Having enjoyed Brigg's series A Wedding in Cornwall, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to read her new book which is the first in a new series.

A Little Hotel in Cornwall is written in the first person from the point of view of Maisie Clark, an American student and part-time waitress. Maisie wants to be a novelist, and when she finds she does not have a published author to mentor her for a prestigious writing programme, she writes to her favourite novelist Alistair Davies, asking him to mentor her.

She receives a reply on hotel note paper, declining her request. Undeterred, she travels to the Penmarrow Hotel in Cornwall in hopes of finding Alistair Davies, and persuading him to mentor her.

Here, she is mistaken for someone else, and ends up living and working under an assumed name. While this solves some immediate problems by providing her with lodgings and an income, it can only complicate matters further along the line. Especially as there appears to be a new love interest on the horizon... and a former boyfriend staying in the hotel!

The characters all seem charming and likeable at the minute; even Riley and Gomez who appear quite roguish when we first meet them. Also the stern Mr Trelawney shows he has a softer side when he talks to Maisie about her continued employment.

A Little Hotel in Cornwall is a short story which sets the scene for future instalments. The story ends with Maisie making decisions for her future, which will obviously be the basis for the next in the series.

I found this to be a quick easy read and look forward to reading the next one in this series. ( )

I've been wanting to read one of Laura Briggs' Cornwall novellas for ages but I didn't want to start part way through the series. Well, no such problem here as this is the first in a brand new series of Cornwall stories.

A Little Hotel in Cornwall starts in the US with Maisie Clark. She's a budding writer but needs a mentor to get her onto a writing programme and she doesn't have one. She contacts her favourite author, the reclusive Alistair Davies, to see if he can help and despite him saying no, she decides to travel to Cornwall, to the hotel whose notepaper Davies wrote to her on.

It's all a little fanciful I suppose, but it makes for a delightful story as Maisie reaches the hotel (which sounds absolutely gorgeous), ends up working there, and makes a few friends. All this in the space of 120 pages!

It's certainly a quick read, but packed with action. There's possible romance, misunderstandings, moonlit swimming in the sea and lots more Cornish loveliness. I was rather taken aback by the ending as I felt sure it would go one of two ways and it went neither, but when I looked at the blurb for the next novella in this series (A Spirited Girl on Cornish Shores) I realised that it follows straight on from this one and so I guess the author decided to leave the reader hanging on for more. I'm certainly intrigued now.

If you like light-hearted romance stories and are after a fairly quick read then look no further as this is perfect. ( )