Sunshine over Wildflower Cottage by Milly Johnson

New beginnings, old secrets, and a place to call home: the new novel from top five bestseller Milly Johnson
Viv arrives at Wildflower Cottage, a tumbledown animal sanctuary, for the summer. Her job is to help with the admin, but the truth is she is here for something much closer to her heart…
Geraldine runs the Wildflower Cottage sanctuary. She escaped from her past to find happiness here, but now her place of refuge is about to come under threat. Can she keep her history at bay and her future safe?
Back home, Viv’s mother Stel thinks she might have found a man who will treat her right for once. Ian is kind, considerate, and clearly head over heels for her. That’s what she has wanted all along, isn’t it...?

Escape to Wildflower Cottage this summer for love, laughter and friendship…

Title:        Sunshine over Wildflower Cottage
Author:    Milly Johnson
Published By: Simon & Schuster
Date:        June 16th 2016
Link:        UK: Amazon  US: Amazon

My Review

Well what can I say, Milly Johnson is one of my all time favourite authors and once again this book has exceeded my already high expectations of a Milly book.

It was utterly brilliant, a sheer indulgence, it was filled as always with Milly's northern wit and humour which will make you laugh out loud but also includes such tender moments between friends and families that will really pull on your heartstrings. This book had some really quite dark scenes in it which will make you so angry you will want to spit but sadly that just makes it even more real because unfortunately in this world there are some very hateful controlling people and I really admire Milly for not shying away from this subject and telling it exactly how it is.

One of the skills that Milly has is how she is able to use observational comedy in her writing especially in the relationships between women of all ages but I have to say the scenes with the menopausal women were hilarious especially when they start sharing the fans. I think that all Milly's characters have traits that we see in the women around us in our everyday lives and that's why we are immediately drawn to them because they are real women of different ages and all different shapes and sizes and we can relate to them.

So about the story, our main heroine Viv is a young girl who takes on a job in an animal sanctuary called Wildflower Cottage, even though she is actually terrified of animals. Whilst there she meets Geraldine who shows her the ropes and as it turns out has needed a sanctuary herself. She also meets moody but very handsome Vet Heath Merlo, who is not in the least bit impressed with her and is too busy trying to save Wildflower Cottage from ruthless landowner Nicholas Leighton. Heath is very suspicious of Viv as he can't understand why she would want to work for such little money, Viv has to remain secretive about the reason why she is really there and finds herself abandoning her admin role and having to get used to the animals when one of the staff members becomes temporarily incapacitated.

Watching the relationships blossom between the animals and the people at Wildflower Cottage was really lovely and involved such a lot of trust and I know that Milly did lots of research and was able to meet birds of prey and I think that really shone through in the descriptions of the birds.

I thought the book was balanced really well between Viv's new life at the sanctuary and then what her mum and friends got up to back home. I could really feel the bond between Viv and her mum Stel and felt so sad for Stel when she was trying to hide things from Viv as Viv was more like the parent.

All in all this book tore me up because I was conflicted with the fact that I wanted to devour it and savour it at the same time. I devoured it!

Milly's writing has a magical and ethereal quality about it which I find irresistible and addictive, there is always so much going on that you would never ever feel short changed by her, she is a very generous and giving author with a huge heart.

I thoroughly recommend this book and if you've never read a Milly book before then I promise that once you've read one you will want to read them all. I now can't wait for the next one.

Thank you to Milly and for the Books and the City Team at Simon & Schuster for this advanced copy. I feel very privileged to be part of the amazing #Teammilly

If you would like to read our review of Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café then please click here
Please buy Milly's short story The Barn on Half Moon Hill as all proceeds are to go to a very special cause close to her heart.

Would you like to treat a loved one? From next week Milly has some personalised Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage gift packages which include a signed book and lots of goodies, click here for more information.

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Milly Johnson was born, raised and still lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. As well as being an author of 12 published novels, 2 short story books and 2 novellas, she is also a copywriter for the greetings card industry, a joke-writer, a columnist, after dinner speaker, poet, BBC newspaper reviewer, and a sometimes BBC radio presenter.

She won the RoNA for Best Romantic Comedy Novel of 2014 and 2016 and the Yorkshire Society award for Arts and Culture 2015.


She writes about love, life, friendships and that little bit of the magic that sometimes crops up in real life. She likes owls, hawks, eagles, vultures and meringues but hates marzipan. She is very short.


Milly's website is www.millyjohnson.co.uk. She is on Twitter @millyjohnson and FB www.facebook.com/milly.johnson1