The Beach Hut

I don't normally like sad stories, but this one is excellent. It's not something i would normally choose but I'm glad i did.Original and surprising and very well written. One of the best books I've read this year.

Is there a spot more beautiful, more wild, than the Cornish coast? Finn and his sister Ava don’t think so, and they are fulfilling a childhood dream by building a beach hut (illegally) so they can spend time together before Ava embarks on a world tour. Donald, owner of the local pub just wants them both gone, there are too many memories of his dead wife and he just wants to raise his daughter Alicia, quietly and safely. But Alicia has no intention of being safe or quiet, she has dark secrets of her own and before the winter sets in, these characters will face a showdown as all their secrets are revealed. Beautiful scenery and compelling characters made this a stand out read for me

This a great book and quite unexpectedly different plot. The story starts with Ava and Finn, sister and brother, on the beach in Cornwall in their childhood. Finn nearly drowns and Ava rescues him. Their parents don't even notice so Ava is determined to always look after her brother no matter what. We then meet Donald and his 15 year old daughter Alicia who, in the present day, live in the same beach town in Cornwall. Ava and Finn turn up, now middle aged, in a hippy camper van. The story moves back and forth seemlessly between the lives of Finn and Ava, and Donald and Alicia, and also between ordinary narrative and the fairy tales that Finn writes for a living. The fairly tales seem whimsical at first but then become more revealing and dark. This is paralleled in the back story of all the characters. Everyone has a secret dark side and nothing seems to be what it appears on the surface to be. This book is very cleverly written and the weaving of the tale is beautifully done. I was completely enthralled by this book and would recommend it to all those who want a bit more depth to their reading. It is not a classic beach read despite the title!

This was a sweet brother and sister story with a beautiful beach setting. All Ava and Finn want is their little beach hut, one last hoorah together before she leavs to travel places far and wide. Their tragic past stole much of their childhood, this is their last chance to claim some of it back. The obstacle in their plan is Donald and maybe the law. He just wants peace and something about these two spoiled beach bums gets under his skin. Donald too suffered great loss, but approaches they will all tangle and will the hut remain standing? Very sweet and sad. I think many young adults would like it as well.

What an absolutely amazing wonderful book this is. Set in Cornwall, one of my favorite destinations. There was fun, tears, intrigue,bewilderment and many more emotions in this book. A definite page turner with some "open mouth" moments. I'd never heard of this author until now and she is now on my "Favourite" list

I found this book intriguing, amd left me wanting to find out more about the characters pasts. I feel there is room for a prequel. The story follows Ava and Finn from their childhood through to adulthood where they decide to live in a beach hut on a beach they frequented whilst on childhood holidays. They meet up with a local father and daughter Mike and Alicia. Mike isn't too happy with the new visitors yet Alicia is drawn to Ava much to Mikes disliking. I

An enjoyable story which brings an unusual mix of people together. The Cornish coast is a wonderfully wild and basic place, an appropriate place to reconsider where one's life is going. All of the main characters are faced with the need to reassess their lives and their coming together creates a chain reaction which changes everything, and gives a new understanding of what love is.

Brother and sister Ava and Finn decide to build a beach hut on a Cornish beach so that they can spend some time together before Ava goes off on a round the world trip. There is great opposition to this from the local pub landlord Donald who is trying to live quietly with his daughter Alicia following the death of his wife.

As the four lives become intertwined secrets from the past begin to emerge and there are some real bombshells it is an amazing book, beautifully written and one that i would definitely recommend as a must read

A beautifully written tale that intertwines Donald and his daughter Alicia with madcap Finn and Ava. All the characters have their secrets, and this, interspersed with fairy tales, gives a darker and more mysterious edge to the book than you would expect at first glance. Many aspects are hinted at and not fully explored, which adds to the ethereal and magical feel to the book. Unexpectedly deep, the book draws you in and the last chapter had me in tears. A real gem of a book. Highly recommended.

I thought this was a very enjoyable book. The characters were interesting and well developed. I started it, thinking it was going to be fairly standard chick lit, but it was so much more. The story was nicely linked across the time periods and the characters were believable and real. The different strands were treated without mawkishness. I would thoroughly recommend this book.

Ava and Finn have only ever had each other. For her whole life, Ava has watched out for her little brother Finn and in return, he's always kept her happy and been there when she needs him. Now, the siblings have returned to a childhood holiday beach to live in a tiny beach hut for a few months. Accidentally, they end up annoying Donald and entrancing Donald's daughter Alicia. As all their lives intermingle, secrets unravel and families fall apart and are sewn back together.

I really enjoyed this book. From the get go, Ava and Finn's relationship was so beautiful. I haven't read about such a strong relationship in quite a while and I think, as a big sister myself, I really connected with Ava and her overwhelming desire to keep her brother safe from any harm. This trait in Ava follows them into adulthood and even when they're living on the beach, Ava still thinks of Finn and how she can protect him. While we didn't get a really in-dept look at Ava, I still felt like I knew her and she was a very likeable character, as was Finn. Finn was one of the characters that's larger than life. He almost seemed liked a changeling child, full of stories and magic.

Finn's fairy tales are interspersed among the ordinary chapters in this book and I thought they were so beautiful, and in some way they related to the characters of the story and what was going on or had happened in their life.

I didn't much care for Donald and Alicia. I much preferred Finn and Ava's story, and I just wasnt bothered with Donald's back story. It wasn't as exciting and even with the twist bit, I was surprised but I still wanted to go back to the siblings. I would have liked a bit more of a conclusion to Alicia's situation as it was interesting and I feel like some kind of repercussions for those involved would have been good to see.

This book was a nice way to say a fond farewell to summer and now autumn until next year. It has a mix of summer and autumn feelings in it, and is just a great story of family sticking together and holding each other up through thick and thin.

July 27, 2015


Oh but I’ve been a terrible blogger this month. Terrible. I’m not going to make any excuses because that would be totally pretending people actually give a shit, which you know, it’s just a blog and I’m pretty sure nobody does. I am however going to spend a quick few minutes right now talking at you about a book I read a couple of weeks ago that I totally should have already reviewed and haven’t because I’m terrible.
I don’t mean to be terrible, obvs. Sometimes you just need to switch off your brain and watch Pretty Little Liars and rewatch House and do a happy dance over all the Klaine in season 6 of Glee, you know? (always such a sucker for the pretty boys in love.) I’ve been all about the television in July. I blame Netflix really, it’s just too easy to watch episode after episode after episode. I wonder how many collective hours have been lost to binge-watching since Netflix became a thing? It’s a thing both terrible and fabulous.



I haven’t just laid in my bed watching American tv shows and stagnating though, I promise. There’s also been house-hunting (both terrifying and exciting) and weddings (beautiful, with books as favours, books as favours) and birthdays (always fun times) and all manner of other fun stuff. We hired out a beach hut for my Mum’s 60th the weekend before last which was all kinds of glorious and segues quite nicely into the whole actual point of this post.




Which is this rather excellent book that people really ought to be reading.

It’s called The Beach Hut (I know, and I didn’t even do that intentionally. SERENDIPITY) and it’s by the marvellous Cassandra Parkin who wrote The Summer We All Ran Away which I read and loved last year. First things first, you can get hold of a copy of The Beach Hut right now, and you should because it’s really really good. Really good.




S’about a brother and sister, Finn and Ava, who build an (illegal?) beach hut on the Cornish coast, much to the chagrin of the landlord of the local pub, Donald. Finn and Ava have this backstory that makes your heart hurt, Donald’s a bit messed up –his wife has died and he’s really not at all sure how to handle his teenage daughter, and she in turn has stuff of her own going on – it’s a book about life I think, really and the whole thing is actually kind of beautiful.

In a similar way to The Summer We All Ran Away (again, grab a copy because holy smokes so good), The Beach Hut moves between the past and present pretty much chapter by chapter. I loved this with The Summer We All Ran Away and I love it again here. It’s quite a popular narrative device at the moment it seems, the split timeline. I am reading so many books that tell me what’s going on via then and now. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. This is one of those times that it absolutely does. It also moves really seamlessly between the viewpoint of this character and that and lets be real here, all these different voices and all these different times and all these threads to all these stories. It could quite easily have been a shitstorm. It’s not though, it works, and it works really really well.

Also also, Cassandra Parkin has a knack for creating a cast of characters that you believe in and relate to and really freaking care about. I mean, it, the people in this book, I just love them so damn hard. Finn, I think, is the one I love the most, with his attitude and his all-encompassing love for his sister and his sense of adventure and his book of fairytales. I would like him to be my boyfriend. WHOOPS DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD? Also, Alicia: Cassandra Parkin is absolutely bang on with her portrayal of mixed up teenage girl who wants to be simultaneously child and adult and her relationship with her Dad is just so bittersweet – that’s a relationship that I understand so well, the fragile one between father and daughter as daughter moves beyond ‘little girl’ and into something else entirely. I am grateful every day for the fact that my Dad and I got through that time (relatively) unscathed. It’s not just that relationship that’s so on point here though you know? The Beach Hut is a clever exploration of relationships and of love: sibling, familial, romantic and it draws you in and holds you as the story slowly unravels and HOLY SMOKES does it unravel. There’s some stuff going on here that will grab you like an undercurrent and throw you sideways. In a good way, not in a seawater in your face feel like your drowning kind of way. Maybe that was a bad metaphor; it sounded better in my head. Anyway. What I am trying to say is that there’s a sense of immediacy to Parkin’s writing which I absolutely adore; I can not get enough of her words and you know, I totally love it when a book grabs me and holds me like that, makes me feel like I’m in another place. That’s what this book does.


Fun fact that I also really love: I read that the beach that this book centres around is based on Perranporth in Cornwall. Yep, that totally makes me do a happy dance. I love Perranporth. I’ve spent many a happy hour on that beach, drinking rose lemonade and reading and there used to be a restaurant just off the beach called The Tin Fin that did the best calamari I ever tasted. I don’t think it’s there now which is a shame. Anyway, I digress. This is a gorgeous book, I loved it and I really can’t wait to see what Cassandra does next.