Review | The Summer of Serendipity ~ Ali McNamara

The Summer of Serendipity

Ali McNamara

Little, Brown Book Group

July 2017

Rating 4/5

Kindle | Paperback

One summer, property seeker, Serendipity Parker finds herself on the beautiful west coast of Ireland, hunting for a home for a wealthy Irish client. But when she finds the perfect house in the small town of Ballykiltara, there's a problem; nobody seems to know who owns it.

'The Welcome House' is a local legend. Its front door is always open for those in need of shelter, and there's always a plentiful supply of food in the cupboards for the hungry or poor.

While Ren desperately tries to find the owner to see if she can negotiate a sale, she begins to delve deeper into the history and legends that surround the old house and the town. But for a woman who has always been focussed on her work, she's remarkably distracted by Finn, the attractive manager of the local hotel.

But will she ever discover the real truth behind the mysterious 'Welcome House'? Or will the house cast its magical spell over Ren and help her to find true happiness?

If your looking for a book to completely lose yourself in this summer then look no further than this latest novel from Ali McNamara.

I read Ali's previous book and sadly felt that the magic elements were a little too make believe for my liking, but I'm so glad I've given Ali another chance with The Summer of Serendipity.

The Summer of Serendipity sees our main character, Serendipity Parker - or Ren as she likes to be known - and her colleague Kiki Fisher head to Ireland for their latest job. Ren is a property seeker and is looking for the perfect home for her latest client.

No sooner as the pair arrive at their hotel we are introduced to their love interests - Finn and Eddie respectively - which sets the book up nicely. 

Ren and Kiki immediately start their search but to know avail, that is until they take a boat trip across the lake during some down time.

As they are being rowed, Ren spots what appears to be the perfect house and ask's their boat man, Jackie, how they can locate said house. The girls are informed that the house is known as The Welcome House, which has been around for as long as anyone can recall.

Once back on dry land they ask Finn and Eddie more about the house, and more importantly who owns it. The girls are informed that no-one knows who the owner of the house is and after locating it and discovering it to be unlocked and stocked with the bare basics, Ren makes it her mission to try and uncover the secrets of the Welcome House.

What follows is a tale of discovery - Ren looks in to the history of the house and stories of Irish legends as well as discovering more about her self and her heart where Finn is involved.

The Summer of Serendipity is a fun ( I adored Kiki and her witty one liners! ) and gorgeous summery book that reminded me a little of the early Cecelia Ahern novels!

Review | Letters From Lighthouse Cottage ~ Ali McNamara

Title: Letters From Lighthouse Cottage

Author: Ali McNamara

Published: July 2016

Publisher: Sphere

The sun is shining in the quiet little seaside town of Sandybridge

Sandybridge is the perfect English seaside town: home to gift shops, tea rooms and a fabulous fish and chip shop. And it's home to Grace - although right now, she's not too happy about it.

Grace grew up in Sandybridge, helping her parents sort junk from vintage treasures, but she always longed to escape to a bigger world. And she made it, travelling the world for her job, falling in love and starting a family. So why is she back in the tiny seaside town she'd long left behind, hanging out with Charlie, the boy who became her best friend when they were teenagers?

It turns out that travelling the world may not have been exactly what Grace needed to do. Perhaps everything she wanted has always been at home - after all, they do say that's where the heart is...

Letters From Lighthouse Cottage is my first ever book from Ali McNamara and having just finished it, I have to say I'm feeling slight mixed emotions.

I've seen lots of positive praise for Ali's work and when I saw this cover and read the synopsis I knew it was one that I just had to read. 

Letters From Lighthouse Cottage starts off in the summer of 2016 with the main character, Grace, at Sandybridge Hall. Instantly we are thrown into the world which surrounds Grace and I love the sunny sea side location in which the book was set within. The story is then separated into four parts - part one is based in June 1986, part two is December 1992, part three throughout 2001 and then part four in August 2012. 

Summer 2016 is featured again at the end and also in between each of the parts - for me this worked really well as I'm not a huge lover of books throwing you back and forth with every chapter.

Throughout each of the sections, we are told via Grace her life story, starting right back in her teenage years where she meets Charlie and Danny, her two best friends. Danny becomes her first love but as time goes on they drift part. Grace wants more to life that living in Sandybridge working at her parents antique shop and as the story unfolds we find her going off to university and then abroad to work. But, something keeps pulling her back to Sandybridge where Charlie and Danny have remained.

What was really lovely about this book is the friendship and bond Grace has with both Charlie and Danny.  Right from the night they all met they have been actively involved in each others lives and regularly caught up when all back in the seaside village. Charlie remained to stay and take on his parents' business whilst Danny was forced to remain due to events which are mentioned in the book. Ultimately Letters from Lighthouse Cottage for me felt like a really good love story - right up until the end, I knew who I wanted out of Charlie and Danny to make Grace happy, but I wasn't convinced due to Ali's great writing.

Along side all of this was Remy who came into Grace's life fairly early into the book and had been leaving letters as guidance to Grace. The imagination of this books reminded me a little of the early work by Cecelia Ahern however I felt that there was something missing from the execution. I felt that there could have been more 'Letters from Lighthouse Cottage' as the title suggests, and I feel I was missing a little more mystery surrounding the situation. 

Rating 4/5

Huge thanks to the team at Little Brown for supplying a NetGalley copy of

Letters From Lighthouse Cottage

in return for an honest opinion.