Book Review by Pat Allchorne: The Stationmaster's Cottage by Phillipa Nefri Clark
Christie has a fairly hectic lifestyle; a job which involves her travelling all over the world as a specialist make-up artist to the stars, a fiance who doesn’t see as much of her as he’d like to. She enjoys her job, but an element of guilt creeps in that she isn’t at home as much as Derek, her fiance, would like, despite the fact that he knew what her job involved when they got together.
When Christie’s grandmother, whom she hasn’t seen in years, dies and leaves her a rundown old cottage by the sea, Christie has major decisions to make. Her grandmother’s servant, Angus, turns up to tell her of her grandmother’s death as she is about to leave for a much-needed 6-day break with Derek, she intends to delay her holiday by a day to go to the funeral – something Derek finds it hard to fathom given the distance between grandmother granddaughter over the years.
Once at the cottage, Christie makes discoveries which necessitate her deciding whether to leave after the funeral or stay and try to solve the mysteries which keep cropping up. The story flits between the late 1960s present day, as she tries to piece together the clues which she finds. A photo album and a painting are just the start; in the attic, she finds a shoebox containing a bundle of unopened letters a box with an engagement ring a wedding ring.
As she is drawn more and more into finding out the story behind these things, the distance between herself and Derek grows wider. He is unsympathetic to her need to discover the past, why a run-down old cottage has a lure that her normal lifestyle seems not to have any more. To add to the mix is Martin, the taciturn young man she first comes across in the graveyard. As Christie uncovers more of the past, it seems he is connected to it to her family in a way she cannot fathom.
As she opens and reads the letters found in the shoebox, sent from someone named Thomas to Martha, her great-aunt, she cannot understand how Martha could leave a man who so obviously loved her without reservation. Why were the letters never opened? Why did Thomas end up marrying someone else? And why did Derek not love her in that same uncompromising way? Why was he so critical of her decisions, instead of supporting her wishes? Can she stop comparing how the reticent Martin treats her with the way Derek does?
Phillipa loves happy endings, so, of course, we have one in this book, but the path to it is convoluted and tortuous, as the magnetic pull of the past draws Christie into the point where she cannot leave the questions unanswered.
Christie is happy in her life... or so she tells herself. Despite a tragic childhood, she has built a satisfying career and loves her city apartment. But deep down she yearns for a simpler life. Family. A garden. And a place to heal her heart.
The decision to attend a funeral in a town she's never heard of throws her safe world into disarray, exposing the cracks in her life. As she deals with the fallout, Christie moves into a rundown cottage she's inherited and there, makes a discovery.
Fifty years ago, a heartbroken young artist waited each dawn on a jetty for his true love to return. And each night, he wrote her a love letter.
What Christie uncovers will change her life forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | WEBSITE
Phillipa lives just outside a beautiful town in country Victoria, Australia. She also lives in the many worlds of her imagination and stockpiles stories beside her laptop.
She writes from the heart about love, dreams, secrets, discovery, the sea, the world as she knows it… or wishes it could be. She loves happy endings, heart-pounding suspense, and characters who stay with you long after the final page.
With a passion for music, the ocean, nature, reading, and writing, she is often found in the vegetable garden pondering a new story.
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