Christmas at Lilac Cottage (White Cliff Bay #1) by Holly Martin
Published: September 25, 2015 by Bookouture
Book Blurb: Welcome to the charming seaside town of White Cliff Bay, where Christmas is magical and love is in the air…
Penny Meadows loves her home – a cosy cottage decorated with pretty twinkling fairy lights and stunning views over the town of White Cliff Bay. She also loves her job as an ice-carver, creating breathtaking sculptures. Yet her personal life seems frozen.
When Henry and daughter Daisy arrive at the cottage to rent the annex, Penny is determined to make them feel welcome. But while Daisy is friendly, Henry seems guarded.
As Penny gets to know Henry, she realises there is more to him than meets the eye. And the connection between them is too strong to ignore…
While the spirit of the season sprinkles its magic over the seaside town and preparations for the ice sculpting competition and Christmas eve ball are in full swing, can Penny melt the ice and allow love in her heart? And will this finally be the perfect Christmas she’s been dreaming of?
Like a creamy hot chocolate with marshmallows, you won’t want to put this deliciously heartwarming novel down.
Book Links: Amazon | Goodreads
My Review
Christmas at Lilac Cottage is the first novel in the White Cliff Bay series by Holly Martin. We begin the story with a lonely 29 year-old woman named Penny that wishes she had a husband and children to keep her company, and as a result, she’s quite sad and lonely.
Penny wasn’t always this lonely, she was in love once but had her heart broken when she was younger. Penny feels that she’s the only one without someone to love and take care of. So she throws herself into her work to distract her from her lonely life. Although she enjoys the solitude and creativity of making something beautiful with her hands, she still finds herself lonely at the end of the day. In an attempt to keep her loneliness at bay, she rents out the annexe of her home to a complete stranger, hoping that she will be able to make a new friend and find the companionship that she craves.
The new tenants that she rents the annexe to begin to take on a large role in her life. While Penny’s love life has been more frozen than the ice sculptures she creates, Henry’s heart has frozen for anyone other than his teenaged daughter Daisy. He’s had relations with women, but nothing that amounted to anything, as he didn’t want anyone to come between him and his daughter. There’s a bit of drama, chaos and sexual-chemistry in the mix and it makes for an entertaining story.
I loved this charming, heart-warming novel about love. Sometimes we find exactly what was missing in our lives with exactly the right person however, realizing this and making it a reality are two very different things.
5 stars for this Christmas novel carved to perfection 🙂
About the Author – Holly Martin
Author Links: Blog | Twitter | Website
Author Bio: Holly lives in sunny Bedfordshire in a house with round windows. She studied media at university which led to a very glitzy career as a hotel receptionist followed by an even more glamorous two years working in a bank. The moment that one of her colleagues received the much coveted carriage clock for fifteen years’ service was the moment when she knew she had to escape. She quit her job and returned to university to train to be a teacher. Three years later, she emerged wide eyed and terrified that she now had responsibility for the development of thirty young minds. She taught for four years and then escaped the classroom to teach history workshops, dressing up as a Viking one day and an Egyptian High Priestess the next. But the long journeys around the UK and many hours sat on the M25 gave her a lot of time to plan out her stories and she now writes full time, doing what she loves.
Check out my reviews on one of Holly’s other novels:
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