A Winter by the Sea (On Devonshire Shores #2) by Julie Klassen

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Christian Fiction
Genre: Romance, Clean Romance, Historical Romance
Content: Clean

 

When the Duke and Duchess of Kent rent neighboring Woolbrook Cottage for the winter, the Summers sisters are called upon to host three of the royal couple's male staff in their seaside house. But they soon realize they've invited mysterious secrets and the sweet possibility of romance into their home.

Meanwhile, Emily Summers approaches a local publisher in hopes of fulfilling her dream of becoming an author. When he turns her down, his dashing competitor promises to consider her novel if she will first write a new Sidmouth guidebook for him. Emily accepts and begins researching with the help of the Duke of Kent's handsome private secretary. But a surprise visitor from her past shows up at Sea View, leaving Emily torn between the desires she used to hold dear and her budding dreams for the future.

Return to the Devonshire coast with the Summers sisters, where loyalties are tested, secrets come to light, and new love emerges.

This is one of the books I was looking forward to reading the most at the end of the year, but I ended up not getting to it until January. This series is about sisters who move to Devonshire with their mother after their father dies. They've fallen on some rather hard times as a male relative has inherited their family home, so they end up buying a house in Devonshire and turning it into a guesthouse to make money. Even before the death of their father and the move they experienced other losses as well. 

There are two twin sisters in the family plus two older sisters and a younger one. The oldest is away living with an aunt for reasons I won't divulge because that would be a spoiler for book one. Book one focused mostly on one of the twins, and this book focuses mostly on the other. I liked that there were still parts about the other characters in the books. It felt rather episodic in nature, the way it switched from one character to another. This could also feel a bit like we were just skimming the surface of things at times as well, but overall I still enjoyed the way this was written. 

In the beginning this book felt a bit slow to me, but once it got going I couldn't put it down. The romance was full of longing and conflicted feelings, which made it fun to read, and it was hard to wait for Emily to get her first kiss from the man she loved. When it finally happened it was magic.

There's also the Duke and Duchess of Kent with their baby, the future Queen Victoria, visiting the town. This brought an interesting historical element to the novel, and I appreciated the author's notes at the end of the book about this visit and how it was based on real happenings.