Contemporary fiction is one
of those genres that gets you through a long and sad day and gives you the pick
me up that you so desperately need. When a copy of The Second Love of My Life by Victoria
Walters fell through my letterbox, courtesy of the lovely team at Headline books, I was having one of
those days. However, other commitments stopped me from launching myself straight
into the book and I found myself sticking it on the top of my ever growing
to-read pile. I picked it back up last week and delved right into it. I fell in
love with Victoria Walters there and then and cannot wait to read The Summer I Met You, a book which
tells the story of the other Talting couple, Emma and John.
This particular tale tells
the story of Rose, a young and recently widowed artist. Her husband, Lucas,
unfortunately loses his life in a drunk-driving accident for which he holds no
responsibility and Rose is struggling to cope with the repercussions of his
death. Her art ultimately suffers and she finds it difficult to find her muse. There
is nothing she, nor her friends Emma and John, can do about her despair. When a
young lawyer, Robert, comes to Cornwall to specifically buy from her art
portfolio and then decides to remain in Talting for the entire summer, it seems
that things may well be changing for Rose and the possibility of love is on the
horizon.
I absolutely ADORED this
book. I’m a sucker for a good romance novel and everything about this was
beautifully done. Walters handled both grief and new romance flawlessly. I particularly
loved the line “grief makes you both restless and listless” as I thought that
was a pretty good way of describing the emotions and the feelings upon losing
someone you love. I found that I loved every single character and how the
people of the small town of Talting came together to help Rose (and eventually
Emma) through her grief. I absolutely loved Robert, in spite of his flaws, and
I loved the way in which he was introduced to the story. I feel like I’m going
to be endlessly listing off the things I loved about this book, so I’m going to
cut it short here and just saw: buy it.
If you love short, sweet and
thoughtful tales of love then this one will be perfect for you. It combines all
of those factors, isn’t unbearable in the slightest and doesn’t come off as
being sickly-sweet or unnatural. I think this is a pretty impressive feat
considering how it could have panned out. I’ll definitely be buying a copy of
Victoria’s other book when it’s released in paperback- I can’t wait to see where the story is going
to go!
Thank you very much to Headline for sending me a copy of this
book in exchange for an honest review!
5/5
