Written by Julie Klassen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
2020; Bethany House
Ever since I picked up Julie Klassen’s first novel, The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill, I have felt like I have been transported back to another time. The way that Klassen writes, takes readers right into the story and invested in the character’s lives. The first book I read was part of a series, and I enjoyed it enough that I read the entire series and picked up her next book. This will be my sixth book, third of her standalone novels. The Ivy Hill series reminded me of Jane Austen’s stories. Klassen writes under the “Christian Fiction” genre, so the novels are pretty “clean” when it comes to sex and violence. The romances are sweet, but still have passion and chemistry that romance readers are looking for. What I also like about Klassen is that there is usually some kind of mystery. A Castaway in Cornwall reminded me a bit of Graham Winston’s Poldark series. The characters are endearing and wicked, and sometimes both. The story is about a young woman who is orphaned, and lives with her uncle by marriage. When she was younger, her parents and maternal aunt and uncle have passed away from an illness. her father’s sister and husband took her in. Losing her aunt to childbirth, she and her uncle leaned on one another to keep going. He remarries a widow with a daughter around Laura’s age. Her step-aunt sees her in her daughter’s way of finding a good marriage. Laura longs to see more of the world, especially where she lost her parents.
The Cornwall coast is known for many shipwrecks and few survivors. Laura, among many others, finds things and tries to send them back to their loved ones. One night when she rescues a man from a Shipwreck, she helps to nurse him back to health. As she gets to know the stranger she starts to think he may be lying about who he is. Yet he can take her to where he parents were last alive. This may be the adventure she has always wanted. The whole book was a fun journey. It was the sweet escape I needed get out of my own head.
I received a complimentary copy of this trade paperback from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
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