The perfect summer escape. No better summer feeling than in the pages of a debbie Johnson book. There's enough happiness in this book to warm up even the coldest days

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a cozy, charming, delightful book!

This is such a wonderful, heartwarming and gorgeous read. It is part 3 in the Starshine Cove series, although it can be read as a standalone novel. I suggest that you read the first 2 books though, as it is such a fantastic series.
This book features Lucy and Josh, and Lucy's daughter Rose. They are all new characters who are attending Ella's wedding in Starshine Cove. We also catch up with the characters from the previous books as the whole village preparing for the wedding.
There are some difficult and hard hitting subjects in this book, but they are dealt with sensitively. Despite the difficult themes, the book still manages to have plenty of humour and feel-good moments. I really enjoyed reading this book and hope that there will be more visits to Starshine Cove.
Thank you to Netgalley and Storm Publishing for my ARC.

This is the first book I have read by this author and it will definitely not be the last. I initially thought that the story would be predictable but how wrong I was. The author gets to grips with some very uncomfortable issues and deals with them really sympathetically. Great characters and a wonderful ‘feel good’ feeling. Thoroughly recommended.

I enjoyed this story of Lucy Brown who finds love while attending her best friend’s wedding in star shine cove, after overcoming her trauma from an abusive relationship with her ex-husband . Lucy proves to herself and her daughter what strength and courage truly mean .

I really enjoyed being back at Starshine Cove, with lots of regular faces back to say hello. This story focused on Lucy and Josh, Lucy damaged by her previous husband meets Josh at the airport and makes up an exciting persona little does she know that she will meet Josh again. Lovely story of friendship, love and community spirit. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy

Really enjoyed this book. Perfect blend of romance, beautiful setting and a little drama!
I would say there are some trigger warnings around coercive control in relationships but it is handled with care.
I loved her well the 2 love interest characters communicated and didn't hide behind their worries or feelings.

I've been stuck in a reading slump and this was the book to get me out. I've read books 1 and 2 in the series and loved them, so I couldn't wait to read book 3.

Another adventure in Starshine Cove - this time with Laura and her daughter Rose. 10 years ago, Laura escaped her marriage and ran to hide in the Irish countryside. She's been invited to her friend Ella's wedding in Starshine Cove, where she'll see her friends for the first time in 15 years. Will her 2 week holiday prove she doesn't need to hide anymore, or will she run again when her past comes back to haunt her?

I love the magic of Starshine Cove - everyone is friendly and it seems that there's something exciting every day. This time it's Ella's wedding (her story is in book 1) but we see Cally and Alfie, Connie, George and all the characters from books 1 and 2.

Debbie Johnson doesn't shy away from difficult subjects (e.g the whole excellent Comfort Food Cafe series!) - this one is no different. This time covering a controlling marriage and subsequent anxiety/panic attacks. This story is really well written and engrossing. This feels well-researched and written sensitively, it's just part of the wider story rather than for novelty.

This book doesn't end as definitively as books 1 and 2, there's some ambiguity about Laura's future plans. I really hope there's a book 4 where we see that Laura's got the happy end she deserves.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

I want to go to Starshine Cove, it is magical!
This is the third book based in the wonderful village of Starshine Cove, I hope there will be many more. Debbie Johnson has a wonderful gift of creating characters that are very believable and you become very invested in their story and what the outcome will be. We are allowed into the lives of Lucy and her daughter Rose when the go to the village for a wedding. Lucy has had a complicated marriage and is now a single mum and she is very wary of people. So coming to this wedding has been a big milestone for her.
The author deals with the issues that Lucy and Lyssa have had deal with very sensitively and you do feel how anxious they are, but among the serious issues we do still have humour which is good.
The backdrop to this story is all the villagers we have met in the previous books, and now their stories are starting to intertwine with the newcomers - this is good as it gives the book depth. But you can read this as a standalone story, (you will want to read the others after!).
Roll on book 4.

I loved this return to Starshine Cove and as always am impatiently waiting for the next instalment. A heartwarming tale not afraid to tackle hard issues, this is a gem of a book.

What a lovely book this was. It's the kind of story that I would read over and over again! I didn't realise at first it was part of a series but I will now look for the other books, that's how much I loved it!
Lucy is a single mum, who is simply.. lost. It was a joy to see her character development throughout the book, the way the demons from her past came to light and how she was able to overcome her insecurities. This book offers a great depiction of female friendship that lasts and morphs through the years, something a lot of adult women can relate to, I am sure.
The story is not all rainbows and butterflies either, important topics like domestic abuse were treated in a very delicate yet powerful way.
I would 10/10 recommend this book and the Starshine Cove series overall!

Love, love and love some more. This book was fantastic, loved the plot line and the characters. I wanted to jump into the setting of this story.

Lucy has stayed in Ireland in a remote location after separating with her husband, her daughter lives with her. She’s invited to an old friends wedding back in Dorset and she’s looking forward to it, but also hesitant. A mix of love, friendship and looking out for each other. 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy.

Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

I’ve loved reading the previous books in this series.

In this book, we meet Lucy, she’s attending her friend Ella’s wedding. What she loves to do when at an airport is make up different stories about the other people there. So when she meets Josh, she makes up a story about herself, portraying herself in a better way to reality.

But when she is in Starshine Cove, the last thing she expected was to see Josh, who is also attending the same wedding. Lucy apologises and slowly they begin to get to know each other.

Lucy is still trying to work through her insecurities after her marriage to Robert ended who was abusive.

Will Starshine Cove work its magic, will her daughter, her old friends and the ones she’s made in the cove help her to begin her life again, more so when her ex-husbands wife gets in touch for help in moving away with her children, knowing it’s going to bring him back into her life?

The story covers some hard topics, but there was lots of funny moments and a sense of hope.

I recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A nice rom com with a bit of a twist, a recommended read.

Lucy Brown is sitting in an airport when a handsome man asked to sit beside her. Surprised, but agreeing, they began a conversation. Used to being quiet with little confidence, since her ex-husband had constantly belittled her during their marriage, Lucy decided to be a carefree, put together woman. After all, what could it possibly hurt?? She would never see this handsome stranger again. As Lucy regaled the stranger with her exploits and travels she began to enjoy herself. Something that she had not felt in years.
I hope you pickup this delightful book as you will be treated to a village of wonderful caring individuals of Starshine Cove. Friends with a need to help and to give before Lucy can even ask. But most of all, hope for long awaited happiness and a second chance at love. Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for an arc of this heartwarming book. This review is my honest opinion.

Lucy is travelling from her home in Ireland to reconnect with old university friends in the delightfully named Starshine Cove. At Dublin airport a chance encounter and a flirtatious conversation with a a handsome stranger sets the basis for an engaging and charming story.

Lucy is a single mum with a 16 year old daughter and had become estranged from her friends through a controlling husband. She left him 10 years earlier but still suffers anxiety from the experience. Her story unravels throughout the book as she meets and is welcomed by the villagers at Starshine Cove. New friendships are made and opportunities for exciting futures are created.

The characters are well developed and the detail of Starshine Cove and surrounding area is beautifully described giving it a real sense of place. Lucy’s challenges around moving on from her past and overcoming her insecurities are sympathetically dealt with. Also, her empathy with her ex husband’s wife is a strong element of the story.

A thoroughly enjoyable story. I’ve just found out that there are two earlier books in this series and I’m looking forward to reading those.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Finding Hope in Starshine Cove is a contemporary romance novel following Lucy, a forty-year-old single mother still healing from her abusive relationship with her former husband. When Lucy’s friend gets engaged, Lucy heads to Starshine Cove in the UK for the wedding when she meets Josh and claims she’s flying to New York instead, with the assumption that she is never going to see him again. Before the wedding, she meets the groom’s brother aka Josh.

The first third of the novel is Lucy reconnecting with her friends Ella, Priya, and Katie, while trying to strengthen her relationship with her daughter, Rose. The romance plays a smaller role to the female friendships and is used to explore certain parts of Lucy’s personality, particularly her compulsive lying. We also get a glimpse into her relationship with Lyssa, the woman who married Lucy’s ex-husband and their strained relationship despite Lucy trying to reach out.

After Josh and Lucy reunite, Lucy apologizes for lying to him and the two start a whirlwind relationship as they help Lyssa and her children flee from her husband. What I liked about how these two tied together was in how it showed Josh’s willingness to help others, including complete strangers, and gave Lucy a chance to further grow as a person and take back her life from her abusive ex.

Content warning for depictions of emotional and verbal abuse.

I would recommend this to readers looking for a contemporary romance with middle aged leads, fans of small town contemporary romances, and those looking for protagonists moving on from abusive relationships and finding love.

Lucy Brown has been hiding from the world for years, ever since she left her controlling husband. However, a visit to the magical Starshine Cove for her best friend’s wedding changes will be transformative.
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This was a really lovely book full of interesting, well fleshed out characters set in a special place that was came alive on the page, so much that I felt I was there and I yearned to go and visit it for myself. I was so sorry to finish the book and would love to see more books set there. In addition, the novel highlighted the important issue of coercive control and the damage it can do to partners and their families, without trivialising the subject, or making it seem contrived. If only one person recognises the signs and escapes the damage it is causing, highlighting the subject in this delightful book will have been worth it.

I am loving Starshine Cove so much, it really is a great place to be, and I think I would love to live their myself, if only it wasn't so hard to find, and that it wasn't fictional!

This time we are introduced to another newcomer to the cover Lucy, who is only there for Ella's wedding. Well unless the cove's innate charms rub off on her. But what she wasn't expecting was to bump into the man she had been flirting with at the airport, but using a false name!

Once again the community in Starshine Cove has blown me away, especially how close knit and special everyone seems to be.

It was great catching up with Ella again, but rest assured this could easily work as a standalone story.

It's just such an enjoyable story that I had a wonderful time reading. I am already hoping for another book in this series!

Thank you to Storm and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Reading any book in Debbie Johnson’s Starshine Cove series is like being wrapped up in a warm hug. It’s a magical place by the sea full of handmade, decorative fairies and a group of kind-hearted villagers who are like real fairy godmothers, coming together to support and protect the people they care about, even if they’re only visiting.

In this third installment, we are introduced to Lucy when she serendipitously meets Josh at the Dublin airport on her way to her college friend Ella’s wedding. (Ella and Jake are the couple from Book 1, Escape to Starshine Cove.) One of the things she loves to do while waiting for her flight is imagine scenarios for the people around her, so it’s little surprise that, when she meets the handsome Josh, she pretends to be the worldly, put-together security consultant Amelia on her way to New York, not plain old Lucy heading to Dorset by way of London. What she doesn’t expect is that Josh will be attending the same wedding. After an initial embarrassing and angry encounter (Josh hates liars), she apologizes, and they start to get to know each other.

Although just about everybody approaching their forties carries baggage, Lucy’s first marriage to the verbally and emotionally abusive Robert has left her with lingering trauma and insecurities a decade later. However, Starshine Cove has a way of casting a spell on the people who visit and are in need of a do-over. Will Lucy, with the support of her 16-year-old daughter Rose (who wants to move there permanently) and her old and newfound friends, be able to leave the safety of her isolated Irish home and find the courage to start over, especially after his 2nd wife reaches out to her on the day of the wedding, asking for her help in escaping with her children, thus putting her in Robert’s sights again?

Finding Hope in Starshine Cove can be read as a standalone, but there are many characters from the first two books who feature prominently, and knowing their back stories enhances the experience of reading this one. Although there is a closed-door, slow burn romance between Lucy and Josh, much of the focus is also on both Lucy’s friendship with her 3 college friends she lost touch with (thanks to Robert’s narcissistic abusive tactics), and the effects of that abuse on both Lucy and Lyssa, the second wife. Just reading about it caused my heart to start racing, so it’s definitely a trigger warning for those who’ve been in abusive relationships. Despite this, there is much humor, light-heartedness and hope for the future. Highly recommended!

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Storm Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.