A Letter to the Last House Before the Sea by Liz Eeles Review

A Letter to the Last House Before the Sea

Heaven's Cove #2

By Liz Eeles

Release Date: May 19th, 2021 

Bookouture

Source: ARC provided by the Publisher

High on the clifftops, Lettie takes a deep breath of salty air and opens the letter. There is no signature, and the old-fashioned handwriting is faint against the yellowed paper. The message, and the tiny gold key inside, will turn her life upside down…

Lettie Starcross makes her way along the cobbled streets of Heaven’s Cove, clutching a little key and searching for answers about her kind, twinkly-eyed Great Aunt Iris, whom she misses terribly. With no job back home, and no-one in her family understanding how adrift she feels, Lettie wonders if her aunt was lonely just like her – is that why she fled this pretty seaside village years ago and never returned?

Staying at Driftwood House where Iris lived, now a cozy B&B, Lettie can almost hear Iris’s laughter on the breeze. And when she locks eyes with brooding fisherman Corey as he’s singing a haunting sea shanty in the local tavern, the sparks that fly between them are a welcome distraction from her grief.

But everything changes when Lettie meets Corey’s grandmother. Hearing the name ‘Iris Starcross’, her wrinkled face turns pale. Then she tells Lettie a devastating secret: seventy years ago, a choice Iris made tore apart this tight-knit community.

Heartbroken, Lettie questions if she ever really understood her beloved aunt – and if Corey knew about this shocking rift all along. So when her sister calls begging her to come home, Lettie is torn. If she stays to find what the key unlocks, can she discover the truth about what Iris did – and fight for her own fresh start? Or will she be the next Starcross woman to run from Heaven’s Cove forever?

*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest and unbiased review*

Author Liz Eeles is back with another Heaven’s Cove book and wow! Did she manage to reduce me to tears…absolutely she did, and it was SO worth it. 

 

We start the book with Iris Starcross who is about to move on to her heavenly reward and see all those who have gone before her, but before she says goodbye to her great niece Lettie, she asks of her one last thing, something she couldn’t do in her lifetime, and that was to return to Heavenly Cove and find out what the key she has worn around her neck opens, a key that would give Lettie the answers that she was never able to discover herself. 

 

Lettie Starcross was in Devon on a discovery from her great-aunt Iris, to find out what this key opens, but Lettie was determined to do that for Iris, and honestly, this trip came at what could only be described as the perfect time, with the fact that she just lost her job, and truly she could do with the constant childminding for her sister and the shopping for her Mum. But Lettie found a whole lot more in Heavenly Cove, from friends, history, facing her fears, and possibly much, much more. 

 

Liz Eeles is one of those authors that speaks to your soul, you can always find a little bit of yourself in her characters, and honestly, I totally could with this book. Now despite the fact that I lived in England until I was 23, I have never actually stopped in Devon, but the author's writing makes it feel like it is your home, from the characters in the town to its description, I feel like I belong at Driftwood House and Heavenly Cove. 

 

I give A Letter to the Last House Before the Sea 5 stars and fingers crossed for book 3!

Liz writes funny, feel-good romantic comedies set in the Cotswolds and Cornwall, in the UK. She was brought up in Gloucestershire so the Cotswolds are 'home', and she fell in love with Cornwall during family holidays there as a child. She has happy memories of building sandcastles in the rain and listening to the foghorn - though the sun did come out sometimes.

Liz worked as a journalist for years and brought up a family on the south coast of England, all the while writing fiction in the quiet. After being short-listed in a couple of national novel-writing competitions, her dream of being a published author came true when she was signed up by Bookouture. 

When not writing, Liz likes walking by the sea, catching up with friends, and binge-watching box sets.