📖 Blog Tour ~ Coming Home to Brightwater Bay by Holly Hepburn

 

Delighted to be part of the blog tour today

📖

Simon&Schuster
21 January 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of the book
and to Random Things Tours for the invitation to be part of the blog tour today

On paper, Merina Wilde has it all: a successful career writing the kind of romantic novels that make even the hardest hearts swoon, a perfect carousel of book launches and parties to keep her social life buzzing, and a childhood sweetheart who thinks she’s a goddess. But Merry has a secret: the magic has stopped flowing from her fingers. Try as she might, she can’t summon up the sparkle that makes her stories shine. And as her deadline whooshes by, her personal life falls apart too. Alex tells her he wants something other than the future she’d always imagined for them and Merry finds herself single for the first time since – well, ever.

Desperate to get her life back on track, Merry leaves London and escapes to the windswept Orkney Islands, locking herself away in a secluded clifftop cottage to try to heal her heart and rediscover her passion for writing. But can the beauty of the islands and the kindness of strangers help Merry to fool herself into believing in love again, if only long enough to finish her book? Or is it time for her to give up the career she’s always adored and find something new to set her soul alight?

My Thoughts..

Merina Wilde is a very successful writer of romantic fiction however, with her personal life in disarray, she decides to take up a position as Writer in Residence on the Orkney Islands. Leaving her home and best friend behind in London is difficult, but in order to face her challenges, and to get her writing mojo back, Merina needs a complete change of scene. Her arrival on Orkney is greeted with great enthusiasm, from the islanders themselves, who are all avid readers, to her connection to the lovely librarian, Niall, it all helps to make her transition from London to Brightwater Bay seem remarkably easy.

What then follows is a really lovely and vibrant story which brings to life the beauty and majesty of the island itself. Orkney's ancient history, and spectacular coastline, is opened up before us. Everything is so well described that we experience living on the island through Merina's eyes, from watching the sea birds swooping and diving, to the spectacular coastal views and exploring the island in all its many moods. As Merina grows accustomed to the slower pace of life and makes new friends so she starts to feel better about herself and her writing.

The author writes romantic fiction with a lovely light touch and really special characterisation. I mean what's not to love about a heartwarming story which has both a gentle and kind man who loves books, and a handsome, brooding Viking lookalike, who takes your breath away. Sometimes a special story comes along at just the right time and with the weather exceptionally cold, and with thick snow on the ground reading Coming Home to Brightwater Bay has been just the escape I needed to take me away from the mundane. I loved the many moods and nuances of the story and was completely captivated from start to finish so much so that I was really sad when my stay at Brightwater Bay came to an end as I wanted this heartwarming story to go on forever.

Coming Home to Brightwater Bay was originally published as 4 separate novellas and I can understand how that succeeds as the story is split into four distinct sections but it also works well as a complete novel. 

About the Author

Holly Hepburn is the much-loved author of commercial women’s fiction. She lives near London with her grey tabby cat, Portia. They both have an unhealthy obsession with Marmite.

Twitter @HollyH_Author #ComingHomeToBrightwaterBay

@simonschusterUK

@RandomTTours