The perfect treat for fans of Poldark, Downton Abbey and Dilly Court - discover the first in a heartwarming new series set in the 1920s in a glamorous hotel on the Cornish Riviera . . .
Welcome to Fox Bay Hotel, where family fortunes rise and fall.
1920, Bristol. Helen Fox is happily married to the love of her charming, former playboy Harry. With their three children, glamorous lifestyle and extravagant parties, they have the perfect life. But after a tragic motorcycle accident, nothing will ever be the same...
Helen is forced to leave their home and move to the Fox family's hotel on the Cornish coast - where she discovers her perfect life has been based on a lie.
Now Helen must find a way to build a new life for herself and her children with the help of a vivacious new friend, Leah Marshall.
But when the future of the hotel is threatened, Helen discovers that she hasn't left her past behind after all, and unless she takes drastic action, she's going to lose everything all over again...
Set against the dramatic Cornish coastline, this tale of tragedy and triumph will delight fans of Rosie Goodwin and Evie Grace.
Praise for A Cornish Inheritance
'Love, loss and old rivalries are skilfully woven against an atmospheric coastal backdrop holding a promise of new beginnings. A five star page turner from the start' Kay Brellend , author of A Workhouse Christmas
' Terri Nixon has created a captivating backdrop for the Fox Bay Hotel, and the Fox family who run it. I guarantee their story will stay with you long after you have finished reading this beautifully written book' Lynne Francis , author of A Maid's Ruin
' A moving story of tragedy, deception and one woman's determination to protect her family. I couldn't put it down!' Charlotte Betts , author of The Light Within Us
'Sensitively written, an intriguing story expressed with intense feeling. A worthy five stars!' RNA award-winning, bestselling novelist Tania Crosse
Terri was born in Plymouth in 1965. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to Cornwall, to a small village on the edge of Bodmin Moor, where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one's ever offered to pay her for doing those.
Since publishing in paperback for the first time in 2002, Terri has appeared in both print and online fiction collections, and is proud to have contributed to the Shirley Jackson award-nominated hardback collection: Bound for Evil, by Dead Letter Press. As a Hybrid author, her first commercially published novel was Maid of Oaklands Manor, published by Piatkus Entice (a digital-first imprint of Little, Brown,) and short-listed in the "Best Historical Read" category at the Festival of Romance 2013. The sequel, A Rose in Flanders Fields, was published by Carina UK (a digital-first imprint of HarperCollins) and was short-listed in the same category in 2014.
Terri's self-published Mythic Fiction series set in Cornwall, The Lynher Mill Chronicles, has now been launched. Books one and two are available in print and e-book, and the third book in the series is due for release in June 2015. Terri now lives in Plymouth with her youngest son, and works in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Plymouth University, where she is constantly baffled by the number of students who don't possess pens.
Terri also writes under the name T Nixon, and has contributed to anthologies under the names Terri Pine and Teresa Nixon. She is represented by the Kate Nash Literary Agency.
This is the perfect book if you like to indulge in the period dramas like Downton Abbey, Poldark and Dilly Court.
A Cornish Inheritance is the first in a heartwarming new series by Terri Nixon.
It is set in the 1920s, with the backdrop of a glamorous hotel on the Cornish Riviera. I have never been to Cornwall however Nixon set the scene so well I could envisage being by the beach with the wind in my hair, soaking up Cornish sun.
Helen Fox is a wonderful character a force to be reckoned with, she will do anything to secure her children's future. Helen has it all but after tragedy strikes this is when we get to really see the real Helen, and how she copes with all that life throws at her.
A character that I really liked in this story, was Leah Marshall (or whoever she liked to pretend to be at the time) our first introduction to her builds the character well.
This is an easy cosy read that will transport you to another place and keep you entertained as each chapter passes.
I loved Ms. Nixon's Penhaligon series, so I was very excited to hear about A Cornish Inheritance. I must say it was everything I hoped it would be. Set in Cornwall, 1920, we follow Helen as she tries to rebuild her life. The drama unfolds effortlessly and the characters jump from the page. I've never been to Cornwall, but while reading this book I felt I had been. The details, the setting, the characters, all of it together creates one truly fantastic read. At one point I was so engrossed in the story, I literally lost track of time. Highly recommend!
A Cornish Inheritance is a beautifully written book which I found enthralling from the very beginning and the first in a new series set in Cornwall and the 1920s loved it could highly recommend it.
Set in 1920’s Bristol, Helen Fox is happily married to the love of her life a former playboy Harry. The couple have three children, a glamorous lifestyle and often host extravagant parties and they appear to have the perfect life. However, following a tragic motorcycle accident, nothing will ever be the same again. Helen is forced to leave their home and so moves to the Fox family's hotel on the Cornish coast, Fox Bay Hotel. Helen soon realises that her perfect life was been based on a lie. Having met Leah Marshall, Helen must find a way to build a new life for herself and her children. When the future of the hotel is threatened, Helen learns that her past hasn't been left behind and she must take drastic action or she may loose everything again. I thoroughly enjoyed this heartwarming and engaging novel set against the dramatic Cornish coastline. The author really bought the time period and the setting alive and I felt immersed in the story due to her wonderfully descriptive writing. The characters all bought something different to the story and main character Helen is likeable and relatable. The plot is full of family drama and I was hooked from start to finish. A great start to a new series and I look forward to book two.
Love, tragedy and lies are all on the beautiful Cornish coast, in the first book in a series which describes the fate of a family. Helen is a woman who seems to have everything; a wealthy husband, three children, and a lovely lifestyle. A tragedy means that she must relearn how to live, and readjust her views of the life she has always lived. This 1920, and many people around the family are carrying scars which are not always obvious. Those who were lost, those who witnessed terrible things, those who have worked hard to keep things going even when economic depression begins to hit, all have a role to play in what emerges as a community in and around the Fox Bay Hotel. As people, especially the children, grow and change, there is much about the obsessions that people have and affect their lives. Some pretend, some are truthful, but all are seeking their best way to live. This book manages to take a wide sweep through various lives, but also put in the details that set and define the scene. The countryside is described as a place of work as well as beautiful scenery. The author has exerted every effort to establish and develop the characters, and does an amazing job of testing each one to the limits. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this book.
The book begins with a motorcycle race in which emotions are exposed like never before, and a significant event takes place. The action then reverts to the past, and a party at which Helen is convinced that everyone knows something that she has been excluded from by Harry.The party also displays the social front that Helen and her husband Harry Fox put on; popular, lively and definitely the centre of a group of friends. A rapid change of fortunes sees the family at the Fox Bay hotel, adjusting to new circumstances and meeting new people. It is all extremely well described and moving in the depth of feeling conveyed.The hotel has a wealthy and well connected clientele which is attracted by its reputation and location. As Helen becomes more involved in the running of the hotel, she becomes more concerned by her children. She does however, make a friend, the lively Leah Marshall, who seeks to hide her tragic past behind a self confidence and ability to convince people of different things.
This book is a moving evocation of a period in the twentieth century when women were being forced to find new ways to live. It revels in the details of life at the time, and conveys a near visual image of the surroundings of a hotel that would have been a desirable place to stay. There are well constructed plot twists which can surprise, as well as logical outcomes of carefully worked out characters. The women described in the book are tough and determined when they need to be, even when they have been passive previously. I found it a refreshing and informative book in terms of what women could actually do and the effect they could have on those around them. This book also sets up some fascinating threats to be taken up in subsequent books in the series, and makes me keen to find out more about the Fox family. Altogether this is a well written book with much to offer the reader which I enjoyed.
The story starts in Bristol in 1920 as Helen Fox faces a devastating tragedy which will have repercussions on her family for many years to come. Her return to Fox Bay and to the family hotel on the beautiful Cornish coast has poignant memories of the time she spent there with her glamorous husband however, times are now very different and Helen has to do all that she can to keep her family together in very difficult circumstances.
What then follows is a complex family saga which looks in detail at the problems of, not just running a busy and popular hotel, but also of the impact that the guests themselves have on the place, and one guest in particular, whose own complex set of secrets, adds a nice blend of light and shade to the story. There's a lovely warm feel to the narrative and the author does a great job of building a rapport with all the characters, and very soon the individual members of the Fox family become firmly fixed in your imagination. Expertly moving forward over a period of nine or so years we really get to know what's going on with this family, we share their problems, rejoice in their triumphs, and even sob a little over their personal disasters. I especially liked Helen, she's a strong and determined woman and I really wanted everything to work out for her, and her lovely family, whether it does, or not, is for you to discover for yourself 😊
A Cornish Inheritance is the first book in the Fox Bay series of Cornish novels and this story certainly gets the series off to a really good start. The author captures time and place perfectly well and brings Fox Bay Hotel alive in the imagination with a set of memorable characters who I am already looking forward to catching up with again in book #2 of the series, A Cornish Promise, which is also published by Piatkus, and is coming out soon.
After her "Penhaligon Saga" Terri Nixon brings us the first part of her new project "The Fox Bay Saga". The story begins with a clear setting in both location and time: Bristol, 1920. "A Cornish Inheritance" starts with Helen Fox, Harry Fox's wife, who discovers that her husband is not having an affair as expected, but due to poor investments has the family fortune squandered, partly at the hands of his friend and business partner Adam (by the way, it was Adam's wife who she suspected of the affair). However, Harry still has a share in his mother's hotel. Helen takes her three children to Cornwall, where she starts a new life.
I don't know how Terri does it. She doesn't transport the reader to the past. No, she brings the past to us. She chooses that place and period in history and describes that setting in such detail, she brings the characters to life so energetically that they explode out of the pages into our present, in a fictional story that could just as well have been real.
Terri surpasses herself with this new story, even more beautiful than the trilogy about the Penhaligon family. Perhaps because the character cast is smaller, clearer. Helen's oldest daughter Roberta makes our hearts skip a beat. Leah, Helen's girlfriend, is a fantastic character as the queen of disguises. It is exciting to gradually discover whether Helen can indeed rebuild the life she has lost.
I believe Ms Nixon has done it again. What a wonderful book, expertly and beautifully written! Someday, someone will make a TV series from her stories. The characters are well written, they come to life very quickly, you get the feel of the era and location instantly and I simply loved the story. There were some very exciting parts where I found myself reading quickly as I so needed to see what was going to happen and I was rooting for the whole family.
This is a fabulous family saga and written so well you will want to cry for the family’s losses, laugh with them during the good times, wonder at all the lies and secrets and get completely swept away with each member. I can’t wait for the next book in this series!
A brilliant start to a new series! I loved the setting of the Cornish Riviera in the 1920s as well as the lavish background that Helen is forced to leave behind. The real star of the show for me though is Leah Marshall and with her chameleon-like ability to change character, she had me wondering about her motivation from the start. There are so many twists and turns on this book that at times I found it hard to keep up but all was neatly resolved at the end. Join the fox family in the triumphs and their despair as you feel like one of the family. Looking forward to the next one now.