It's the summer of 1939, and after touring an unsettled Europe to promote her latest book, Romily Temple returns home to Island House and the love of her life, the charismatic Jack Devereux.
But when Jack falls ill, his estranged family are called home and given seven days to find a way to bury their resentments and come together.
With war now declared, each member of the family is reluctantly forced to accept their new stepmother and confront their own shortcomings. But can the habits of a lifetime be changed in one week? And can Romily, a woman who thrives on adventure, cope with the life that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon her?
My favouite thing about being a book reviewer is having
books sent to you by authors you haven’t come across before and even books that
you wouldn’t have necessarily picked up whilst browsing the bookshelves in our
local store and this is exactly how I discovered the talented author Erica
James when her generous publishers sent a copy of her book to me a year or so
ago and now I cannot get enough of her books and look forward to her new
release each year.
Her latest release is Coming Home to Island House and what a
wonderful read this book is. I was captured by not only the authors beautiful
storyline but the wide range of loveable and also loathable characters that
entertain us and touch our hearts right from the very first page.
Our central character is author Romily Temple. The storyline
opens with Romily returning home from her book tour to find her husband Jack
Devereux in a life-threatening state. In the days that follow Jack shares his
wishes with Romily that he has made mistakes with his estranged family and
wants to reunite them with her help.
The family all arrive to see Jack after receiving a message
from Romily but their arrival was too late, but always one for difficult
surprises Jacks will dictates that they all need to spend a week together in
order to receive their inheritance. With so much history and turmoil running
between the family members will they be able to fulfil his wishes especially
with the brink of war fast approaching.
The storyline is set around the time of World War II and I hold
my hands up and say I have never been one who loves books set heavily around
the war but with this storyline I found it insightful seeing how the war
effected the day to day lives and relationships of each of our characters.
Romily was such an admirable character, to have lost someone
she so desperately loved and to then be lumbered with his family was enough to
deal with but then to top it off and help with the adorable evacuee Stanley and
still have that sense of wanting to fulfil her duty and do her bit for her
country makes her a character impossible not to like.
There are such a vast amount of characters in this book and
they all have a detailed and important role in the book not just making brief
appearances here and there and yet at no point did I lose track of who was who
because they were so well developed. We even have the dreadful Arthur who was
such a vile excuse for a human and I really wanted him to get his just deserts!
There really is something for everyone in this book as it
follows friendships and relationships, grief and love, hope and desperation. I
felt so involved with the characters and with each bit of good or heart-breaking
news I felt I was sharing it with the characters and was on a rollercoaster of
emotions throughout.
This was a heart-warming, insightful and captivating read
with a wonderful group of admirable characters, definitely a book that I would
recommend.
This sounds like a great book. I love that time period in history. And the book has such a cute cover!
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