To Love and Be Loved

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In this life-affirming tale from bestselling author Amanda Prowse, one woman built a new life to escape her humiliation. Now, can she put the shame behind her and finally find happiness? I find the character development so well done. This is one of those stories that would make the reader think about their lives and make them want to leave the toxic things, including toxic people and relationship, out of their lives and start living again amidst heartbreak and fears. THE AUTHOR: Amanda Prowse was a management consultant for ten years before realising that she was born to write. Amanda lives in the West Country with her husband and their two teenage sons. Merrin was in love and excited to marry her beau, Digby. She could see her entire future with her family and Digby in Port Charles, Cornwall. It was her home, after all. But the day of the wedding leaves her shattered and vulnerable. Merrin leaves her home in the fishing village to rebuild her life. The characters were absolutely fabulous! I wanted to know everyone. Heather and Ben are Merrin’s parents. They are salt of the earth. Her older sister is Ruby and her best friend is Bella. Her Gran lives next door. They are such a lovely family. There is great love between the parents and something we all strive for in our lives. There is a little sibling rivalry between the sisters but, Ruby will stand up for little sister Merrin. For the most part this family is pretty near perfect.

Multiple POVs (in the limited third person) but none for Ruby. I wanted to know her more. She seemed more real and vulnerable than many others.

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It takes a wedding and a devastating loss before Merrin finally faces her fears and can move on with her life. I enjoyed the rich coastal setting and the captivating characters in this story but felt Merrin overreacted to an admittedly horrible event. It cost her dearly in the end. I also couldn’t accept the last-minute addition of a love interest who becomes the love of her life- all in the last chapter or two of the book. I think it would have read better if she woke to the realization of how much the chef meant to her. Merrin establishes a manageable life with a good job and loving boyfriend three hours away from Port Charles. And then came what would be one of the most important moments of her life: the wedding day. She would remember every detail, no matter how insignificant. Moments that would forever mark her life, but for very different reasons than she thought. This is the first Amanda Prowse book I’ve read, and it won’t be the last. It was so incredibly written - everything described so well you could picture yourself walking the streets of Port Charles, waving at the locals as if they were your own friends and neighbours. The characters are great, Gran especially, though I have to say I wasn’t a fan of the sister, Ruby! What a cow!!

Hurt and demoralized by the well-meaning village gossip, Merrin does the unthinkable and flees her home.

But this is not just a story of romantic love. We live through Merrin’s love for her village, her family, her best friend. We feel her need to get away from the place where (in her father’s words) her spirit lingers, the spitefulness and seeming jealousy between her and Ruby, the grief during her losses, and the promise of the future as she comes out healed on the other side six years later. We learn about secrets and relationships from the generations before Merrin’s that influenced everything that happens in the present day. Reading the book from when she moved to Bristol (my home town) and worked at a castle, in my head I pictured a local castle hotel near me called Thornbury Castle (where I have treated myself to a birthday afternoon tea), imagine my surprise when I was right!! I was so pleased Merry met Miguel and found someone to love her again. I’ve had some of the author’s previous books on my TBR list for a while. When this one showed up in the Read Now section on NetGalley, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot.

My experience of Amanda Prowse's novels, gained over the past few years, had me eagerly anticipating this book. It's replete with family drama and romantic disappointments, but the basic underpinning is a deep-seated love for the small seaside town with its natural beauty and tight community where lead character Merrin finds her strength and soul satisfaction. In the end, life does go on with some happy resolution for a number of key characters, including Merrin. Merrin is eagerly looking forward to her wedding and marrying Digby. But, on the day, she’s left jilted as he doesn’t show. Not wanting to be in the town where everyone is talking about her, she moves away, from the lovely village she grew up in and her family to start a new life. She’s thriving in the job she’s doing, and meets someone, but she feels it’s not the same as what she had before. His marriage proposal took her by surprise. She didn't doubt his feelings, but she didn't understand what was the hurry. They were fine as they were, and they were so young. But she was so in love that the thought of all the time they could spend together once they were married tipped the scales. Until now. It's been six years, and she did start a new chapter of her life after all - one far away from the sleepy seaside village of her past away from her family and friends, away from the reminders of everything bad that had happened to her. She has a stable job, she hasn't gotten her heart broken in years, and things are fine. But when she receives tragic news, she has to finally return to the place she once knew as home and face it once more time.

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Merrin was madly in love, with her whole life mapped out with the man she adored, much to the envy of her older sister Ruby. However when he leaves her standing at the alter in her beautiful dress, and runs off, live in her gorgeous fishing village will never be the same. She can't cope with being the girl that everyone gossips about, so she leaves her beloved village and goes to work, and live, in a hotel several hours away. Her parents and Ruby are devastated, as is her best friend, although they do understand why she had to leave and make a life for herself elsewhere. It hasn’t been easy, but six years later Merrin has forged a new life for herself far from the sea, burying the impulsive girl she once was. But when tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to return to the village she swore she’d never set foot in again.