A Home at Cornflower Cottage – ARC Book Review

Escape to the flower-filled fields and hedgerows of the Cotswold countryside, to a tiny cottage and a summer that could change everything….

Amelie has lived in Cornflower Cottage since she was born. She did her homework at the scrubbed kitchen table and helped her mum hang washing from the line on the old oak tree in the garden. And when her beloved parents died, Cornflower Cottage became Amelie’s armour against the world.

The trouble is that Cornflower Cottage is too big for just her. With a broken boiler and a leaking roof, Amelie knows she must do something to make ends meet. When she meets Xander, a scruffy, brown-eyed nature documentary maker living out of his backpack in a nearby hotel, Amelie rents him a room, hoping a lodger will solve her problems.

She soon realises that her troubles are only just beginning. Xander’s muddy clothes all over the cottage and early morning jaunts to photograph otters are going to take some getting used to. But when an argument turns into a heart-to-heart, she finds herself confessing how lonely she has been.

Before long, laughter echoes round the cosy farmhouse kitchen once more and sparks begin to fly. But when a face from Xander’s past appears at Cornflower Cottage Amelie’s happy home is shaken once more. Xander has changed Amelie’s quiet country life forever. Should she open her heart to someone who has hidden things from her? Or let him leave, and lose the love that makes her house a home?

I think this might be the sixth book I have read written by Tilly Tennant. This wasn’t really her best but it was sort of OK.

Amelie grew up most of her childhood in Cornflower Cottage. But the cottage was too big for her and soon, at the inn where she is working, she meets Xander who had come for otter sight seeing with his posh and arrogant girlfriend Imogen. Amelie suggests Xander to move into the cottage with her and then slowly, they become friends and eventually a romance develops.

I wouldn’t say this was boring but I didn’t really enjoy much like I normally do with her previous books. None of the characters in the book really appealed to me, although the author’s style of writing made me feel like I was in the countryside as well. The ending was far too predictable as I knew that the story might end in such a way. It felt like you are watching a Hallmark romance movie with predictable plot line and story. However, even though I didn’t enjoy this book doesn’t mean that it will prevent me from reading her other books.

Overall, if you like a heartwarming romance novel set in the countryside, then this one is for you–worth only three stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.