Born rivals, destined together

Synopsis

Welcome to Pepper Bay. A small close-knit community where you’ll find chocolate box cottages, quaint shops, love drama, and a happily ever after.

Snuggle down with this cosy, feel-good, comfort read that whisks you away to a beautiful bay on the Isle of Wight – Perfect for fans of Christie Barlow, Phillipa Ashley, and Holly Martin.

The Pepper Bay books are standalone stories, best when read in order, that intertwine with recurring characters.

Pepper River Inn: There has been a longstanding family feud in Pepper Bay between the Renshaws and the Trents, and it’s about to get even more messy.

Rosie and Belle Trent have just inherited their uncle’s rundown hotel and have decided to see if they can rebuild the unloved business. They don’t rate their chances of having a successful inn, not with the perfect one right next door owned by Elliot and Ned Renshaw.

The two sisters and two brothers aren’t meant to be friends, so when Elliot saves Rosie from drowning and they fall in love, it’s down to Belle and Ned to keep the family feud alive. All they have to do is continue to hate each other. How hard can it be?

My review

The Renshaws and the Trents have a family feud going over a few generations. The current members of each family don’t even know what the original feud was about, but it’s the counterpart’s fault anyway…
Rosie and Belle Trent have inherited from their uncle half of the Pepper River Inn, which has more alike with a haunted hotel than a flourishing one.
They are determined to turn their hotel into a successful business, not afraid of the right part of the hotel run very well by Elliott and Ned Renshaw.
Rivalry is on from the minute Belle and Ned meet, but when Elliott saves Rosie from drowning and fall in love instead, it’s up to Belle and Ned to keep the feud alive… 

Pepper Bay is such a lovely place to return to, and I was very eager to know the complete story of how the Pepper River Inn was literally split in half in the past.
And of course I was very curious to get to know the owners and was looking forward to see sparks fly around! 

Well, with great joy I can say that the author does not give us one love story, but two! What a bargain! 

I always like to read how close siblings are, and decide to venture together in a business. As I am also very close with my brother, it warmed my heart to see how this such familiar and recognizable bond was present with both Rosie and Belle, and Elliot and Ned. 

Both pairs of siblings are very different, and it’s not only because we have two sisters against two brothers, but also because the two pairs have all gone through hardship in the past in their own ways. Yet whatever happened in the past, only made the bond stronger.
Each sibling would walk through fire for each other. 

I know that this author is the kind of author where feelings evolve very quickly. And while it could have bothered me, why shouldn’t I believe in a coup de foudre between Elliot and Rosie?
Especially when I got to read how they met… 

I found myself gasping for air reading how Rosie almost drowned, and I absolutely understood her trauma, especially after learning about a past incident. I am not a big fan of water myself, so I felt her anxiety thoroughly.
And I ABSOLUTELY understood how Rosie swooned over her own Merman Elliot, because let’s be honest, who wouldn’t feel safe with his arms around you???  

The story of Belle and Ned was a more complicated one, yet it’s often in such books that enemies tend to become more…
It was hilarious to read how the both of them try their utterly best to keep on despising each other, but start to learn they have more in common than thought.
And Ned’s little girl for sure was a big part of these two rivals spending more time together. 

It was so much fun to read this book, which can be absolutely be read as a standalone. I found it lovely to see how close all the siblings were, how protective of each other too. I laughed at the stubbornness of a few characters, but I mainly laughed about the absurd feud and the dictated, even more absurd rules.
But most of all, I fell in love with reading how easy or difficult it can be to fall in love. What comes easy for one person, isn’t easy for another one.
Even with all the scars (literally and figuratively ones), sometimes when you meet someone, you can feel it in your gut when you meet the right person.
But sometimes it takes a while to understand who is standing in front of you. And it takes even more time to find the courage of taking that step to trust someone or to move on. 

This was a marvellous next chapter in a heart – warming, funny, lovely series, keeping up with the high expectations!