Author: Sandy Taylor
Started: August 10, 2022
Finished: August 15, 2022
Mary Kate Ryan was abandoned by her mother when she was small and she was cared for by her grandparents. Before her grandfather passes, he gives her two things to do: get a postal address and buy a new diary in which to write about her red letter days as well as her hard days. After her grandfather passes away, Mary Kate is no longer able to stay in her family home and heads to Dublin to start a new life. In Dublin, she moves from terrible boarding house to terrible boarding house unsure of how to make her way in the world. One day, thanks to the postal box she has established, she is contacted by a solicitor who asks her to visit as he has something important to tell her. When she arrives, she is given the surprise of a lifetime - she is now a wealthy woman due to the money left to her when her mother dies. Mary Kate decides to use that money to open a boarding house for single women that she hopes will feel like a home. As she gets to know her boarders, she realizes that she has finally found the family she was looking for.
I have never seen a boarding house more filled with intrigue and drama than this. It seems all of the renters have a secret to hide, a past they are running from or an issue that they need to overcome. There are far too many issues in this story for me to have enjoyed it. While everything is tied up nicely with a bow at the end, it felt as if some of the individual stories were short-changed in the telling. I have read a previous Sandy Taylor novel and enjoyed it so I am hoping that my feelings on this story are just a one-time thing.