Beautiful
The Way To The Sea by Victoria Connelly is a simply beautiful contemporary novel that warmed my heart and soothed my soul.
At the heart of the novel are three broken people – trauma and loss over the years has devastated lives. Each are imprisoned within themselves. Each needs awakening to learn to live again.
Loss devastates. “It seemed barbaric to him that he should even think of life after Jamie. What right did he have to be happy again when his son lay in his grave?” This loss occurred before the book opened. A life is trapped in time – moving backwards is impossible, moving forwards is incomprehensible, and so life is suspended.
The other two souls are victims of domestic abuse (before the novel opened). Trauma has isolated the pair. “I started to believe his lies I wasn’t a good person, that I didn’t deserve friends.” If someone lies to us often enough, we begin to believe them and our self confidence ebbs away. We judge ourselves to be unworthy. It takes courage to break the cycle.
We also witness the cruelty that is dementia. Just occasionally we glimpse the person they used to be.
We all wear masks that hide our true selves. Only when we feel comfortable with someone will we open up. “You should never judge anybody by appearance. You never know the secret battles they were fighting or the things they’d endured.”
There is the theme of fossil hunting. Treasures are buried under the mud and mire. This is echoed by the lives in the book – their lives are buried under mud, they need to be found, washed clean and treasured.
We witness the empathy of a small dog called Rigs. He knows just who needs him to sit at their feet and just ‘be’.
All the characters are beautifully drawn. The three main ones all need to be ‘found’, just like the fossils. Their interactions are beautiful to see.
I adored The Way To The Sea. It was positively delightful.
I will leave you with a beautiful description of teaching:
“That’s all teaching is really. Talking with enthusiasm.”
I received a free copy via Rachel’s Random Resources for a blog tour. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.
If you have been affected by any of the themes, please tell someone and get help.
JULIA WILSON
The Way to the Sea
When Cate Rivers leaves her husband in the middle of the night with their young daughter, Eliza, she has no idea what the future holds. Taking a live-in position at Hollow House on the Dorset coast, she determines to make a new life for her and Eliza.
But Cate’s new boss, fossil hunter Charles Thorner, could do without the problems of a couple of runaways under his roof. He’s got enough worries of his own, including a painful past which still holds him prisoner today.
As the two of them learn to work alongside each other, secrets are shared and a new closeness is found, but they soon discover that you can only hide from the past for so long…
The Way to the Sea is the latest heartwarming novel by the bestselling author of The Beauty of Broken Things and The Rose Girls.
Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3oNU0zA
Author Bio
Victoria Connelly lives in a 500-year old thatched cottage in rural Suffolk with her artist husband, a springer spaniel and a flock of ex-battery hens. She is the million-selling author of two bestselling series, The Austen Addicts and The Book Lovers, as well as many other novels and novellas. Her first published novel, Flights of Angels, was made into a film in Germany. Victoria loves books, films, walking, historic buildings and animals. If she isn’t at her keyboard writing, she can usually be found in her garden either with a trowel in her hand or a hen on her lap.
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Twitter: @VictoriaDarcy
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