldn’t have taken time for herself and her relationship with Heath.
I felt in some ways that Heath was absent for a lot of the book. Only making brief appearances every now and then. I wanted more scenes with himself and Ottilie. I know he lived in Manchester but I thought their relationship needed moving on a bit but it all made sense when some unusual things started to happen and again I refer back to past events making themselves known once again. The further the story developed you could see doubts creeping in for Ottilie. There was no way she was going to leave the village that had come to mean so much to her and which had done so much for her healing process. I didn’t blame her sometimes you just have to stand your ground because you knowing staying in that one place is the best thing for you. ’She’d felt as if this small insignificant village in the great lakes of England was lodged in her soul and would be until she died’. Ottilie wonders whether her relationship with Heath is as strong as it could be? Here is where I felt this aspect of the plot needed more development. Ottilie thought a lot about things regarding her relationship with Heath but she never actually came out and really talked to him and when a new character appears this only increases the level of doubt and anguish that she is experiencing. As much as I love her as a character I really wanted to give her a good shake and say go talk to Heath. Find out what’s going on and instead of getting caught up in your head with intrusive thoughts that mightn’t have been true at all.
It was lovely to see previous characters make a reappearance. I love Fliss and her husband Charles and the unusual set up that they have. With Charles falling ill and needing Fliss at home this opened the door for a new doctor to arrive in the village. Simon had a history which slowly revealed itself and it was heart-breaking but he was a character that I wanted to stick around rather than just be a temporary doctor at the practice. I felt there was suggestions of a way his storyline could go that would mean things would be very tough for Ottilie and I was so relieved when this didn’t happen as it wouldn’t have sat right with the overall tone of the book. Simon slotted in well to the overall plot and in turn allowed for Ottilie’s friend Stacey to feature a bit more. Likewise Ann and her son Daryl at Hilltop Farm feature once again and it’s lovely to have these characters present as they offer reassurance and stability in Ottilie’s life when things are going slightly awry.
New Dreams for the Village Nurse was a lovely, gentle, relaxing read. It didn’t have the same impact for me as the first book did although I wouldn’t have missed out on reading this as I love Ottilie and the village of Thimblebury. The drama came just that little bit too late in the last quarter or so of the book and if it had occurred a earlier I felt that extra spark would have been present. The relations between Ottilie and Heath were frustrating here so it made me focus on Simon and others more which I suppose isn’t a bad thing. Overall, it was an enjoyable enough read, perhaps not as engrossing for me as the first but still I will always pay a return visit to Ottilie and co. I hope there may be a Christmas Thimblebury book on the horizon. Fingers crossed.
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