Customer Reviews

The House on the Shore

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For someone who is of Scots-Irish descent, reading a romantic suspense set on the shores of Loch Hourn was a delight. The House on the Shore had romance, suspense, and a glimpse into the lives of Scots past and present. The heartrending `story within the story' added just enough background to truly appreciate Anna's determination to protect her land.

Don't miss the latest from romance author Victoria Howard.

Anna MacDonald and Luke Tallantyre are destined to be counted in as one of the great love stories - This suspenseful novel was filled with passion and intrigue. Ms. Howard kept me turning the pages NEEDING to know what happened next.

Her description of the Scottish countryside was phenomenal and allowed the reader to feel the beauty of the land as if they were actually there.

I look forward to reading more of Victoria Howard's work.

"Anna did what she thought was best for herself after being betrayed and back-stabbed by Mark, her lover and colleague, she left her life as she knew it. She retreated to her grandparent old croft in the remote northwest highlands with her two faithful and trustworthy companions. She expected to be alone and find herself once again but that expectation was short lived. She finds herself in the company of a sexy, tall, stranded stranger named Luke.
Silly me picked the nighttime to read this delightful and suspense filled tale of Anna MacDonald and her stay at Ting na Cladach. I fell in love with Luke and his persistence to break through Anna's shield of rejection that clearly protected her heart. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I had turned on every light in the house to continue reading. I enjoyed this book very much. It was a true page-turner... WN Stanley, Author of 'Journey to the Last River' and `In the Midst of Change'."

Can't recommend this one highly enough. It's a worthy successor to Howard's other fine work, Three Weeks Last Spring. Well written with heartbreakingly real characters and a great story. I love it!!!

Anna MacDonald is looking to start over. She's just been passed over for a promotion that she's eagerly awaited - and, to make matters worse, her own boyfriend is the supervisor that snubbed her. To top it all off, the lucky recipient of her desired position just happens to be - of all things - his new lover...ouch...

So, in an effort to wipe the slate clean, she retreats to the Scottish shore, establishing her new residence in an old, yet sturdy house owned by her grandparents. Her only plans? Soak up the splendor of her rustic surroundings and fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a published author. Joined by her trusty Border collies, Ensay and Rhona, Anna couldn't ask for a more opportune chance to start fresh while mending the broken pieces of her still-aching heart.

Little does she know, though, she won't have the chance to enjoy her solitude for long. Shortly after her arrival, she makes the acquaintance of the handsome, charming Luke, a successful artist from across the pond, and the chemistry between the two of them can't be denied for long. Soon caught up in the throes of a passionate love affair, Anna appears to be on the cusp of lasting happiness - but, alas, she eventually learns that bliss and trouble are often flip sides of the same coin, and when an unseen stranger begins escalating his efforts to end her life, she's suddenly thrust in the midst of a sinister mystery that leaves her wondering just who wants her dead - and why...

The House On The Shore is an enjoyable read. In it, Victoria Howard presents a well-crafted page turner that unfolds at just the right pace, ensuring that the reader's attention is held captive with each new mysterious development. Howard also does a commendable job of infusing her characters with vivid, palpable personality, framing their inclinations and reactions in the three-dimensional, thus making it easy for readers to relate to them in very real, practical terms.

A quick but compelling read, The House On The Shore is a can't miss suspense thriller with a surprisingly potent punch, and one that fans of the genre are sure to enjoy.


Renee Washburn
Apex Reviews

Bad things:
This kindle book has some terrible formatting issues.
There were also some grammatical errors, words missing, etc.
Another reviewer detailed some of the issues with the story that I agreed with.
There were a few times I felt that something was missing - where maybe some sentences were dropped, because I didn't understand how we got somewhere.
However, none of those things detracted too much for me.

Good things:
I liked the characters.
I enjoyed the story, nice amount of suspense and romance.
I loved the setting, and learning about the area and culture.
The story within a story was interesting.
I am planning a trip to Scotland next year and now I want to include this area in the trip!

The formatting for Kindle in this book is the worst that I've seen so far. There are entire sentences that do not have spaces in them. There are no spaces in between paragraphs and inconsistent tabs for paragraphs. It is almost unreadable because of these formatting errors.

The story is engaging and well written, and I enjoyed it. It's a shame that such bad formatting forces me to give it only three stars. It deserves more.

I was looking forward to reading my copy of The House on the Shore for a couple of reasons: the main character is a female writer, and she happens to live in a remote cabin, or croft, set back in something of a European wilderness. I could relate, and we all enjoy reading about characters to whom we can relate.

That was where my pleasure in this read ended. Before I'd reached the bottom of the first page, I knew this wasn't going to be the literary style I much prefer. Well, okay. Still hope for a good storyline. Quickly enough, however, I sensed this was a book more in the romance genre... and those who follow my reviews will know how I feel about the romance genre. Cold. Very cold. In a lifetime of avid reading, I have yet to read a single romance that impresses me with its quality and literary value (and a good love scene is one of the most difficult types of scenes for a writer to write well--very few succeed). Why that is, I don't know. Maybe there is just something about the audience for this genre that I simply don't understand. Or, maybe it is unfair to expect gourmet food when you have just walked into what is obviously a fast food joint. Maybe I simply need to revise my expectations to something more realistic and fitting the genre. I'm not entirely sure, though, that the author intended this to be a true romance, perhaps also a suspense thriller or mystery.

Mustering up my efforts to remain open minded, my enthusiasm flagged again within the first chapters. I am not acquainted with the publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, but they seem to have no proofreaders or editors in their employ. The pages of this book are so riddled with errors, typos, missing words and scene glitches (in one scene, the main character is driving the very same Land Rover that she is searching for after a mysterious car crash), that it soon becomes distracting from the story itself. A good editor might also have made revisions to such implausible inaccuracies such as having the character wonder if an overheard language might be Polish or Estonian. Sensibly, one might wonder between two similar languages. These two languages couldn't possibly sound more different; there is no mistaking one for the other.

Let's move to the storyline, then. The author creates a romance-mystery with a main character, Anna, who has discovered her boyfriend cheating on her, angrily dumps him, her job and her apartment, finds herself without income as result, and so moves to Scotland, where she has recently inherited a small house called a croft, tucked away on a Highland loch. It seems the perfect time to write a book that she's been thinking about for some time and test her ability to make it as an author. A beautiful and remote place, by all description, and the nearest town has its own cast of characters. Soon enough, however, we veer into cliché.

Want to guess? Tall, dark, achingly handsome stranger (named Luke, a predictable romance name, I would guess) comes loping across her land to knock on her door. He is also obviously achingly rich, as seen from the wonderful yacht that has become stranded in the loch with some broken part that, conveniently, is not available for many weeks.

"He stopped a foot from her door, close enough for her to smell the lemon spice of his cologne. Now that she could see him more clearly, she noticed the laughter lines around his eyes and mouth, hinting at a softer side to his character. His body was lean, the outline of his muscles visible through the shirt he wore. A faint white scar creased his right cheek, and she thought it gave his face a handsome rugged look. He gazed at her with dark brown eyes and smiled, slow and warm, and for some reason her breathing quickened." (page 21)

We then witness an inexplicably rude and grumpy conversation. I have no idea why they must be rude to each other, but they are, and I suspect because this, too, is part of that cliché romantic encounter--two people who bristle with conflict and anger that then turns into bodice-ripping passion later. Which, of course, it does. I only wish there were some plausible reason for the rude exchanges and behavior. Nearest phone is 12 miles away, and Anna gives him one heck of a hard time about giving him a ride. He's done nothing but come to her to ask for use of her phone (apparently, expensive yachts have no communication systems on board). Shrug.

So the story continues. On one hand, Anna is portrayed to be a strong, independent, smart woman. Then, with Luke around, she turns into a wincing little girl, annoyingly helpless, prone to tears and screams and faint spells. Disturbingly, he at times turns into a bully, borderline abusive, physically grabbing her and chiding her for her behavior, becomes overly possessive, and so on... behavior that I would think would have any self-respecting woman head for the door rather than skip a heart beat. Flip side, he can be overly protective, and on very first meeting with Anna's best friend, Morag, who doesn't know him at that point from Adam, tells him to "take care of Anna." Sorry, but the feminist in me by now is rolling my eyes. I would think a woman living in the wilderness alone, by profession something of an adjunct professor back in the States, can take pretty good care of herself. There's a dichotomy here that perhaps says something about why the women's movement has shown serious signs of failing these days...

I'm sure I don't need to fill in anymore. There are bad guys who are bad through and through, dripping evil so that our loyalties are clear, and Luke is brilliant and gorgeous as he protects his little woman, who manages to scream at sometimes the most absurd moments. And often. And loud. Oh, come on.

Sigh.

I try to find something positive in all that I read, and I'll try hard here. I'm sure there is a place for this type of story. Romances, after all, sell, as the cliché goes, like hotcakes. There are obviously readers who don't long for the finer turn of a phrase, the deeper exploration of a character's psyche, and even look for the predictable outcome (you'll find it here, too). For such, this is maybe better than most. Just not for my taste.