Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse

by Anne Doughty

Will love be enough to overcome the odds?

It is 1960 and Clare Hamilton is returning home to her beloved Armagh to marry Andrew, her childhood sweetheart. Full of the hope and possibilities of a newlywed couple, they plan to turn Andrew’s ancestral home into a guesthouse.

Their ambition is to use their income to buy back the land of the former family estate so that Andrew can quit his hated job as a solicitor and farm the land he had known as a boy.

But the sixties are a time of change, and when political unrest increases bookings begin to decline…

Can the pair save their beloved guesthouse and achieve their dreams for a better life?

Previously published as Come Rain, Come Shine

313 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Anne Doughty was born in Armagh. She is the author of A Few Late Roses (longlisted for the Irish Times fiction prize), Stranger in the Place and Summer of the Hawthorn. After many years in England she returned to Belfast in 1998 and wrote the first of a series of stand-alone novels that make up the Hamiltons sequence.

Reviews

[Jo Rammell · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book doesn't really get going. Title suggests it will be about running the guesthouse or those who come to stay. Instead of that all you read is a very long drawn out story of their ancestors. Gave up reading it, very rare that I give up!

[Tracey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really struggled with this book, I perceived and got to the end but it wasn't an enjoyable read for me.
Set in Ulster, Northern Ireland in the 1960's.
Just not a book for me.

[Sharon Turton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a lot happened tbh. Easy to read though

[Charlotte Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

New author for me and I really enjoyed it

[Deirdre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Someone who obviously does not know me well gifted me this drivel only because the story is based in the North of Ireland where I hail from. I was prepared to give it a chance, but was the most frustrating read as it was so factually implausible it was laughable i.e. a woman whose family are mired in the Orange order marries a man whose house and land were gifted to his family by Cromwell, but they have an inscription in Gaelige on their wedding ring. If that wasn't questionable enough a former IRA man who seems to have told have the town and country of this status, which would never happen, openly discusses this with the newly married woman. I wouldn't even gift this rubbish to the charity shop, but it burned well