The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay (Cockleberry Bay, #1)

by Nicola May

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From the description I expected a light-hearted, funny read typical of the chick lit genre.  This book is not that.  It is surprisingly dark especially considering how it is being marketed.

The main character is self-destructive.  She drinks excessively and can't keep a job.  Her main human contact is a series of one night sexual encounters.  She uses sex to help pay for the rent on her flat.  The only thing she loves at all is her dog, Hot.  Getting an inheritance is a way for her to get out of her current life and start fresh.

Usually in this type of book the small town the heroine goes to is full of lovely characters.  Here that isn't the case.  In short order she is scammed, sexually assaulted, and her secret is outed against her express wishes.  Then she is threatened to provide someone with an alibi for a hit and run. 

She eventually finds some nicer people but they have secrets too.  Then people keep breaking into her house, she ends up with a pregnant teenager living with her, she gets scammed a few more times, she finds out about a decades old affair, and her dog gets hurt (but he's ok).  This isn't a bad book but I didn't read it anything like the laugh a minute romp I'm seeing other people review it as.  I read it more as a cautionary tale about trying to keep secrets and the need to have someone who you can confide in.  Rosa is very damaged emotionally and trying to move past that in her own way isn't easy.  Trying to open up and let other people in when you have learned over and over not to trust is hard.  When those people then repeatedly violate your tentative trust, what do you do?



I read an ARC so hopefully things have been cleaned up but there was an error in my copy.  She was reading letters about a person who was only referred to by an initial.  But when she thought about the person she thought of them by their full first name.  She had no way of knowing that.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story