Review: Sunrise by the Sea

Sunrise by the Sea by Jenny Colgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Marisa enjoys her life as a births, deaths and marriages registrar until the death of her beloved Italian Nonno sends her into a pit of despair which creates a form of agoraphobia, forcing her to work from home. Her mother thinks Marisa is putting it on, so they have stopped speaking to one-another and her sort-of boyfriend Mahmoud wouldn't notice anything was amiss unless he was surgically removed from his computer games controller. Then her wealthy feckless landlord decides she is no fun anymore (especially since she is too sad to cook him delicious Italian food) and arranges for her to stay in a small holiday cottage owned by his (fabulously wealthy) uncle Reuben on the Cornish island of Mount Polbearne.

Next door to Marisa in the attached cottage is a Russian piano teacher called Alexei, a great big bear of a man who plays discordant modern classical music all night which reverberates around Marisa's cottage because there's no insulation to soundproof the rooms.

Despite living on a small island, Marisa lives like a hermit, ordering food and supplies online and never venturing out of her cottage, until she gets referred to a cognitive behavioural therapist who coaches her via Skype. Although they had never been close, Marisa reaches out to her Italian Nonna looking for someone to commiserate with over her grandfather's death. Through an almost permanently open Skype link the two of them go about their daily business and Marisa's Nonna sends her food parcels from Italy, ripe tomatoes, parmesan cheese, truffles, garlic, etc and encourages Marisa to cook proper food rather than microwaving ready meals. A word of warning, the wonderful food descriptions will have you drooling over your Kindle and longing for some home-cooked italian food.

Marisa comes to know some of the islanders through their piano lessons, which she can clearly hear through the paper-thin walls, and befriends Polly, the mother of five year old twins, who lives in the lighthouse and owns the local bakery. Polly and her husband are struggling to make ends meet so Marisa offers to cook Alexei dinner every night if he will continue giving the twins piano lessons for free.

Gradually Polly and Alexei and Marisa's Nonna help to draw her out of her grief and take baby steps towards life in the light.

I liked this, the combination of a small island and an Italian family had the potential to get uber-cheesy but somehow the randomness of the pet seagull, the gazillionaire and his Ritchie Rich son, the Skype calls, etc kept this the right side of sentimental for me.

All in all, a great book to finish 2021 with.

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