Cornish Stranger

A Cornish Stranger is a book written by Liz Fenwick, has 292 pages and 19 chapters. It is a story about bond between Jaunty and her granddaughter Gabe and their secrets.

To be honest I was disappointed reading this book, the story is written beautifully and many details are given to surrounding, the water and even the revealing secrets but the major fact was the characters didn’t speak much.

‘Spoiler Alert’

The story begins with Gabriella (Gabe) going to stay with her Grandmother as she was becoming weak with her growing age and she knew that her end was near. Gabe is an amazing singer but due to some incident she stops singing and now composes music for advertisements.

She tries to make each of their moment together count and one day there is heavy storm and she sees a man drowning and without thinking much Gabe rescues him. The name of the stranger is Fin, Jaunty has a special liking towards Fin and allows him to stay in her studio which she used while she was an artist, Gabe is defensive about the stranger but later on falls in love with him.

Jaunty has many secrets in her life and suddenly she has the urge to tell it to the whole world and starts writing it down and as her days comes near, she tells Fin about it and makes him promise to give her written notes to Gabe after she dies.

The shocking revelations of her past makes Gabe shaken and midst the funeral word gets out that Jaunty was a fraud artist Fin helps her during this and finally they end up happily.

I don’t have any favourite characters in the entire book, as I was getting frustrated reading it, wishing that they would talk but they didn’t. Gabe saw Jaunty writing but never asked what it was nor Jaunty wished to tell her then why did she write it down to be revealed only after her death?

Most frustrating part was both of them trusted Fin more than they trusted each other. They could talk with Fin about things that they had difficulty to speak about, they were surprised with themselves but I felt real sad knowing that they valued a stranger over their own blood relative.

Jaunty’s character is complex, she is charming, kind-hearted, amusing but the major factor was she was too selfish. Being a war widow and single mother had been difficult for her, but she had wronged every person she was close to, her friends, family, lover, husband. Surviving during the war was difficult but all she did to survive was distasteful. Jean’s death was not her fault but everything after I felt it was her fault and not telling Gabe but Fin. Till the end of the novel I felt Fin was not a good person and in every turn I believed he would do something bad he did but that too had Jaunty behind it.

All in all I felt that Jaunty never loved Gabe nor trusted her but the guilt of all her lies and crimes came flashing back to her as her time was near so she wanted the world to know what kind of woman she was but since she was coward she decided to reveal after she died.

I have mixed feelings for this book, it’s written good and so many secrets are there but I wish I hadn’t read it. The only fact that I hate the most is characters not talking to each other about important stuff, except that part this book is for a good read.