Synopsis:
When Rilla Clark’s long lost father dies, she leaves New England and heads to his cottage in the Scottish Highlands to sort out his affairs. Rilla’s determined that her visit will be a fleeting one. The little village of Applemore holds a lot of memories for her, but looking back might just open up her heart, which she’s kept well-guarded until now.
Lachlan Fraser is less than delighted with his inheritance. He left the grand, crumbling Applemore House as soon as he could, and he can’t see why his three sisters love it so much. Gathered together at their family estate, the battle of wills over what to do with the house is just beginning when into their life walks Rilla, who they haven’t seen for over fifteen years…
Old friendships and long-hidden emotions are rekindled as the romance of a Highland winter works its magic – will Rilla and Lachlan discover that home isn’t a place, but a feeling?
Review:
The Winter Cottage was a fairly sweet and entertaining read but that’s really about all there is to say about it. There wasn’t really much of a plot going on other than old friends rekindling their friendship and potential romantic feelings towards each other. I don’t remember there being any serious conflict other than the obvious third act ‘break up’ that seems to happen in every single contemporary romance book.
The Winter Cottage was a very decent read and definitely had cosy vibes but I was expecting more ‘winter’ from it. If that makes sense? Most of this book isn’t even set during winter and the cottage isn’t really a huge part of the story. But that’s me being nitpicky. I actually did enjoy this book. Not enough to give it a stellar rating but a decent one.
That seems to be the one word I can think of to describe The Winter Cottage: decent. But that is genuinely how I feel about it. There isn’t much of a plot to comment on and the characters were ok. I didn’t particularly like or dislike any of them. The childhood connection between them was nice and made their adult friendships more believable. It already made little to no sense that one of Lachlan’s sisters confided in Rilla about the collapse of her marriage so having them at least know each other from when they were kids made it somewhat fine. Still a strange thing to do when it’s the first time you’ve spoken to someone in over 15 years.
The narration was also pretty good. The different accents and put on voices were done well and didn’t make me cringe, so that’s a huge win for The Winter Cottage. The main reason why I checked this out is because it was available through Audible Plus, sadly that’s not the case anymore. However, I would recommend checking out The Winter Cottage if you’re looking for a quick and easy read.
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