When her best friend leaves Welford for a 3 month trip around Europe Helen begins to question her simple life. Whilst she loves working at Animal Ark, things with boyfriend Seb are plodding along and Helen fancies some adventure. Floating the idea of a trip to India, Helen is shocked to discover Seb has more permanent, less exciting plans for their future. With talks of moving and mortgages it seems their ideals are poles apart, and they soon decide to go their separate ways.
Local heartthrob vet, Toby, is only too happy to step into Helen's life and offer the thrill she seems to desperately seek. But when her home at Sunrise Fruit Farm is in jeopardy will Helen realise what she had all along?
The fifth instalment in the Hope Meadows series focuses on veterinary nurse Helen Steer. As a secondary character in the previous books, I've always liked Helen and it was nice to learn a little more about her this time around. It was obvious from the start that she was beginning to doubt her relationship with Seb and the first few chapters were ultimately their undoing.
What surprised me in this story was that Daniels seemed to show an uglier side to the other characters. This is hard to explain without giving too much away, but I often found myself thinking "why is he/she being that way?". This for me was quite disappointing, and wholly unexpected, as I've always enjoyed each character and the general community spirit of Welford.
It was, however, an enjoyable part to the series and I completed it in a little over a day thanks to the Bank Holiday weekend. I look forward to the next story at Christmas time.
** Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton, via NetGalley, for this ARC **