Recovering from great trauma is never easy.
It’s there in the word really; “trauma” even sounds hard and brutal, and so it stands to reason, that moving on for it will not be quick, easy or trouble-free.
For a book devoted to the wondrous idea of second chances, Escape to Seahaven Bay by Nicola May, gifts itself some fairly fearsome emotional heft by acknowledging that truth pretty much from the start.
It admits that the central character of this beautifully told story, Rita Jory, is finding it incredibly difficult to move on from the death of her husband, Archie, leaving her alone on their farm in Cornwall with significant debt, an irascible mother-in-law, Hilda (who isn’t so bad as it turns out) and goats with a mind of their own.
All the love, laughter and fun of 25 years of marriage has disappeared and Rita isn’t sure what, if anything, can replace them, now or ever.
One way though inspiration hits and she decides that instead of selling her farm, which is hemorrhaging money, that she’s set up a wellness retreat, somewhere that broken souls like her own can find the peace & quiet, and time most importantly, to find a way to move on from the moribund messiness of pain and loss.
In quick order, she is joined by Zenya and Teo, two lost souls who arrive separately at the farm and soon become part of a quite lovely family that grows up around Rita and her sparkling idea for a sustainable future.
She [Rita] sat there stunned, before the tears came: hot, snotty, unrelenting — born not of pain, but of bone-deep frustration and the long, raw ache of grief.
The idea of a found family is one of the loveliest part of any second chance novel and the one that Nicola May brings to life in Escape to Seahaven Bay is a delight, ringing with a communal authenticity and sense of love and support that it turns out every member, not just Rita, needs.
Having Zenya and Teo, and local Pilates studio owner, Jilly, who has a traumatic past of her own (though she has transcended it in some powerfully real and joyous ways) along for the ride gives Rita a sense that her new initiative could actually go places.
Importantly too, at a time of great social isolation, with only lifelong bestie, Kelly, daughter Sennen, Hilda and some caring locals for support – she has a son too but lost in his own world of grief, he is, well, problematic might be a nice word for it – these people give a sense of love and family when she feels she’s had that taken away from her.
Reading about how these disparate souls find love and community with each other is balm for the soul and a joy, especially necessary when Rita still has a lot on her plate to deal with, like missing wills, a handsome but forbidden neighbour who might be the key to a renewed romantic future and and the surfacing of some of Archie’s secrets which make her wonder if she really knew her husband at all.
(courtesy Storm Publishing)
Rita has LOT to work through, emotionally, physically and overall life-wise, and while Escape to Seahaven Bay does have a beautiful escapist air to it, it doesn’t pretend that one inspired idea, new friends and a potential love interest will fix everything.
At least, not straight away.
It’s this emotional honesty which buoys the narrative of Escape to Seahaven Bay and grants it a sense of existing in the world we all inhabit even as it holds the promise of verdant healing and hope.
Full of charm, wit and some searingly dark moments when Rita wonders if she will ever escape the clutches of loss and grief, Escape to Seahaven Bay is a novel that knows you need to feel like things will get better but which knows simply shoving that in your face, however fetchingly, will simply feel like a fairytale with no possibility of ever playing out for real.
And while these kinds of redemptively escapist tales exist to uplift and encourage us and to keep us optimistic that life can, and will, get better, we also need them to be anchored in the real world or it all begins to feel a bit too fizzy and ephemeral.
Being grounded in real emotions and an honest appraisal of grief grants the novel a ringing emotional realness that gives you something to hold onto, a sense that it’s not all too fantastical to ever happen and that if the worst were to ever happen to you, that maybe, just maybe, there is a way out of the hell of grief and pain and loss.
And as she [Rita] sat down at the kitchen table, head in hands, every memory of Archie suddenly felt like a puzzle she didn’t have all the pieces for. The question was, were the missing fragments lost … or simply waiting to be uncovered in places she’d never thought to look?
So, happily, as you lose yourself in Escape to Seahaven Bay you can embrace Rita and her journey to healing and some measure of wholeness – let’s be honest, grief always leaves a wound and acknowledging that it will always be there in some way actually helps you to move on – you can have your escapist bliss and emotional groundedness too.
That is a real gift and a testament to how well Nicola May has crafted this novel.
All of the conversations feels lively and real, all of the moments, whether uplifting or heavy, have a ring of authenticity to them, and every character moment, every interaction, feels like they come from people and scenes you might come across yourself.
At the end though, what really makes Escape to Seahaven Bay sing is that it takes you, via Rita and her many ups and downs – the former increasingly outweighing the latter – to a better place, one where grief still has a presence but as a minor supporting character and not the main cast.
Reading Escape to Seahaven Bay is a sublime joy, as resilience and friendship embrace you, hope and healing make themselves real and possible, and Rita discovers that though her husband’s death felt like the end of things, it’s but a gateway to a whole new and richly happy and rewarding life and that the future, once dark, is light and full of love and a place where she can open her heart again and find joy where once sadness reigned.