Island in the Sun is a sweet and generally rather gentle story of Cass, a young woman charged by her father with travelling to Dominica to try and locate and photograph a petroglyph using a very old and hard to read map. In some ways it seems like rather an odd assignment for Cass but she has her father's friend, Ranulph, accompanying her and taking care of her. She finds herself very attracted to Ranulph but isn't sure if he feels the same.

It's clear that Katie Fforde loves the island of Dominica and she describes the hurricane-hit island very well. I must admit that I would have preferred more of the remote Scottish island where Cass's father lives but that's just because I have a thing about remote Scottish islands. Cass has a bit of a time of it on Dominica as a horrid man called Austin is also looking for the petroglyph and is determined to make her life difficult.

I found Island in the Sun to be an easy and unchallenging read and I enjoyed following Cass's journeys to Scotland and Dominica. I feel it lacked the charm of some of Fforde's other books, for instance I absolutely adored her last book, One Enchanted Evening, but I still felt like I wanted to see what happened, whether Cass would find the petroglyph, whether her feelings for Ranulph would be reciprocated and if she would get her life together, stop drifting, and stand up for herself against some of her rather overbearing family members and do what she wanted to do. As I say, sweet and gentle, with some rugged and enticing landscapes, a dastardly villain, romance, and an arty feel to the storyline. ( )

This isn't my number one genre, but I do like to pepper my reading list with the occasional romance for all its clicheness, predictability, inevitable happy-ever-after ending and if I'm honest, the cheesiness of it all!

This ticks all those boxes, it's true. We have the girl (Cass), we have the (older) man (Ranulph), a lovely sunny (bit prone to hurricanes) island (Dominica), there's the ex, and then there are the misunderstandings. All the right ingredients and although the dish comes out cooked, it's all a bit bland, lacking in spice.

Cass is annoying to the point you want to slap her and tell her to grow up and get over herself. The rest of the characters are all a bit like cardboard cut-outs with no substance or emotion. The Dominican setting is authentic (which the author explains at the end) and almost makes you want to put the island on your must-see list, so job well done there.

But I did enjoy the author's writing, and I was invested enough to see it through to the end. It's an above-average-edited book, which is refreshing, although the author or the editor got in a bit of pickle with step-siblings and half-siblings…probably best to clarify themselves on that one.

Not a 'wow, amazing' book, but a decent enough read. ( )