Reviewed by Emma Crowley
When Lottie Fox escapes to the heather-strewn hills of Loch Cameron, she is still heart-sore after the man she thought she’d spend her life with upped and left. Visiting the elderly residents of the village care home to ask for their help tracing local history is the perfect distraction. And soon Lottie is drawn to the outspoken, twinkly-eyed Gretchen.
Senior in years but still young at heart, Gretchen’s outrageous stories bring Lottie out of her shell. And meeting Fred Mackenzie in the village bookstore, with his kind eyes and floppy hair, Lottie starts to think about the future again. She even brings Fred to meet her new friend, Gretchen, and is totally charmed by his care for the elderly lady.
But there’s one story Gretchen has never shared. When Lottie confides in her about how lonely she once was, she realises that Gretchen is desperate to share her own heartbreaking tale of a great love, and a devastating betrayal.
Then Gretchen is rushed to hospital. The last thing she whispers to grief-stricken Lottie is how she must take the blue leather-bound photo album tucked away on her bookshelf. The secrets Lottie and Fred find inside could upend everything Lottie thought she knew about Gretchen, and shatter the community Lottie has come to know and love in the village…
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of Lost Memories of the Cottage by the Loch to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Lost Memories at the Cottage by the Loch is the seventh instalment in Kennedy Kerr’s Loch Cameron series. All the books can easily be read as stand-alone stories as it’s the location of Loch Cameron that ties things together rather than the reader having to follow one continual story. Each books focuses on a different young woman and this time around it is Lottie. She is a young woman who tried to be the perfect girlfriend to her partner Tristan but he has thrown it all back in her face and announced that he has chosen someone else over her. Yes, they may have had an open relationship even though Lottie never wanted one but she had hoped that theirs would become a serious relationship with long term potential. Lottie slowly reveals that she had never been her true self with Tristan because she hadn’t wanted to scare him off which instantly had me thinking why should a woman have to change their personality and viewpoints in order to keep a man in their life? She was clearly far better off without him although she doesn’t initially feel like that which of course is natural if you have invested time and effort in a relationship and then all of a sudden that is gone from your life.
Lottie now needs a focus in her life and she channels this into research into her M.A in Sociology where she will record people’s life stories as part of her intergenerational studies. She travels to Loch Cameron where she rents a house with Celine and Fred. She will spend her time interviewing residents in the Apple Orchard Care Home. Little does she bargain on the journey that she will undertake in which the process will allow her to heal and find herself again along with discovering some surprising things. The book as a whole had a lovely relaxed feeling and pace to it and at times I felt that this would be the last in the series given the character of Gretchen that came to have a strong focus throughout the book and also the fact at several points it linked back to previous stories. But I have since discovered that there will be a book eight which I am glad about as I wasn’t ready to leave the setting behind quite just yet.
Lottie starts to interview Gretchen who is 86 and resides in the care home. Gretchen has featured in several of the previous books and she has been like the mother figure to the women that find themselves in Loch Cameron for one reason or another. I was delighted that Gretchen was now finally getting the opportunity to share her story especially after she had helped so many others now perhaps the favour could be returned to her. Gretchen is haunted by the secrets of her past that she has kept close to her chest and although she is willing to share her story with Lottie she is not fully convinced that she will reveal everything. A bond of trust needs to be developed between the pair. Observing, as the story progresses, the relationship that develops between the pair was a pleasure to read about and it all felt so natural. Gretchen starts to recollect her story and this is done through conversations with Lottie but also diary entries and this format worked very well. The reader gets to know a very different Gretchen to the one who is now at a different juncture in her life.
I had always thought from previous books that Gretchen was so wise and worldly and a great confident and advice giver and this is only highlighted as she reveals the struggles she has been through. Highlighting the role of women in the workplace during the 60’s and 70’s was brilliant and the sexism, racism, and inequality that she had to go through was expertly woven throughout the story. A wide and varied picture of her work and home life was established and I felt the reader really got beneath Gretchen’s exterior to deep down within her. She proved to be an inspirational woman, a tour de force and someone who is forthright and confident and who knows her own mind and one who tried to live life on her own terms despite the odds initially stacked against her. But she learned and achieved all these qualities through several hardships which I won’t detail as these link the present and the past and if I said anything it would give away much of the story. I’ll admit things did click with me around the midway point of the book as to what was going on and how things would turn out in the end but they didn’t detract in any way from my overall enjoyment of the story.
Gretchen through the telling of her story tries tries to help Lottie find some perspective in her own life. Gretchen was never pushy at all but she does give sound advice. She tells Lottie never let them tell you that you can’t do exactly what you want to do. All you’ve got to do is want it enough and work hard. I think we could all take those words on board and put them to good use in our own lives. I loved seeing how Lottie was slowly piecing clues together whilst at the same time becoming comfortable in her surroundings in Loch Cameron. I did think she was just on the brink of rushing headlong into a new relationship and I could see the red flags coming from a mile away and I fervently hoped that Lottie would see which was the right path to take in order to secure the happiness she so desperately craved in her life.
Lost Memories at the Cottage by the Loch was a beautiful homage to Gretchen and she got the time she so richly deserved to share her story. Lottie took slightly a back seat at times and I appreciated this because I wanted Gretchen to have the opportunity to truly shine. This was a fabulous and enjoyable read which highlighted a lot of important issues and once again Kennedy Kerr shows how women’s place in history shall never be forgotten. Inheriting the Cottage by the Loch will be published in June and I am already looking forward to returning to this special little village to meet old and new characters.
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