A Skye Full of Stars | Sue Moorcroft
REVIEWED BY LINDA HILL
Ezzie Wynter is relishing her role as manager at Rothach Hall on the Isle of Skye. Life seems settled into a secure and satisfying rhythm. But life has a habit of taking unexpected turns and Ezzie’s calm is about to be shattered in more ways than she can imagine!
A Skye Full Of Stars: book review & synopsis
If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas read, look no further. A Skye Full of Stars is it! There’s something so effortless about reading Sue Moorcroft because her stories are beautifully written, and mesmerisingly engaging. This is the second book in the adopted Wynter sisters trilogy, but there’s no need to have read the first – Under a Summer Skye which is Ezzie’s sister Thea’s story – to be fully immersed in this one. Any backstory is included with deftness and skill so that it is natural and clear. That said, you’re going to want to read it too and you’ll be desperate for book three to come out.
The setting of Skye is a wonderful winter backdrop, with weather, sky, sea and mountains so vividly described it’s hard to resist packing a suitcase and heading there straight away. There’s a sense of place that is filmic in quality, transporting the reader without the need to brave the real cold and rain of a Scottish winter.
The plot is brilliant. It’s packed with romance, drama, twists and turns and deep emotion. I confess I needed a tissue or two. There’s a fast pace but all the more important is the way the reader cares unconditionally about what happens to Ezzie. Her life is a real roller-coaster but everything that happens to her is completely convincing.
Ezzie is such a wonderful character…
Seemingly all brisk, professional efficiency, Ezzie hides a darker past and displays a vulnerable, if quite stubborn side, with a capacity for deep feelings, so that she is warm and relatable. As she learns more about herself, the reader loves her more.
The themes of the story feel sensitively handled. Christmas itself is shown so realistically. It isn’t a Disneyesque perfection. Christmas in A Syke Full of Stars is messy, filled with love and conflict, and shows just what hurts can hide beneath a positive adult exterior, for the sake of children.
Sue Moorcroft shines a laser beam of understanding and sensitivity on the role of family, leaving the reader feeling as if they’ve been given privileged insight into Ezzie’s life.
A Skye Full of Stars is quite, quite wonderful. I adored every moment reading it and cannot recommend it highly enough.
A Skye Full Of Stars by Sue Moorcroft is out now (Avon, PB, £8.99) and available from Amazon.
Read more fiction reviews by Linda Hill including Foster’s Mill by Val Wood, All I Want For Christmas by Karen Swan, City of Silk by Glennis Virgo, Things We Lose In Waves by Lucy Ayrton, Beautiful People by Amanda Jennings and A Merry Little Christmas by Cathy Bramley.
