Where the Heart Meets the Sea by Kimbra Drake
Genre: | Romance
An emotionally rich love story with themes of lost and found family in a stunning Norwegian island setting.
Twenty-nine-year-old Ella Nilsen has never known her parents—or even how her mother died. Raised by her emotionally distant Norwegian grandmother, Hilda, Ella has long accepted that the topic of her parents is off-limits. When Hilda passes away, Ella is shocked to find that her inheritance includes a summer cottage perched above the sea in a place called Lyngør, a remote island in Norway. To sell it, she’ll have to visit the cottage and take stock of what’s there—and maybe Lyngør holds the key to her mother’s mysterious passing, if she can get the locals to talk.
For as long as he can remember, Leif Arnesen, a thirty-four-year-old boatbuilder in Lyngør, has carried grief and shame from his father’s death, an accident that upended their small community. When Ella breezes into Lyngør looking for answers, her very presence stirs up old ghosts and earns her the villagers’ suspicions. As sparks begin to fly between Leif and Ella and their relationship blossoms quickly, everything Leif knows to be true threatens to capsize.
Perfect for fans of Jennifer Probst’s Our Italian Summer and set amid the rough and wild beauty of the Norwegian archipelagoes, Kimbra Drake’s Where the Heart Meets the Sea asks what happens when we’re forced to rewrite the stories that have defined our lives—and what we do with the next chapters.
About the Author
Kimbra Drake is a pseudonym for a published fiction writer who is also a certified book coach and developmental editor. She lives and writes in Virginia and Ireland. When not crafting stories, some of her passions include traveling, hiking in nature, photography, and watching gigs and readings at indie bookstores. Where the Heart Meets the Sea is inspired by her time living in Lyngør, Norway.
My Thoughts
This book was about Ella Nilsen, who had lived with her grandmother; her mother died while giving birth to her, & she never knew who her father was. They lived in Boulder, Colorado, while her grandmother owned a very valuable piece of land in Norway that she only learned about after her grandmother died, as the cottage was left to her. This was the first she had heard of a cottage; she couldn’t understand why Grandma wouldn’t have sold the properties so they could have had a better life. But then it seemed there were a lot of secrets her grandmother kept. She flew to Norway to check out the cottage. While there Ella wanted to talk to the locals to hopefully find out more about her mother. Some of the locals she came across were not very nice to her, one being the phantom gardener Inger. Her demeanor and attitude towards Ella rubbed me the wrong way. The other character’s name that I had not cared for was Erik; he seemed as if he were a pretty miserable mean man. He was the father of her love interest Leif. Oh, sweet Leif, I really loved how he treated Ella!! The way Norway & the cottage were described seemed so beautiful & tranquil, transporting me to this place immersed in all of what Ella was experiencing. Loved this book!
Links To Where the Heart Meets the Sea
Giveaway!!
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