Starting Over at Sunset Cottage
author: Lisa Hobman
Boldwood Books

Author Lisa Hobman writes gorgeously in her emotionally compelling book set against stunning scenes of Scotland. After the heart wrenching break up of his marriage to Felicity "Flick", Jim retreats to a small cottage with a view of Rocky Mountain and a shingle beach. Hobman takes us to the days of their first meeting and marriage and traces the relationship to their divorce and through the aftermath. This is truly a study of the elements of love, loss, and healing.
The sharp contrast between Jim and Flick's glorious early days together and their subsequent devastating split left an ache in my heart as their early love story was so beautiful. Hobman excels in her descriptive words, leaving readers immersed in both the stirring relationship journey and the lovely ambiance of the locale. I felt that Hobman went very deep in her character development of Jim and Flick, leaving me with lasting memories of them individually
and as a couple.
Thank you to Net Galley and Boldwood Books for the advance reader's copy and the opportunity to provide my unbiased review.
#StartingOverAtSunsetCottage #NetGalley

I read the synopsis for ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ and it certainly sounded like the sort of book that I would enjoy reading. So without further ado, I grabbed a cup of tea, grabbed my Kindle and settled down for an afternoon full of reading. Oh boy I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ but more about that in a bit.
I have to say that I found it rather difficult to warm to the character of Felicity (or Flick as she used to be known). When the story begins, she just seems so snooty and looks down on everybody. She dumps her husband and I got the impression that she was doing so because he didn’t ‘fit in’ with her plans. However, as the story went on and we got to know a bit more about her, I did start to thaw towards her but I wouldn’t say that we would ever be buddies because she got on my nerves. Flick’s mother also really got on my nerves and I kept wanting to whack her with a wet flip flop for the way in which she views and treats others. Nothing ever seems good enough for her. I found it much easier to warm to the character of Jim and it didn’t take me long to feel as though he had become a friend of mine. Jim is much more down to earth and likeable. He doesn’t look down on others and he is not ashamed of his roots. Jim is quite happy with his life and his job in a second hand bookshop just sounds divine. Flick throws him the curveball of walking out on him and on their marriage and to say that he feels as though he has had the rug pulled out from under him is an understatement. Jim and his adorable sounding black Labrador move to Scotland for a fresh start. What does the future hold for Flick and Jim? Well you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
It didn’t take me long to get into this story. In fact by the time I got to the end of the first few pages, I knew that I was going to seriously enjoy this book and that I would find it increasingly difficult to put the book down for any length of time. I warmed to the character of Jim so much that I had to keep reading to see how the story panned out for him. To say that reading ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ became addictive is a bit of an understatement to say the least. I would pick the book up only intending to read a couple of chapters but I would become so wrapped up in the story that I would still be sat there reading over half an hour later. I seemed to race my way through the story as my desire to know what happened just grew and grew. All too quickly I reached the end of ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ and I had to say goodbye to Jim and Flick. I found ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ to be a gripping, warm and uplifting story.
‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ is extremely well written. Lisa has one of those writing styles that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. She certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into one hell of a story. The story is written partly in the present with flashbacks to how Flick and Jim met and what happened during their marriage. I did wonder if perhaps I might get a bit confused as to which time period I was in at a specific time but I needn’t have worried because the chapters and story flowed seamlessly. For me, the story hit the ground running and maintains a fairly fast pace throughout. I loved the very vivid and realistic way in which Lisa describes her characters. She describes them so well that they seem just as real as you and I. I always find that a sign of a good book is when I become far too involved with the story and that’s what happened with this one. I felt as though I was part of the story myself and that’s thanks to Lisa’s very realistic and vivid storytelling.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Starting Over At Sunset Cottage’ and I would recommend it to other readers. I will certainly be reading more of Lisa’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

Jim and Flick were college sweethearts and later got married. They loved one another and understood one another so well. At least, until Flick’s mother kept intervening and insisting Jim wasn’t good enough for her daughter.

After years and years of persistence, Flick finally gave in and suddenly divorced Jim. This left both of them distraught. Jim moved from London back home to Scotland while Flick tried to move onto new relationships that were approved by her mother.

One day Flick shows up at Jim’s Scottish cottage to tell him her father passed away. This hit Jim quite hard as Jim respected Flick’s father as they got along well. Then a snowstorm kept Flick in town for several days while they waited for the snow to melt.

Flick eventually returns home and chooses to take on a job in Chicago. Jim’s brother suggests Flick’s paintings be displayed in a gallery. Jim works this out with a friend of his and Flick’s. And they arrange to have Flick fly to Glasgow and surprise her with a secret gallery of her own paintings!

The day Flick was scheduled to arrive in Glasgow, she doesn’t show. She wasn’t on the flight out of O’Hare. There’s a press conference and everything and no sign of her. Where could she be?

Thank you to Boldwood Books, NetGalley, and Rachel’s Random Resources for access to this book. I give Starting Over at Sunset Cottage by Lisa Hobman 5 out of 5 tiaras because of the obvious love and admiration Jim and Flick have for each other and they don’t even know it. Will they have a second chance at love?

When a marriage ends, it's a time for reflection and change, and this was certainly the case in this book. It's a romance, but it starts at the end, and then goes back to the start. This is emotional, and heart warming.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this wonderful book in exchange for an honest review.

I would just like to say a big thank you to Rachel’s Random Resources for very kindly forwarding me an arc copy of this book, for my Kindle, in return for my honest review.
This book had wonderful descriptions of the setting and it really made me want to live there at Sunset Cottage.
I absolutely loved Jim and thought he came across as being real and down to earth, which I loved.
The story travels back and forth in time and tells us Jim and Flicks story and how it all unfolds.
This was an emotional, engaging, heartwarming read and I really enjoyed going on this journey with the lovely Felicity and Jim…

I knew I had all ready read this book by the third page. I enjoyed it so much the first time, I continued. This is a re-edited version & it reads just as good.
Jim & Flick are sole mates but end up divorced due to her mothers interference. They go their separate way but it's obvious they still love each other. Such a lovely story where loves conquers all.
Enjoy the great characters & story.

This is a romantic story that explores love and relationships from an original viewpoint. Well-plotted, it has unexpected drama and mystery weaved into it. Jim and Flick fell in love at university, got married, and were happy until Flick ended it all. Devastated Jim, returns to Scotland and seeks solace in the highland village community with his loyal Labrador Jasper.

This story begins when their marriage ends and revisits their love affair through historical flashbacks. These allow the reader to get to know the couple intimately and understand what made them work and ultimately fail as a couple. Flick breaks Jim's faith in love and trust when she leaves him. Even when circumstances change, he isn't sure he can go there again. Unexpected loss and tragedy make him search for what he truly wants and give this story a positive conclusion.

This is an emotional, insightful story with believably flawed protagonists. It is a poignant but ultimately uplifting read.

I received a copy of this book from Boldwood Books via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

It’s really unusual to come across a book that begins as a marriage ends – and in a particularly cruel way that builds total sympathy for husband Jim, and a really intense dislike for his wife Felicity. But as we follow the heartbroken Jim into his new life in the Scottish Highlands, the story revisits their lives from the point they met – a wonderful and passionate love affair that begins in their time at Oxford, when she’s a shy and blushing artist and he’s an out-of-place scholarship student. The romance between them is entirely beautiful – intense and believable – and many of their more tender moments really make your heart ache at the sheer perfection of their new relationship.

But they slowly begin to grow apart – he’s content to coast through life, wanting to be a writer, enjoying working in a friend’s bookshop, while Felicity’s life takes a quite different path as a career-driven high flying art dealer, her own artistic ambitions forgotten. Their love for each other just isn’t enough, however much Jim is quietly happy to support her – and that has a lot to do with her interfering mother, who never thought he was quite good enough.

Back in the present day, heartbroken Jim is making a new life for himself at Sunset Cottage – writing a book about their love affair, making new friends in the close community of Shieldaig, walking his dog in the surrounding countryside (the descriptions are quite beautiful), and running a small coffee shop that expands to become the village store. But as the snow falls, he has an unexpected visitor… and the story takes a bit of a turn, not just the second chance love story I’d rather expected, but an edge of the seat drama that brings changes to everyone involved.

The characters in this book are excellent. I really loved Jim, the author particularly takes you right inside his thoughts and feelings, and I so wanted him to be able to find happiness: Felicity too became a character I grew to like, although it remained difficult to understand how she could have changed so completely and been so influenced by others. The main supporting characters are particularly strong – especially bookshop owner Charles and Felicity’s lovely father Edgar – and their relationships really well drawn. And the book has an excellent sense of place – first Oxford and Hackney, then the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and the action later moves to Chicago.

The more dramatic story does rather come from left field – I’ll admit that the story of the couple’s relationship might just have been enough for me – but it certainly made the pages turn rather faster and the hoped-for happy ending considerably more uncertain, the tension and emotion particularly well-handled. And it’s the emotional content that I especially enjoyed about this book – I really loved the early days of their relationship and, by the end, felt entirely invested in the possibility of future happiness for both Jim and Felicity.

I really do like the author’s writing – her story-telling and her emotional touch – and this was a book I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it did take a direction I really wasn’t expecting. A lovely read, and definitely recommended by me.

I did enjoy this book but I did find out it was part of a series so may have enjoyed it more had I known and read those dirt, it was still enjoyable as a stand alone and well written

My view :


Jim has had his heartbroken by his ex wife whom he was deemed never good enough for. Jim has gone back to Scotland to rebuild his life wth Jasper.

Can either of them heal and truly move on?

Or is it true that a broken heart can never healed. Throughout the book there are flashbacks to the happier times in their relationship.

Will Flick and Jim get their happy ending?

An enjoyable read looking at their relationship and getting to know them throughout the book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

👥A bit more grown-up and ready to examine what went wrong?💕

This story is not the run-of-the-mill second chance romance; I liked that aspect and the format grew on me. After the crisis point that ends Flick and Jim's marriage, it goes back intermittently to seed their present with some flashbacks into their history and describe how a blissful beginning from their first meeting at university devolved into missed opportunities to be together and their changing dynamic as a couple.

I am a lover of stories set in Scotland, of which Hobman has written several that I've read. Rejected Jim takes refuge in Western Scotland and its small-town life and a good part of this story follows him and eventually even Flick to Scotland.

Flick and her controlling snob of a mother were hard to like until their Road to Damascus moments of enlightenment and regret, but patient, loving, long-suffering Scotsman Jim would have been my favorite anyway. His relationship with his ex-father-in-law was quite touching.

The drama involving Flick in the latter part of the story was, for me, a great transition and sped the pace of my reading as I had to find out how the mystery played out, though this is not a mystery or thriller per se and I guessed quite early on who the villains of the piece would be.

I'd say that, though not my favorite of the Lisa Hobman books I've read, this is a strong, emotional story with some exciting skullduggery, a lovely ending and some winning characters. I enjoyed it!

Thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

An enjoyable read. Absolutely loved the hero of the story Jim and his dog - would have married him myself! I liked him so much that I often shouted at his ex-wife, Felicity (Flick) and her mother as I was reading the book and was praying that he wouldn't get hurt yet again. Flick has a serious case of the grass is always greener and allows herself to be influenced by her mother too much. Flick's father is also a saint for putting up with Penelope. The book highlights the fact that it is easy to make mistakes in life, especially when you are younger and want it all. I would love a sequel to this story to see how the couple settle down and maybe even to see Penelope find new love. Off to find the author's other books.

This one wasn't really for me I'm afraid, I found the characters a little irritating and the storyline was a bit weaker than others I have read. The writing was fine but I just didn't connect with it.

I just loved this book. Not just the story, but the way it was put together. Historical conversations were presented as ‘flashbacks’ and not just as memories. I found myself almost immediately invested in this love story, despite the fact that it had come to an end.
Jim and Flick, when viewed historically, are the perfect match and their relationship is enviable. However, there would be no story without the introduction of heartache. The result of a meddlesome mother leaves them both devastated and struggling to repair their damaged lives. It was hard, for me, to understand how Flick could have been so easily swayed by her mother’s influence, but it’s part of the story and I was able to accept it.
As usual, we head to the Scottish Highlands to see how the story evolves. Jim returns to the beautiful village of his childhood holidays and starts to slowly heal. Of course, the story can’t end there, and devastating news starts to unravel the progress that they have both made on the road to recovery. The story picks up the pace and heads to a thrilling conclusion on all accounts.
I enjoyed this story, in particular, I loved Jim and his unwavering loyalty to his relationship. His relationships with his former employer and his ex-father-in-law speak volumes about his character and I found it frustrating that he had to endure so much pain because of an interfering mother.
I was awake until the wee small hours, again, reading this story because I simply had to know what would happen next. This book took me from London to Scotland and then to Chicago. It was a wonderful escape which I would highly recommend.

What I really loved about this book is that the story is not your usual rom-com.

And to underline how much it isn't, let just say that it starts right off from Jim and Flick's END of marriage. From this moment, it goes back and forward in time and we discover more about their story, how they met and how they came to ending their marriage.

I found it a very modern way to analize a relationship, extremely real and relatable.

Definetely recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was sent to me electronically by Netgalley for review…Second chances…this book takes us through so many trials of a couple in love….missing chances…distance…love…aggravation…not being honest with each o5er…intrigue and almost murder…mayhem…interfering relatives…too many opinions…. Although the story takes awhile to come to an ending, the journey is fun for the reader…the protagonists just keep messing up…I kept wondering why they didn’t just do what they should do…move on or…I look forward to reading other books by this author….I must add that the setting came to life in this book a,one with the characters…almost like another character…I will remember Flick and Jim and their area of Scotland…

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

For Felicity(Flick) an art student and Jim it was lovely at first sight when they met at Oxford University.
But, after being married happily for years, it falls apart with a painful and sudden end, because of Penelope, Flicks mother.
Following what her mother’s constantly telling her, Flick throws herself into the ambitious career her mother thought she was meant for.
Away from Jim, she realises that the life she’s now living isn’t how she thought it would be, however, the decisions she made, cannot be turned around.
Jim is getting used to a life as a single man, in a village called Shieldaig, when he has a visitor bringing unexpected, sad news.
Reading a letter, from beyond the grave, makes him do what he never thought he would and this turns into a journey he didn’t think would happen.

Will Flick or Jim get over the past and move on?
Or can a broken heart can never be a blank sheet?

Recommend this book.

It was love at first sight when talented art student Felicity “Flick” Johnston-Hart and Jim MacDuff’s worlds collided at Oxford University.

However, after years of blissful marriage, everything crashes down when their marriage comes to a painful and abrupt end, thanks to Flick’s interfering mother Penelope.

However, Flick soon realises life without Jim isn’t all she’d hoped, and that some decisions, once made, cannot be undone.

Thanks to Netgalley and Boldwood Books for my copy of this book publishing 21st October .

This was an emotional uplifting read with a really good storyline. I really enjoyed Jim's character. The story was well written throughout and I loved the setting of this book., I just wanted to live at Sunset Cottage.

I highly recommend this book and will be checking out the rest of this authors books.

As always a fantastic book by Lisa Hobman, a well thought out plot and well written characters, I dont generally enjoy books which go back and forward in different areas of time but this was so well done. The descriptions of the settings are beautiful

Thank you Lisa Hobman and Rachels Random Resources for gifting me a digital copy of ‘Starting over at sunset cottage’ in exchange for an honest review.

In starting over at sunset cottage we follow the lives of Jim and Flick starting at the end of their marriage. This book took me on a wild journey with trips back to the past and longing for various different endings that shifted in my mind with every chapter I read. I was surprised with the turn of events toward the end of the book that I certainly didn’t see it coming. I enjoyed this book and I adored Jim, his love of books is something I understand fully hence my Bookstagram. He was by far my favourite character in the book.