*4.5I have to be honest, I didn't love this story because of the romance. That isn't what kept me up late reading. What I loved was the romance of Ireland. I thought Santa Montefiore did an excellent job creating the scenes taking place on the Connemara coast, I felt like I was there. I loved all the aspects of that little place; the ruins, the castle, the coast, the waves crashing against the lighthouse. I was there having a Guinness at the Pot of Gold and having conversations with my large Iri...

33-year-old Ellen Trawton has always felt like she doesn’t fit in with her posh mother and sisters. She is also unhappy about her upcoming wedding. So she decide to take time off and visit her mother's sister, Aunt Peg. When she arrive to beatiful Connemara, beautiful Irish town, she discover that her mother hasn't told her many things about her family nor her past. We also meet ghost [or spirit] of Caitlin, the wife of Conor Macausland, who tragically died 5 years ago and still keep an eye on h...

Rated 3.5 out of 5. Will also be posted at TBRMountainRange.com with other Gothic reviews and pictures from Ireland.A fashionable Londoner casts aside her high society life to run off to the Connemara coast in search of the quiet to write her novel and get to know the family she never knew. Will the ghost that haunts the coast feel threatened when someone new draws the attention of her mourning family?Caitlin Macausland dies, tragically, and remains earthbound as a ghost where she can watch over...

I reviewed this book for www.luxuryreading.com.When the demands of Ellen Trawton’s life in posh London become too much for her to handle she runs away from her overbearing mother and the fiancée she doesn’t love to the one place she knows no one will look for her: the Irish coastal village her mother grew up in and refused to ever discuss. Staying with her Aunt Peg under the guise of writing a book Ellen soon discovers a large and loving family she never knew she had. As she digs deeper into why...

The representations of Ireland, and finding a large loving family, and being a regular in the local pub and becoming part of the fabric of a community -- belonging -- really spoke to me. And the main character's dawning conviction that life is short, and we have to take a risk to follow our own hearts instead of just toiling away at a miserable job in a place we feel unconnected from...that really spoke to me in my current life situation. But the negatives outweighed the positives with this book...

SECRETS OF THE LIGHTHOUSESanta MontefioreBecause I’m so particular in my ideas about a good romance, I’m often disappointed with boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and boy gets girl back. Also very tired of a couple’s constant battling which is supposed to be an expression of their mutual attraction. That said I love a sweeping and romantic novel that is a true escape.Santa Montefiore is a master at finding the magic combination in her books. I truly loved THE FRENCH GARDENER despite the overtones

I really enjoyed this book though I do really enjoy Santa's novels. I have only read two other books of hers but I will be aiming to read them all eventually.For someone who didn't grow up or as far as I know, spend a lot of time in Ireland, Santa really nailed the atmosphere that can be seen and felt in any small Irish town. The friendliness of locals, the big families, people who know everyone, the judgement, the curiosity, the gossip but all in all, a place full of big hearts and loud laughte...

My dnf's are piling up this year so far, but I've pretty much completely checked out of this book. I didn't really like Ellen and I was growing to actively dislike Caitlin. In the 100+ pages I read every conversation was either Ellen telling people about why she came to Ireland (I heard the same spiel at least 5 different times - when she meets Peg, her uncles, Dylan, Elana, and Connor - and she seemed pretentious every time) or about Caitlin's death - speculating if it was an accident or if Con...

Very light story with stereotypical characterizations of "The Irish" - romance, I guess. Young woman from upper class runs away from her life in London to unknown relatives in Ireland in a town so small everyone knows everything about everyone. And then there are the ghosts. Oh well, I gave it a try because of favorable reviews. It was ok to read on the train.

Santa Montefiore has written a beguiling novel set in Connemara, Ireland where Ellen Trawton has fled from her home in London at the age of thirty-three to escape her job, the aristocratic man she is engaged to but doesn't love, and her controlling mother. Ellen flees to the one place her mother would never think to look for her, her aunt Peg's home in Ireland. The sisters have been estranged for thirty years following a family drama and Ellen knows she will be safe there while she sorts out her...

SECRETS OF THE LIGHTHOUSE transported me to the magical coast of western Ireland, and I savored the journey. I also enjoyed the story, even though I wanted to throttle the heroine several times. Ellen is a 33-year old modern woman, so I had no idea why she felt she had to live with her parents and do as she's told. *scratches head* Thank goodness she ran away to Ireland to track down her mother's estranged family!Ellen's time in Connemara with her Aunt Peg turned her world on end as secrets from...

2.5*This, for me, started off well but it just dragged out for far too long. Predictable ending. Loved the Irish setting and would like to have heard more about this. Would have liked a little more mystery. More romance than anything else.

I realize I'm very much in a minority regarding this book, but that's okay. While I also realize many will, and do, find this utterly romantic, I just couldn't. I found little to nothing to like. While the Irish setting is well done (an area I yearn to see again)and the cover is lovely--the rest left me wincing.Initially, the "ghost" narration every few chapters is effective and spooky yet like most everything else, it falters as the novel progresses. What starts off as a very Gothic, spooky, ob...

Ellen Trawton desperately needed peace and solitude away from her pushy mother and a fiancée she didn't love, so she arranged to go and stay with her, Aunt Peg in rugged countryside of Connemara. Ellen's mother had not spoken to her sister for thirty years and if, Ellen hadn't been rummaging through some old letters of her mother's she still would not have known her aunt existed. Ellen left a note, but she never said where she was going as she knew her mother would only try and bring her back, b...

I think this is the third book I have read by this author and I have enjoyed all of them, although this one not quite so much as others. At just under 450 pages, that is a lot of reading for what turned out to be not as much as I would have liked in the way of a story. It didn’t seem to sweep from continent to continent and era to era in the same way.At the start of the story Ellen Trawton has run away to Ireland to escape from her mother and fiancé, taking refuge at the home of her Aunt Peg, a

Oh dear, once again I seem to be at odds with all the other reviewers. This simply didn't work for me, and I finished it by skim reading at least a third of it. Once again, maybe it was me, because once again it was the main, female protagonist who really put me off. Ellen is 33. She's beautiful, she's rich, she has loving parents, she's been brought up in a gilded cage. She's engaged to be married, she has a job, she has money, she has friends. Yet poor Ellen is miserable and feels trapped and

I finished this a couple of nights ago but struggled to decide how to rate it.....I’ve plumped for 3* though ideally I’d be giving it a 3.5. I do enjoy Santa’s writing & she definitely weaves a good yarn. Lovely atmospheric descriptions of Ireland & an interesting tale of love, life and loss through the generations. Despite the good premise & interesting characters I don’t think It lives up to the others of hers I’ve read. This is partly because it was so long & parts of the story became repetit...