Five years after the untimely death of her husband, David, Molly still finds herself toiling the land of his dreams and struggling to make ends meet. Moving to Herefordshire and buying an “almost” farm had been David’s idea of the good life, and out of a sense of duty Molly has upheld his dream by any means possible.
When an unexpected inheritance comes to light, in the form of a gorgeous London house, Molly has a choice to make. But upping sticks and moving isn’t that simple. Firstly, one there’s the animals, almost part of the family rather than livestock and secondly, the newly acquired house is occupied in the form of a rather handsome lodger.
Will she stay put and make do in the ramshackle farmhouse with the bills piling up around her ears and the bailiff at the door, or hotfoot it back to London to regain some semblance of her old life, her “good life”?
I found I enjoyed this book for the most part. Although unbelievably rude at times, the scenes between Molly and her children often made me chuckle, a certain horse ride especially. Along with the comically flirtatious sparring between herself and local grumpy vet Paddy I thought I was onto a real winner. However, whilst some of the situations Molly found herself in had me laughing out loud, others had me rolling my eyes.
Therein lies my main issue, from page to page I could change my mind from loving the main protagonist to wanting to give her a good hard shake. It was somewhat implausible that this woman who had raised three children and kept a farm afloat for five years singlehandedly could make such rash and naïve decisions in the face of a handsome man! In fact, for the most part I skim read the London scenes as I found this set of characters to be tiresome.
All in all it was an easy and entertaining read, I just wished Molly possessed a little more gumption!
** Thank you to Penguin UK - Michael Joseph, via NetGalley, for this ARC **