The Cornish Escape
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The Blurb:
Get swept away along the beautiful Cornish coast, where a love story in a long forgotten diary has the power to change one woman’s life forever. Victoria Langley’s world crumbles when her husband leaves, but she knows exactly where to go to mend her broken heart. The rugged shores of Cornwall will be her perfect sanctuary. In the quaint, little village of Tregollan, nestled in the sea cliffs, Victoria is drawn to Seafall Cottage, covered in vines and gracefully falling apart. Inside she finds a diary full of secrets, from 1905. Victoria is determined to unravel the diary’s mystery, but the residents of Tregollan are tight-lipped about Tilly Asprey, the cottage’s last owner. Just as she reaches a dead end, Victoria meets Adam Waters, the lawyer handling the cottage’s sale. He’s handsome, charming, and has a missing piece of the puzzle. Tilly’s diary tells a devastating love story that mirrors Victoria’s own. Can Victoria learn from Tilly’s mistakes, and give herself a second chance at love? Or is history doomed to repeat itself? An unputdownable and gorgeously romantic read about lost love and new beginnings set in the green hills and rocky cliffs of the breath-taking Cornish coast. Perfect for fans of Phillipa Ashley, Emma Burstall and Liz Fenwick.
My Thoughts:
I have to confess to being a Lily Graham newbie. So in the run up to the summer and the beautiful weather we're having, what better book could i have chosen to pop my Lily Graham cherry.
The Cornish Escape. Already the title and the beautifully designed cover have me thinking of quaint little villages and clear blue seas. Thanks to the stunning descriptive prowess of Lily Graham, this is exactly what i got.
The story is in essence, two in one, set over a hundred years apart. We have the current story of Victoria. An extremely successful lady in her own right, who runs to the first place she can think of when her marriage breaks down, Cornwall. Victoria needs to decide what she has to do next. How best to carry on and move forward with her life.
Before she knows it, she finds herself the owner of Seafall Cottage, locally known in the village of Tregollen as the cursed cottage. It's a crumbling, dilapidated old place, abandoned for decades, hidden in the cliffs, but something speaks to Victoria and she knows she must have it. Seafall should be hers to renovate and restore.
With the cottage she finds a diary, written in code and wrapped in a beautiful sea green ribbon embroidered with the name Tilly. Victoria makes it her mission to decipher the diary and find out about the mysterious Tilly and what secrets from her life in the early 1900's it holds.
This is where the second story takes hold. We learn about Tilly & Fen. A tale of friendship and love that crosses boundaries and the resulting consequences of this.
I adored everything about this book. From the stunning imagery of the cornish coast to Victorias houseboat and her neighbours. I particularly liked Angie and her floating bookshop, with a filing system that sent my O.C.D into overdrive. Whilst reading this i kept wishing and dearly hoping that there is actually an Angie out there somewhere.
Lily Graham has a wonderful writing style, with a gift for putting down words that give her characters a life and depth all of their own and adds an array of colours to all aspects of the story. Her flowing style cleverly intertwines both Victoria and Tillys stories so they come together and connect the two women more than a century apart in a truly emotive way.
A perfect start to my summer reading and i'll definitely be looking at this authors previous works.
About the author:
Lily has been telling stories since she was a child, starting with her imaginary rabbit, Stephanus, and their adventures in the enchanted peach tree in her garden, which she envisioned as a magical portal to Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree. She’s never really got out of the habit of making things up, and still thinks of Stephanus rather fondly.
She lives with her husband and her English bulldog, Fudge, and brings her love for the sea and country-living to her fiction.
