Today it is my pleasure to bring you my review of The Island in Bramble Bay by Victoria Walker, on publication day no less, so there’s no excuse not to go and grab yourself a copy!
Welcome to Bramble Island! Find breezy, sunshine-filled days, shaded woodlands, glittering sea and a summer of love…
Maggie Cassidy is the new park manager of Bramble Island in Dorset. A job on an island where she is the only year-round inhabitant is the perfect fresh start for her. But when she’s torn between the job she came to do and the island she has grown to love, can she hang on to her perfect new life without compromising her dreams?
Charlie Mackenzie is the forester on Bramble Island. He is a loner full of secrets, burnt out by the life he left behind in San Francisco. When his past catches up with him can he finally face what he has spent three years running from without jeopardising everything that healed him?
Bramble Island lulls them both into an idyllic existence but when the outside world bangs on their door, is history about to repeat itself for both of them?
Maggie is pleased to have secured herself a new job as the park manager on Bramble Island; a remote island where she is the only permanent resident! After holding down a high powered job that ultimately caused the demise of her relationship she is keen for a reset and Bramble Island seems like the place to do it.
Charlie is the volunteer forester on Bramble Island. Like Maggie, he has found Bramble Island to be an escape from the outside world after having his heart broken and walking away from his life in America.
With both Maggie and Charlie running away from their lives to Bramble Island, and with so few people on the island, it doesn’t take long for them to find each other and forge a meaningful friendship in their idyllic surroundings. But can that friendship survive when their previous lives suddenly come looking for them?
I really enjoyed this novel. Maggie and Charlie are great characters, who are both seeking some peace after a few years of turbulence. Charlie is definitely in hiding, but his reasons for this become clear as the story unfolds. Whilst I don’t believe Maggie is hiding from real life, she is a character who is able to recognise their flaws and mistakes, whilst she tries to learn from them. They are both well rounded, believable characters who just add to the richness of the story.
Bramble Island is the ideal setting for this novel. You can really imagine the trees and the isolation of the island but also the peacefulness of it, particularly after the ferry takes away the remaining tourists at the end of the day. Its a place I would most definitely like to visit and explore, and it provides the perfect backdrop for the story.
I am more than happy to recommend The Island in Bramble Bay – its warm, full of love with characters who are able to grow at their own pace. I really enjoy Victoria Walkers writing (check out my review of Snug in Iceland if you haven’t already!), so I am already looking forward to her next offering!
Thank you to Victoria Walker and Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour, and for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
Purchase Links
Author Bio
Victoria Walker has been writing romantic fiction since a visit to Iceland in 2014 inspired her first novel. As well as writing, she spends her free time dressmaking, knitting and reading an inordinate amount of contemporary romance, occasionally punctuated by the odd psychological thriller and saga.
In the past she has worked as a cinema projectionist, a knitting and sewing tutor and has owned a yarn store, all things which will no doubt appear in her books if they haven’t already.
Victoria lives in the Malvern Hills with her husband and two teenage children.
Social Media Links
Chapter and Cake 