THE ISLAND VILLA By Sarah Morgan
Exasperated half-sisters reunite in Corfu for their mother’s fourth wedding, this time to a mystery groom who will throw their already fragile relationships into a tailspin. Full of Beach Read-meets-Mamma Mia vibes, this is the perfect escapist summer read for fans of Jenny Colgan and Mary Kay Andrews.
Celebrated romance author Catherine Swift has topped the charts globally for three decades. Her own romantic history hasn’t been as smooth, but all that is behind her now. She’s about to get married for the fourth (and final) time, and she wants her daughters there to celebrate. It’s never too late for a fresh start and Catherine Swift is reinventing herself, with or without her children’s approval.
Adeline can’t believe it when she receives an invitation to her mother’s wedding at her luxurious villa in Corfu. It brings back the agony of her childhood and the sudden gut-wrenching break-up of her family when Catherine left Addy’s father for another man. One minute they’d been a happy family of three, and the next she’d been expected to accept her parents’ divorve…and a baby half-sister who was the reason for the divorce in the first place. Not that Adeline blames her half-sister Cassie exactly, but she’s never been able to see past it. Addy doesn’t even ask who her mother is marrying this time. She couldn’t care less who her mother marries. Or so she thinks.
Cassie is thrilled that her mother is getting married again. After her own father died in a tragic accident, she’s admired Catherine’s optimism in the face of grief and failed relationships. She’s excited about the wedding and equally excited at the prospect of spending part of her summer in Corfu. It will give her a chance to share her own secret–that she’s just sold a manuscript based on her parents’ love affair for a whopping advance–something she hasn’t yet confessed to her bestselling superstar mother.
But when a pre-wedding dinner reveals the prospective groom turns out to be none other than Adeline’s father–and Catherine’s first husband–Andrew, both girls are shocked.
Adeline can’t believe that her gentle father would put himself through that again. She was the one who helped him recover after Catherine broke his heart the first time. And now she’s supposed to smile and throw confetti while he does it to himself again? Even Cassie, usually so positive, is failing to see the joy in this particular situation. If Adeline’s father is the love of Catherine’s life, then where does that leave Cassie? Has what she’s believed her whole life about her father being the love of Catherine’s life a lie?
As the wedding day looms and guests converge on the island, Catherine finally reveals the truth to her daughters about her relationships and her life, and both women discover that maybe they don’t know their mother as well as they thought………
