Thursday 11 July 2024

BLOG TOUR: One Summer - Taylor Cole


Two people. Two pasts. One summer to fall in love.

Caleb is a former professional surfer trying to build his life after a career-ending accident.

Lindy has moved to Loor island to start a new life, combing the shores for sea glass to weave into jewellery.

When the two meet, sparks fly – but not the good kind. Then they discover they’re neighbours, and they’re stuck with each other for one, long summer.

As they slowly learn to trust each other, and find themselves sharing their stories that brought them to Loor, their dislike begins to unravel into friendship, then maybe something more.

But will the weight of their pasts ruin their chance of a future?
 

What did I think?

One Summer is a Cornish novel with a difference: it's set on the fictional island of Loor.  I actually thought this was a real place but I was getting mixed up with Looe.  The characters feel very real too and I loved all of them, both human and animal.

Lindy is really bad at her publishing job in London, she's just so easily distracted and it's made worse when she breaks up with her boyfriend Max.  As if her heart wasn't broken enough, she torments herself by watching Max's mudlarking videos that now feature his new girlfriend.  I mean, we've all done it...a bit of online stalking is harmless but Lindy is OBSESSED!!

So, when a pet sitting job comes up in Cornwall she decides a fresh start is a good idea...but she still watches those blooming videos!  Although Loor island is predominantly made up of old and very old islanders, there are a couple of hot guys to show Lindy that there are plenty more fish in the sea.

I really enjoyed watching Lindy and Caleb's relationship grow but I have to say that it was little dog Ted who captured my heart.  Taylor Cole paints Ted so vividly that it makes me smile just thinking of him now.  I would have liked Nemo, Max's Maine Coon cat, to feature a bit more but I loved how Lindy rescued him when Max cruelly abandoned him.  I did worry that she was doing it to keep a link to Max though as Nemo doesn't seem that fond of her...but that's cats!

Rather like the waves lapping the shore, One Summer has a relaxed, gentle pacing that ebbs and flows like the tide but like any island, the wind can blow in a storm at any moment.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:




About the author:
Taylor Cole grew up on a council estate in Devon and is of Armenian heritage, via her maternal grandmother who survived the Armenian genocide as a child refugee. When she was twenty-one, Taylor left university to run away to Cyprus and live in a men's barrack block with her military boyfriend, but returned the next year to finish her BA in English, which she followed with a master's degree in Creative Writing. She lives in Newquay with the military boyfriend-turned-husband, two daughters and an eighty-year-old tortoise called Shelley who was found wandering the streets of Plymouth in 1958.

Publisher social media handles:




Follow the tour:

No comments:

Post a Comment