Spoiler alert

Anyone who has not read Summer at Blue Sands Cove by CP Ward is hereby advised that this post may contain spoilers.

I don’t normally read romance novels. They’re not my thing. However, in a bid to expand my horizons (and to give me more stuff to blog about) I decided to download the first free Kindle book I could find, and Summer at Blue Sands Cove by CP Ward was it.

Given that romance novels don’t tend to be my thing, I was a little worried that I might be bored before I had even started, but this novel is off to a great start.

Grace Clelland is a waitress and a cycling enthusiast, whose life goes into sharp decline for at the least the first three chapters. She’s disillusioned with her job; then her boyfriend dumps her in the most degrading style possible and finally her sexy and charming spinning instructor (that’s a cycling thing, I think?) is suddenly replaced by a brutal ex-con who, for some reason, put me in mind of Mrs Trunchbull from Matilda. While all this is happening, she keeps on receiving messages from her friend trying to lure her back to Blue Sands Cove, where she apparently enjoyed a happier youth.

Ward has already managed in very few pages to create a protagonist with whom I both sympathise (seriously, those suits she was serving on the first page—utter jerks!) and am also keen to find out more about.

The minor characters in the first few chapters are also larger than life, boarding on caricatures, which really helps to bring the first few chapters to life, while also adding a light dusting of comedy relief to what is otherwise a rather grim couple of chapters for the main character.

My only minor criticism so far, is that the story so far is that by the end of chapter three, a feeling of tedious inevitability is beginning to creep in. By the end of the first chapter, it was pretty clear Grace is going to turn her back on her rubbish life and take up her friend’s offer. She just needed that extra push. All well and good.

In chapter two, she gets that extra push and another offer from her friend, which she again declines.

In chapter three, she gets another extra push (seriously, this woman’s life is a living hell by now) and she again declines her friend’s offer, albeit with less conviction.

I just hope she does it soon, because as enjoyable as the first three chapters have been, she’s still not made the decision I’ve known she is going to make since the book began and I get the feeling the story won’t really start until she does.

All in all, a strong beginning. I don’t know if it’s converted me into a fan of the genre yet, but it’s very well written and has, so far, managed to keep me interested.