The Lemon Grove By Helen Walsh

The Lemon Grove’ is the latest book by Helen Walsh.

Each summer, Jenn and her husband Greg return to Deia, on Mallorca’s dramatic west coast. This year the arrival of Emma, Jenn’s stepdaughter, and her new boyfriend Nathan threatens to upset their equilibrium. Beautiful and reckless, Nathan stirs something unexpected in Jenn. As she is increasingly seduced by Nathan’s youth and the promise of passion, the line between desire and obsession begins to blur. What follows is a highly-charged liaison that puts lives and relationships in jeopardy. For Jenn, after this summer, nothing can ever be the same.

I started reading ‘The Lemon Grove’ on the day of its publication and my Twitter feed was filled with fellow reviewers and authors singing the book’s praise.

I loved the cover, it was wonderfully summery and had an Instagram style image of a woman sitting at a pool whilst a man swan underwater which looked so tempting that I dived straight in.

The story is seen in the third person of Jenn, a woman who is enjoying her holiday with her husband but their holiday bliss is disrupted when her teenage stepdaughter turns up with her new boyfriend Nathan, thus causing chaos not only in a literal sense but also in an emotional way as Jenn experiences an unwanted attraction to the teenage boy and finds herself battling feelings and scenarios that are out of her control.

Jenn as a lead character is an interesting one. Seemingly happy and content in her life, it is not until Nathan arrives on the scene that sparks a sudden resentment to her older husband and stroppy and spoilt teenage daughter. She begins to feel restless and a deep and bitter jealousy towards Emma who she already has a turbulent relationship with. Emma is quite a horrible character, a stereotypical only child, who enjoys nothing more than being in the spotlight at all times and is only nice when she wants something. Meanwhile Greg comes across as the weakest character of the book, regularly competing for Jenn and Emma’s attention, he views Nathan as immature and not as knowledgable as he makes out to be. Whilst Nathan just like Jenn is another interesting character, flicking from intense to vague, it was hard to know where either Jenn or Emma stood with him as he maintained a vague aloofness about him.

‘The Lemon Grove; was a surprising book for me, a hot and sordid story written against the backdrop of a hot island filled with sexual tension and heat, it was no wonder that people ran astray. The story was cleverly and sensuously written about lust and obsession and battles with unexpected emotions and morals. A sexy story from start to finish and with quite an unexpected ending leaves the reader lusting for more ‘The Lemon Grove’ is a must for holiday reading.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”1472212088″ target=”_blank” ]The Lemon Grove from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.