The Country Girl
Cathryn Hein
Harlequin AUS
2017, 352p
Copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}:
Bestselling Australian author Cathryn Hein returns with a moving and uplifting rural romance about facing hard truths and moving on in pursuit of life.
After landing a major cookbook deal, star food blogger Tash Ranger swaps city life for the family farm. But Tash’s homecoming is bittersweet, for now she can no longer avoid seeing her best friend Maddie, who was severely injured in a riding accident and unable to communicate. No one knows that Maddie and Tash had a deep falling out and with every visit Tash must pretend to be the friend everyone believes her to be.
Patrick Lawson, Maddie’s fiancé, battles despair and hope daily as Maddie lies imprisoned in her body, gradually losing his faith in her recovery. When Tash returns to Castlereagh Road with her joy and boundless appetite for life, he realises finally what his loved ones have been trying to tell him for months – that Maddie wouldn’t want him to throw his life away. It’s time to move on. But letting go is no easy feat, especially if moving on means Tash. He’s a country boy and she is a star on the rise with ambitions that could propel her out of reach.
Can these two friends step out of the shadow of Maddie’s tragic life and accept love, or is the past forever destined to dictate their future?
Tash Ranger has made her career as a food vlogger, her good recipes and camera presence building her a steady following. In an attempt to keep her output fresh she’s moving back to her family farm – the Urban Ranger goes (back to the) country! It’s the place Tash grew up and she’s remodelling her grandfather’s old flat for cooking and filming. She has lots of ideas about fresh, local produce but it’s not supposed to be a permanent thing. Her mind is always ticking over, thinking of new ideas, keeping her output new and innovative.
Tash knows Patrick Lawson as first the boyfriend and then later the fiance of her childhood best friend Maddie. A shocking accident means that Maddie is no longer the person she was, but Patrick has remained loyal to her. He still visits her every day and he intends to keep his promises to her. This is severely complicated by Tash’s return and the reactions that Patrick has whilst around her. It starts off as overprotective as he seeks to stop Tash from doing the very thing that injured Maddie and he is very adamant about it. Tash however, is not really into being bossed around by Patrick, nor is she incapable of making her own judgements. Tash challenges Patrick and isn’t afraid to tell him off and despite their rocky start when Tash arrives back in town, they keep crossing paths.
I’m not going to lie – I had some reservations about this pairing before I started the story. Tash knows Patrick as her best friend’s boyfriend. It’s true that Maddie isn’t the same anymore and won’t ever be the same. But I was wary about the whole “best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend’ sort of thing. It’s not an entanglement I usually enjoy although the circumstances in this story were very different. And the way it was handled definitely won me over. Patrick is so obviously such a tortured soul. He’s still so young but he’s stuck by Maddie, even though they will never be able to have that life together that they’d planned anymore. He’s so determined to keep his promises, despite the fact that other people are concerned about him an want him to embrace his life. The way that the attraction between him and Tash unfolds felt really natural and that like Patrick was ready to move on, he just had to make that conscious decision to actually do so, which he was struggling with because he had made promises to Maddie. I have to admit, Patrick didn’t endear himself to me at first – there’s an incident towards the beginning of the story that’s a bit hard to take although I know the logistics of why Patrick wanted to do something but ultimately the fault doesn’t lie where he was trying to place it. He needs something to blame though, and that’s the easiest option. There’s also how bossy and arrogant he was with Tash, but she puts him in his place relatively quickly and once he kind of settled down a bit and realised no one had a death wish, he began to grow on me. I thought that his internal struggle was very well written and I could really feel his pain and indecision. The desire to do what he’d promised versus the possibility of a more fulfilling life with someone who was in a position to love him in return.
I absolutely loved Tash’s job as a food vlogger and the devotion to her creations in this story. There’s lots of amazing meals described – Cathryn Hein is a pretty enthusiastic cook so I wouldn’t be surprised if most are these are some of her favourite dishes! Tash spends quite a bit of time with her grandfather starting up the farm’s vegetable garden too and I loved their chats – her grandfather goes kind of “viral” which was cute. He was a fantastic character, a cheeky older man who in some ways reminded me of my own (sadly gone now) grandfather. Mine could be cheeky as well and enjoyed a story over a veggie garden. I think if I’d asked him to help me revive one he’d have been in on that before you could blink.
The Country Girl definitely won me over, which is no surprise really because Cathryn Hein is one of my favourite authors and her rurals are always sweet with a bit of a sassy twist. I went from my original slight skepticism to fully on board with Patrick and Tash because I think they were bringing out the best in each other as well as showing each other that they had options.
8/10
Book #203 of 2017
The Country Girl is book #59 of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2017
All The Books I Can Read 