This was a great romance read. The only reason why I didn’t give it 5 stars though was that I thought at times Laura was being a bit of a lunatic. Her deciding that the man of her dreams was out there based on the contents of his suitcase had me going on geez. But the fact that the character of Ted is included pretty much as the reader surrogate to make fun of her about it helped the book in my opinion. I also thought that Laura should have been younger. She’s way too old to go around acting/feeling like this I thought. But I notice that Cousens tries to link it back to Laura’s mother and the story of her parents.
Laura is off to the islands where her parents met and fell in love due to her job. She’s being forced to write about her parents life, and is tracking their steps in order to show her boss that her article is what the company needs to get some “clicks.” However, as soon as Laura arrives at her hotel, she realizes that she’s in trouble when she notices the suitcase she has is not her own. Going through it (and reading stuff!) she realizes that this guy may be her soulmate. He has a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Phil Collins music, and it seems like he has a cabin in the woods. Laura refuses to return the suitcase to the airlines and has her cab driver Ted along for the ride as she tries to track down “the one” as well as retraces her parents footsteps.
Laura is a lot initially. But at the halfway point I warmed up to her. I think it helped that the character of Ted was there to make fun of her and also to show her what the Channel Islands has to offer. I think the funniest part is when Ted points out that everyone likes Atticus Finch (well some of us did until that terrible sequel).
The two of them together are funny, but you realize Ted has a lot going on with him fairly soon. And then of course you have Laura’s soul mate floating around out there who she keeps getting closer to finding.
The setting of the island seems very small at times, but pretty cool. I don’t know if all of the locations really exist and the food, but it sounds fantastic.
The romance side of things takes a while to get going. I would say the romance was a secondary plot in this one. The main one really is Laura finding herself and finding out about her parents.
The ending was great and made me smile. Sophie Cousens is becoming a favorite author of mine to read.