A Taste Of Love

An outsider comes to the Cotswolds to make ice cream, sell chocolate, and steal the village sweetheart's hand.

Ellie Knap is suffering from a broken heart. London has failed her in love, work, and play. She is suffering from terrible migraines, her sometimes lover will not take “no” for an answer, and her job has made her sick. She takes her sister Red's advice and moves to the country and for six months her only company is sheep while a manager handles her new chocolate store in Cotswolds. When the local tailor shop goes up for sale, Ellie decides now is the time to live her dreams of making ice cream and buys the shop. First item on the list? Run over the local sweetheart Natalie Hill.

Natalie Hill has met outsiders before coming into the village, buying businesses, then leaving six months later. She had even lost her heart to one before, but never again. She is concentrating on her village and expanding her gin business, which just happens to be right next door to the new ice cream shop. Natalie cannot deny the sparks Ellie inspires within her. This does not mean she has to taste the ice cream.

A Taste of Love (2019) the second in “The Village Romance” trilogy by Clare Lydon was a joy to read. It is fun, light, and filled with romance. Natalie and Ellie are women who have been hurt before and do not want to be hurt again. Life is busy and they are both trying to succeed in business. They make a conscious choice whether to get involved and take a chance and get hurt. Lydon treats this relationship as all relationships should be treated: as two adult women making a decision to get involved.

This does not take anything away from the romance. I was thinking about their first kiss as much as they were. I have to say that I have never in all of my years of reading had a first kiss like Lydon wrote in my life and there is nothing like it. (laugh) Thank you Ms. Lydon, you never forget your first real kiss and Ms. Lydon gave it to me on a bridge in the moonlight. As much as their minds are involved, so are Natalie and Ellie's hearts. This is a romance that makes you wish that you had a bridge in your town to wait for your Ellie to come knock you off.