I was keen to read this book, as I am very partial to stories about drowned villages, making way for reservoirs, and all things watery and aquatic. So I approached it with eagerness. And was deeply disappointed. If Ms McGurl had wanted to write a romance, then she should have. If she wanted to write a historical novel, then she should have done that. Instead we get a messy mish-mash of the two and she gives neither of them the right amount of attention.
The romance is a bog standard one. Laura finds her best friend and her boyfriend in bed together, and runs to the shelter of her old Grandmother. Coincidentally, Laura is a carer of the elderly, so she can fulfil the role of dutiful granddaughter, free carer and have somewhere to hide and metaphorically lick her wounds. But Granny has a dark secret, yadda yadda yadda. Her father was supposed to have done something very nasty and she has apparently spent her whole life cringing from it.