One great thing about lockdown/isolation is that I’ve been able to read more. When I was offered an advanced reader copy of The Gift of Cockleberry Bay, I jumped at the chance. But with juggling homeschool, I read this back in March, I’ve only just properly been able to write about it. (Sorry!).
I discovered Nicola’s books on Amazon Kindle Unlimited sort by accident a while back (like last year, see here) and loved them. The first in the series is The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay and the second is Meet Me in Cockleberry Bay
All our favourite characters from Cockleberry Bay are back, including Hot, Rosa Smith’s adorable dachshund, and his new-born puppies.
Now successfully running the Cockleberry Café and wishing to start a family herself, Rosa feels the time is right to let her inherited corner shop go. However, her benefactor left one important legal proviso: that the shop cannot be sold, only passed on to somebody who really deserves it.
Rosa is torn. How can she make such a huge decision? And will it be the right one? Once the news gets out, untrustworthy strangers appear in the Bay, their motives uncertain. With the revelation of more secrets from Rosa’s family heritage, a new series of unpredictable and life-changing events begin to unfold.
The Gift of Cockleberry Bay concludes this phenomenally successful series in typically brisk and bolshy style, and will delight Rosa’s many thousands of fans.
It was great to be back in Cockleberry Bay to see how those characters are doing and what’s going on in their lives for the third instalment. I love how in the first book Rosa arrives in Cockleberry Bay and immediately makes friends and is adopted by the village, her little sausage dog Hot (yes Hot The Dog) is also adopted by the village too. This third book in the series ties up all those loose ends (after it’s opened a few more to puzzle over for a chapter or five!). I loved it that much I’d finished it in 3 days! Clearly should have slowed down a bit but I was desperate to know what was happening.
In the first book, Rosa is gifted a shop in the little village and in this third instalment she works on deciding what to do with the shop. The rule is that she can’t sell it, it has to be passed on to someone who really deserves it. With Rosa and Josh starting a family of their own, she starts to think about who she can pass the shop onto. And if a baby on the horizon wasn’t exciting enough Hot The Dog and one of the other four-legged friends from the village have a litter of puppies too! I had an inkling who would get it but I’m glad that I didn’t know for sure until the announcement was made in the book.
I’m not sure it can stand alone as an individual book without missing part of the back story so if you want to give it a go start with the first book and work your way through the whole story (and hopefully fall in love with Cockleberry Bay just as much as I did).
I was sent a review copy of The Gift of Cockleberry Bay to write this book review. These are my own opinions.
