I don't get what everyone sees in this book. Marina is the most unsympathetic heroine I've ever read. She's all 'Gideon is a conceited betraying selfish swine who has done me wrong!' Um, let's see. He was never an ass to you. He didn't seduce you right off the bat. He spent months taking you out doing lovely date type things with you without putting a single move on you. He was jealous of you seeing another man but begged you to tell him what he'd done wrong and why you dropped him. He only made love to you after a year when you seemed to be attracted to him. He offered marriage as soon as he realized you were pregnant. He didn't, in fact, cheat on you. His only crime seems to have been not telling you he loved you soon enough.

You on the other hand stopped seeing him without any explanation. Fair enough you were trying not to get hurt by this worldly man. But when he asked you why you'd broken things off, even though you knew he was jealous of Paul, you never had the balls to say 'so what's with you and Diana? I don't think you should be seeing both of us'. Keeping in mind that you weren't in an intimate relationship, you weren't even in a kissing relationship and exclusivity had not been in any way promised. I blame you for not saying I don't want to be just another babe on your hook so it's either just us two or no thanks. Then of course once you've recovered your mind, don't even give him a chance to explain, just keep hammering home the fact that he's a louse. When finally he gets a few words in edgewise and explains all and tells you over and over that he loves you and hasn't even seen another woman since you hooked up much less slept with one. You don't believe him. He's still a criminal. WTF? He should have just left you the first time you told him to get out. He can do better than you, you cold unfeeling selfish piece of work. ( )

Gideon Firth sees a young girl on the edge of a cliff and thinks she is ready to jump off. He rushes to rescue her but he is mistaken. She (Marina) tells him that she is just out for a walk on the cliffs near her home in Basslea. Gideon says he is on holiday and he needs a place to stay. He eventually ends up staying with Marina and her grandfather at their cottage.

Marina feels that Gideon and her grandfather know each other, and that they have some secret between them. But Marina has never seen Gideon before, or has she?

Marina was a childlike and naive heroine until later in the book after some revelations are made about the past. Then I felt that Marina was hanging onto her anger towards Gideon longer than she had to. Gideon was a very jealous hero, which I always enjoy. But he was also self-absorbed and concerned mostly about himself, even though he did care for Marina and stayed around at the end to prove it. (He had a suffocating relationship with his demanding mother who wanted him to be a pianist and that relationship spoiled his outlook on women in general. So, though he wanted Marina and pursued her, he didn't want to get too attached to her or to any woman. But he found he couldn't resist Marina.)

An enjoyable and intense read by Charlotte Lamb with a lovely setting, the cottage by the sea. ( )