Rowena’s review of The Unexpected Consequences of Love by Jill Mansell.
Sophie has no interest in finding love. But what happens when love finds her?
Sophie Wells is a successful photographer with a focus on putting the past firmly behind her. When Josh Strachan returns to the seaside town of Cornwall from the States to run his family’s hotel, he can’t understand why the fun, sexy girl has zero interest in letting him-or any man for that matter-into her life. He also can’t understand how he’s been duped into employing Sophie’s impulsive friend Tula, whose crush on him is decidedly unrequited. Both girls remain mum about the reasons behind Sophie’s indifference to love. But that doesn’t mean Josh is going to quit trying…
I’m always up for a Jill Mansell book and this one didn’t disappoint. This book follows three different sets of characters and tells three different stories about the consequences of love. It should have been confusing and it should have felt rushed but it didn’t.
The first story, the main story was the story of Josh and Sophie. Sophie has given up on love and relationships. Something burned her on the idea of being in a relationship, of men in general and she made the decision to focus on her career and give up men. She’s been doing a pretty good job of that until Josh comes into her life and asks her out. She turns him down and instead of going on his merry way, Josh and Sophie keep seeing each other around town and they get to know each other. Josh really wants to get to know Sophie and is mighty curious about why she’s given up on men. He wants to find out why but she’s not offering the story and her best friend (and his new employee) is keeping mum on the subject as well. Bits and pieces of her story come together for him and in an effort to help Sophie, he tries to help her with her past.
The second story is about Josh’s friend Riley and Sophie’s best friend Tula. Tula grew up struggling. Her Mom was always with some loser who couldn’t hold a steady job and her father was a poor excuse of hard work and now Tula doesn’t want to go down the same road her Mom went down so she stays away from guys that don’t have a good work ethic. Riley is the guy who spends his days sleeping, surfing and his nights bar hopping. He’s the most easy going guy in town and everyone knows this about him so it just figures that the girl he falls for wants nothing to do with him, right?
Then there’s Dot and Laurence. Josh’s grandparents. They were married for a long ass time before Laurence met and fell in love with someone else…while he was still married to Dot. Talk about drama. This story was kind of sad because Laurence left Dot to be with this other woman and then all of these years later, Laurence is all alone and still hanging out with Dot who he’s learned that he never stopped loving. The consequences of his love for the other woman is that he’s spent so many years alone because Dot doesn’t trust him.
So there are lots of things going on and Mansell does a fantastic job of juggling each story. I really enjoyed getting to know each character and I just enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.
Josh and Sophie were such a great fit for each other and I thought their love for each other came together wonderfully. Meeting Sophie, you wouldn’t have thought that she went through such a huge ordeal and came out on the other side whole. Her story was heart breaking and I couldn’t imagine going through something like that. Once you find out what her story was, everything about the way she lives her life makes so much sense and you hurt for her. The lengths that Josh went through to help Sophie was sweet. I teared up a little when their story wrapped up because Sophie was so deserving of a happy ending and I was glad with the way that her story ended.
As much as I enjoyed Sophie and Josh’s story, my favorite story of the bunch of was Riley and Tula’s. Seeing their struggles with life and finding out that there is so much more to Riley than meets the eye made for some great reading. I thoroughly enjoyed their story and getting to know their characters. I figured out Riley’s real deal almost from the beginning but it was still delightful to read about. I enjoyed Tula because she was the character that I connected with the most. I have the same struggles that she does and I saw a lot of myself in her character so I really liked her.
Dot and Laurence were another great addition to the story as a whole. Seeing them reconnect after so many years and watching Laurence try to be happy with the life that he has, even with all of the regrets that he carries around. I thought Mansell did a great job of showing his struggle with his feelings for Dot and still staying true to his love for the other woman.
The entire story was great. I like the way that Mansell tied the stories in with the title of the book. It was an enjoyable read all the way around.
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Sourcebooks Landmark. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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