Exile

LoveReading Says

The exile of Eve Ainsworth’s effortlessly gripping Exile is Stevie, a young working-class journalist who returns to her hometown when her dad falls ill. Three years have passed since she jilted Harry, her privileged fiancé, at the altar and fled to New York, leaving tongues wagging as to why she left. While she’s here to be with her dad, suggestive seeds about another reason for her return are sown early on, planting the path for a suspenseful story that gradually reveals why Stevie left, and why she’s back, through a second-chance romance that explores the exploitative power of rich men.

Like the villagers and Harry, readers will be desperate to find out why Stevie dumped him in such a humiliating fashion. They’d fallen in love while she worked as a cleaner for his wealthy parents, and had planned to move into a house that was “a Cinderella story in itself. Something that looked like nothing much…but actually had great potential.

I became the Cinderella story too. I remember how everyone in this village used to gossip about it. ‘Look at the little cleaner girl who has fallen in love with a Logan…’”

Meanwhile, Harry’s new fiancé, an ambitious woman who works for his dad, is Stevie’s polar opposite. Fliss is an expensively-manicured, long-limbed blonde beauty while Stevie is more Carlsberg than champagne, to paraphrase her self-assessment. For his part, Harry is something of a lost soul who’s thrown into a state of confusion when Stevie returns: might his ex be as manipulative and money-grabbing as his father and Fliss insist?

As the story twists to an explosive showdown at a showy party, fans of edgy romance will be rapt by the need to know the truth through a web of doubt and distrust.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Exile

Stevie and Harry's wedding was meant to be the highlight of the year, a fantasy come true. Working as a cleaner for Harry's family, Stevie never imagined the wealthy and privileged Harry would ever look her way, let alone propose.

Read the full description

Find This Book In