Review - The House Beneath the Cliffs by Sharon Gosling

 Review - The House Beneath the Cliffs by Sharon Gosling

A remote yet beautiful village. A tiny kitchen lunch club. The perfect place to start again.

 

Anna moves to Crovie, a tiny fishing village on the Moray Firth, for a fresh start. But when she arrives, she realises her new home is really no more than a shed, and the village itself sits beneath a cliff right on the edge of the sea, in constant danger of storms and landslides. Has she made a terrible mistake?

Yet as she begins to learn about the Scottish coast and its people, something she thought she’d lost reawakens in her. She rediscovers her love of cooking, and turns her kitchen into a pop-up lunch club. But not all the locals are delighted about her arrival, and some are keen to see her plans fail.

 

Will Anna really be able to put down roots in this remote and wild village? Or will her fragile new beginning start to crumble with the cliffs . . . ?

I've just finished The House Beneath The Cliffs by Sharon Gosling and honestly I'm just a mess of joy and tears. It is such a gorgeous story, of finding your place in the world, community, grief, love and cooking and I just adored it so much.

Honestly, I was a little nervous about reading this one which is why it took me a little while to get to when I read Sharon's last book, the House of Hidden Wonders, on the same day it was announced! I love her MG, but an adult romance novel? Would I enjoy that as much?

I can honestly say that I was not disappointed at all. Yes, of course it is different from victoriana middle grade fantasy. But what talent! What beautiful writing! What amazing, brilliantly realised characters to fall in love with or to absolutely hate!

And there's so much drama! So many twists, moments where you fear the worst is about to happen, moments where it does, moments that make you scream with laughter, make your heart sing, make the tears flow yet again.

More than anything it makes me want to go back to the rugged and wild coast of the Moray Firth in Scotland. This is book that is very much of its setting, and such a beautiful, yet oft times inhospitable, setting. The sense of place is remarkable.

And positive representation is something I like to look for in my books. I honestly don't know the whole romance genre particularly well, but it's nice to see a woman pushing forty being depicted as a romantic heroine, starting her own career and finding her independence.

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

The House Beneath the Cliffs by Sharon Gosling is out now, published by Simon and Schuster.

I was given a review copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review.