Could one chance meeting change your life forever?
Zara is at a crossroads in life. While she adores her job as a producer's assistant working on hit TV shows, travelling around the country means she doesn't truly feel that she has a home. With a fractured relationship with her family and unrequited love weighing heavily on her heart, she is torn about what her next step in life should be...
Snowy is hiding from the world. He's devoted his life to home schooling his young son and caring for sick owls at his home, Owl's Lodge, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds countryside. While he's passionate about both, it's a lonely existence and he's starting to question his decisions. But how do you step back into a world you've pushed away for years...?
When Zara brings an injured owl to Owl's Lodge, its frosty, reclusive owner is far from welcoming. Despite hostilities, there's a connection that neither could ever have prepared themselves for. As they discover a shared passion, a new friendship blossoms, but both Zara and Snowy are used to shutting people out.
Can they both find the courage to open up and the strength to move on from their pasts? And what could this mean for their future happiness?
Review: This book is the second in the Bumblebee Barn collection, stories set in the Yorkshire Wolds. It contains many characters and locations that will be familiar to readers of Jessica Redland’s books, not only in this series, but also in her Hedgehog Hollow collection. It was good to be meeting up with them again, but not a problem for those who have not read any of the previous books, who will be able to enjoy this one as a standalone. This book has a lovely, colourful cover which gives a clue to the type of animals the reader might meet within.
The story centres in on Zara, personal assistant to her TV producer friend, Amber. Although she loves her job, she has a troubled relationship with her family who make her wonder whether she should be looking for more out of life. As part of her job, Zara meets up with single dad Snowy, who has a sanctuary for sick and injured owls at his home, Owl’s Lodge. As well as being passionate about owls and nature in general, Snowy is home schooling his 9-year-old son, Harrison, with the help of his grandad. Due to events in his past, Snowy is reclusive, but he realises that some day in the not too distant future he will have to introduce Harrison to the real world and return to his former existence himself. When he first meets Zara, he appears very standoffish and rather formidable, but there is a spark of something else there as well. When they discover a shared interest from their past lives, they gradually become friends and the full story of events that have shaped the way they are now begins to emerge. As they draw strength from each other, it seems that Zara and Snowy may overcome the obstacles that have held them back in the past.
I have enjoyed catching up with Zara and her friends in this book, as well as learning a lot about owls, birds that have always fascinated me. It took me quite a way into the story before I began to warm to Snowy. It was quite heartbreaking to learn of his past, as indeed it was to learn the full extent of Zara’s difficult childhood. The story touches on some difficult subjects, including alcoholism and mental health problems. I admired the way that Snowy cared for his son, but was anxious how Harrison would react to emerging from his sheltered existence into the real world, even knowing the reasons behind Snowy’s decisions. Owl’s Lodge itself sounded a wonderful place to live, with its luxurious house and seemingly endless grounds teeming with wildlife. The author has very kindly concluded the book with a fact file about the five species of owl that breed in the UK. I am already hoping that there will be another book in this series and wondering who will take centre stage next time.
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