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A review by coffeebooksorme
The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove by Kellie Hailes
2.0
First of all, a huge thank you to HQ Digital via Net Galley for providing me an eARC of this in exchange for an honest review!
Y'all, I really wanted to like this. The synopsis read like a You've Got Mail-esque story by an English seaside. I was stoked and super excited to try it out but it really just wasn't for me. Also, this is the 5th in a series, which I was unaware of when I requested the ARC, but fyi, you won't be able to tell. I'm sure characters from previous books show up but it's not in a way that you can't read this and understand all of what's going on.
This whole story was just very lackluster and pretty below average when it came to creativity. Big CEO comes to buy land to make resort, little big shop owner says no, town resists, enemies to lovers trope, happy ending yay! I mean, I knew that's what it was going to be when I went in but...it just wasn't done well. The storyline felt rushed, the romance felt insta-love-y, the conflict was nonexistent, and honestly, the whole thing just read like a first time author trying out different tropes. This did not read like a seasoned author. I mean no disrespect but this was just bad.
To be completely transparent, I skimmed the last 100 pages because I was not invested. I knew how everything was going to go before it did, it ended in a way that was super predictable, and any of the 'conflict' brought up from traumatic pasts was just sorta swept under the rug and not used to their full potential.
Y'all, I really wanted to like this. The synopsis read like a You've Got Mail-esque story by an English seaside. I was stoked and super excited to try it out but it really just wasn't for me. Also, this is the 5th in a series, which I was unaware of when I requested the ARC, but fyi, you won't be able to tell. I'm sure characters from previous books show up but it's not in a way that you can't read this and understand all of what's going on.
This whole story was just very lackluster and pretty below average when it came to creativity. Big CEO comes to buy land to make resort, little big shop owner says no, town resists, enemies to lovers trope, happy ending yay! I mean, I knew that's what it was going to be when I went in but...it just wasn't done well. The storyline felt rushed, the romance felt insta-love-y, the conflict was nonexistent, and honestly, the whole thing just read like a first time author trying out different tropes. This did not read like a seasoned author. I mean no disrespect but this was just bad.
To be completely transparent, I skimmed the last 100 pages because I was not invested. I knew how everything was going to go before it did, it ended in a way that was super predictable, and any of the 'conflict' brought up from traumatic pasts was just sorta swept under the rug and not used to their full potential.