Review: Starting Over at Acorn Cottage

Starting Over at Acorn Cottage by Kate Forster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Trigger warning: domestic abuse, both in present time and characters’ pasts.

This book really was not my cup of tea. The cover and description look and sound like it is a light hearted romance of the kind I normally read, however it is most definitely NOT. It is chock full of people who have suffered (and are still suffering) domestic violence. I had to skim read the sections from Clara’s past as they were too traumatic for me to cope with. Also what she and her mother had to resort to is truly horrendous.

The romance was lovely, and Pansy was amazing. I also really liked Rachel and Tessie. The writing is good in terms of storytelling, but there are many sentences that just don’t make sense - there seem to be words missing - and many places where a similar sounding word was used instead of what the author clearly meant. A good proof read/edit would sort that out though, and as I read an advance copy, this may happen before the final release. I also noticed that the dialogue often sounded a little stiff - I think the lack of contractions is to blame for this (a lot of I will, instead of I’ll, etc).

Overall, I think if the cover and description conveyed that there are dark aspects to the story, and with some editing, this could be an excellent book. However, it is not for me!

I was given a free copy of this book. My opinions are, as always, my own.

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