A review by hales230
One Night on the Island by Josie Silver

emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The premise of this book is spectacular, classic romcom.  Cleo writes a dating column, and her boss decides to send her on a "self-coupling" trip to a remote island off the coast of Ireland.  She's a little skeptical, but figures it'll be a good time to relax and sort out her life a bit more, so she agrees.  And yet, when she arrives at the little cabin on the very remote island that is somehow even more remote, there's another person there.  Aha!  A mix-up!  Mack, a photographer from Boston, swears he was promised the cabin at the same time as her, and the ferry only comes once a week.  And it's not like there's anywhere else on this island that they can stay.  A perfect setting for a heartfelt romance.

I think my favorite part of this book was probably the setting, and the other folks on the island.  It was so picturesque, it really felt like I was there.  And I loved the cast of secondary characters.  They really rounded out the story so well, and I loved that Cleo found her place with the women of the island.  I always love when romances are a bit more than just the romance itself, and we get actual, developed secondary characters, and this book did a great job with that.

Where it lacks for me is honestly the romance itself.  The forced proximity trope is well-executed, but Cleo and Mack just didn't work for me, and I can't quite put my finger on why exactly.    This is one of those where I just truly couldn't see the couple lasting beyond the pages of the book.  I think they would've existed in each other's lives for a reason -
Mack to finally accept that his marriage is over, Cleo to finally understand that her life is her own, not what society tells her it needs to be.


It just didn't have that spark that I love in romance novels, and while I loved the setting and the cast of characters, the main plot just didn't work for me the way I wanted it to.
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