A Summer of Secrets by Alice Ross: Book Review (Blog Tour)

 

I am so happy to be today’s host for A Summer of Secrets blog tour. I enjoyed reading this story and would like to thank Jenny from Nevrland Blog Tours for giving me this opportunity.

A perfect, feel-good summer read about love, life and family.
One long hot summer. Secrets never stay buried for long…

Portia is determined to restore Buttersley Manor, her family’s crumbling ancestral home, to its former glory. Yet she has a feeling that there are a few forgotten skeletons in the dust-covered cupboards.

Jenny has put her life on hold for far too long. It’s time to finally start living and to dig up those hopes and dreams she’s kept hidden all these years – but is she brave enough?

Rich is happily married with a beautiful wife and lovely daughter. In fact, his world is perfect until a very unexpected consequence of his past walks through the door…

Joe would like nothing more than to travel back in time to when he and Gina were happy. But is it too late to rescue what they once had?

One thing’s for sure, nothing’s ever quite what it seems when it comes to life in the country!

Goodreads * Amazon

Review:

Four characters, four stories, one village, one short book. That all equals one enjoyable summer read.
And as a cherry on top, it has a cute cover with bright colors that makes you feel good just when you look at it.

A Summer of Secrets follows four different characters: Portia, Jenny, Rich and Joe who’s lives intertwine as they live in the same place, a little village called Buttersley.

From all the stories in the book, I think Joe’s one was the most interesting one. However, not one of them grabbed my attention from the very start and after I finished the whole book, I can’t say I was touched by either of them.

However, I think this is still a very good read and would likely recommend it for days when you want to read something light that will bright up your day and make you forget the world around you.

The writing style was simple and easily readable. It does not have any memorable quotes just like the whole book does not have any memorable situations, but when you take everything in and out, the final product is still very good.

This is second book in the series but can easily be read as standalone.
In fact, you don’t have to read the first book in order to read this one because it follows totally different cast.

It is written in third person.

Now, after everythig I wrote so far, you probably think I wasn’t emotionally engaged when it comes to this novel, but that is not true.
In fact, at some scenes  I even wanted to transform myself into Buttersley and shake some characters, and the lawyer in me wanted to give Joe and Rich some legal advices.
I felt sorry over Jenny and it kind of broke my heart to see how she gave up her life in order to make her mother happy and how she couldn’t find the strenght in herself to rebel.

All in all, I am pretty satisfied with this book. Yes, it does have some flaws that could easily be solved with editing, and yes, it will probably vanish from my mind few months from now, but it still kept me entertained and made me feel better.

The end was okay, but I think Rich’s and Joe’s stories could have been more developed.

If there will be the next book in the series I believe it will follow some other characters which is good but ashame at the same time, because I feel like Rich, Joe, Jenny and Portia have more stories to tell and it would be interesting to read where their lives would bring them.

About the author:

Alice Ross used to work in the financial services industry where she wrote riveting, enthralling brochures about pensions and ISAs that everyone read avidly and no one ever put straight into the bin.

One day, when nobody was looking, she managed to escape. Dragging her personal chef (aka her husband) along with her, she headed to Spain, where she began writing witty, sexy, romps designed to amuse slightly more than pension brochures.

Missing Blighty (including the weather – but don’t tell anyone), she returned five years later and now works part-time in the tourism industry.

When not writing, she can be found scratching out a tune on her violin, walking her dog in wellies two sizes too big (don’t ask!), or standing on her head in a yoga pose.

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