The Summary

In fact, June Merriweather is trying to escape her own life. Her parents are dishonest, her sibling is deceased, and her college major is a farce. June is in serious need of reinventing herself, aside from her best buddy Matt. And a smart place to start is with a one-way flight from Cincinnati to the Scottish Highlands.

June starts over with a backpack, an urn, and a secret. She secures employment at a café and locates housing at a charming inn with an eccentric group of roommates. The inn's annoyingly astute (and attractive) proprietor, Lennox, is the only issue. He has misgivings about June. After all, unless someone is fleeing something, nobody comes to Scotland in the winter. June's new world is thrilling and just one detour away from disaster from a shaky beginning to blazing temptation.

June struggles to envision where her redesigned life is going because both her past and her future are fighting for her attention. And it's only the beginning when she starts to fall in love with someone she least expected.

My Review

I honestly don't know where to begin, so I'll just say that it took me a while to finish this.

After her brother passes suddenly, June leaves her friends, family, and university life behind and flees to Scotland with his ashes. Once in Scotland, she finds a job and a place to stay. But she didn't expect to fall in love.

This novel does a good job of examining June's feelings toward her brother and the cover-up around his heroin addiction/overdose. In my opinion, the story did a good job of balancing representation of a new family, romance, and mental health/addiction issues.

She was, however, portrayed in the book's beginning chapters as a likeable, reticent lady who merely want to escape her situation and the traumatic grief of losing a sibling. The character's past, however, irked me since it felt inconsistent with how she was narrating the story. She is portrayed as a hard-partying sorority girl, but the narrator has a completely different impression. Because of June's repeated impulsive and emotional outbursts in the book, I found myself truly loathing her.

Other characters weren't any better. They had underdeveloped backstories, were self-centered, and ready to judge others. Without taking them into account, they made judgments for others based on what they believed to be in their best interests.

What piqued my attention in the book and compelled me to keep reading was the Scottish setting. When she described the weather, homes, and decorations, the ambiance was amazing.

The romance hardly passes muster. Fortunately, as the book progresses, they do get closer and both of their earlier actions noticeably change.

It was easy to read. Simply said, the book didn't quite live up to my expectations for it. The locations and personalities may have needed some care, and it might have used some polishing. This book was so close to being something I would have enjoyed, but it didn't quite live up to my hopes.

In general, I struggled a lot with the characters, and there were some pretty major flaws, but I would definitely read another book by this author because this one had some good base.

I thank Netgalley and Skyscape providing an ARC in exchange for a honestly review.

My ratings score:

★★★★★ Fantastic! Made me go through a lot of emotions & the entire book is incredibly beautifully done! 

★★★★ Memorable! Despite its shortcomings, this book was incredible and taught us a lot. 

★★★ Good work! Nothing particularly remarkable, but still nice.

★★ Meh... Mediocre with great room for improvement.

★ Extremely Poor.