Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat

Neniu kovrilo — Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat (2018, Choc Lit Limited)

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 9-a de februaro 2018 de Choc Lit Limited.

ISBN:: 978-1-78189-385-2

(1 recenzo)

What if you had nowhere to call home for Christmas? When Fee Winter books a winter break at the remote Black Cherry Retreat in the small town of Pine Ridge, Tennessee, it’s with the idea that the peace and quiet will help her recuperate from her hectic life as a photographer.

But what she didn’t bank on was meeting Tom Chambers and his huge, interfering yet lovable family. With them, could Fee finally experience the warmth and support that’s been missing from her own life – and maybe even find a place to call home in time for Christmas?

1 eldono

Stephanie Jane recenzis Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat de Angela Britnell

A heartwarming story

3 steloj

I don't read much romance fiction so Christmas At Black Cherry Retreat is quite a step from my literary comfort zone. However I wanted a seasonal novel or two to help with getting myself into the Christmas spirit and the cover art on this one is just perfect! The story itself takes place over the months from just before Halloween until just after Christmas so, being set almost entirely in America, this covers the Thanksgiving holiday too. Christmas does just manage sneak a look in at the end.

I liked the leading characters who meet at Black Cherry Retreat. Fee is an English war photographer who is in quite a bad place mentally and physically as a result of her lover's violent death in Afghanistan. Tom is Black Cherry Retreat's owner and also torn up over a previous relationship as he blames himself for his wife's murder. It sounds like …

I don't read much romance fiction so Christmas At Black Cherry Retreat is quite a step from my literary comfort zone. However I wanted a seasonal novel or two to help with getting myself into the Christmas spirit and the cover art on this one is just perfect! The story itself takes place over the months from just before Halloween until just after Christmas so, being set almost entirely in America, this covers the Thanksgiving holiday too. Christmas does just manage sneak a look in at the end.

I liked the leading characters who meet at Black Cherry Retreat. Fee is an English war photographer who is in quite a bad place mentally and physically as a result of her lover's violent death in Afghanistan. Tom is Black Cherry Retreat's owner and also torn up over a previous relationship as he blames himself for his wife's murder. It sounds like a pretty dark start, but isn't so bleak! Fee and Tom are complete opposites in upbringing, life experience and expectations so this is a classic opposites attract romance story. Britnell has created thoroughly believable characters and I enjoyed reading about their initial attraction, burgeoning friendship and beyond. I just wish everything hadn't been compressed into such an unrealistically short timescale. Britnell deftly portrays Fee as this intensely independent and emotionally damaged woman, then expects readers to believe that instalove will allow her to simply shrug off decades of emotional neglect.

The story includes a number of odd dead ends too. We are introduced to characters who then vanish without any further mention and events that should be emotionally huge pass by in just a couple of pages seemingly leaving no lasting impact. Plus a subplot about Tom's wife's murderer fizzled out leaving me wondering why so much effort had been made to set it up. Overall I felt needed a more plausible storyline in order for Christmas At Black Cherry Retreat to totally convince me. If you can suspend disbelief, it's a heartwarming tale of the redemptive power of love, family and food (lots of food!), but for me there wasn't enough realism to keep me invested.