☘️☘️☘️ ½
One Night on the Island 2/12
Josie Silver
Ballantine
368 pages
Charming, atmospheric, warm. This is a cozy read about learning to love yourself so that you can accept the love of someone else.
As Cleo approaches her 30th birthday, she finds herself flailing and buried underneath expectations. Mack’s life has gone a bit wayward and in a direction he never expected or wanted. Both come to Salvation looking for solitude. But that’s not what either gets upon realization that they are mistakenly double booked in the only available cabin on the isolated island.
The story started off a bit slowly, especially because of my intense initial frustration with Cleo. But as the chalk lines were drawn and the residents of Salvation became more familiar, I found myself engaged and invested.
I enjoyed how Cleo and Mack slowly let down their defenses and became friends. I especially enjoyed how the chemistry built until it combusted into exactly what I longed for. But most of all, I loved that the focus was always on self-discovery rather than getting lost in another person.
While Cleo and Mack are the main characters, its Salvation and it’s residents that are the real stars. The quirky and endearing residents made me long to grab my knitting needles and gossip or share a pot roast dinner and pint at the pub. And the island itself had an ethereal nature that made me long to journey there, even in the worst of storms.
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