RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
The last part of the weekend at Land's End does not leave anyone indifferent, and things change for almost all of the characters.
Lily and Joe have an argument when he mentions that he has been thinking about Land's End, and it would be a good idea to turn the house into his veterinary practice. He would move here, and Lily could commute. Lily feels outraged, thinking that he has taken some liberties she is not ready to accept. She blows a gasket and vents all her anger here. She even mentions that she and Charlie planned to spend their retirement in the house.
Feeling chastised, he goes to the pub where he runs into Charlie. They start talking and Joe mentions his idea of the vet practice and the argument with Lily. Charlie reacts angrily, and their heated argument ends up in fisticuffs.
The next day Joe talks to Lily after he realises that she is not in love with him and breaks up with her. Lily has no other option but acquiesce because he knows he is telling the truth.
Charlie also has a run-in with Chloe. When at some point Lily feels emotional and goes to have a good cry in her bedroom, Charlie runs to comfort her, and Chloe finds him. In that moment Chloe is angry and her words sound as if Lily and Charlie are doing something wrong. There is an argument in front of Lily, and Chloe reveals that Charlie and she were having an affair before the end of his marriage, which is something Charlie has hidden from her. Furious, Charlie follows Chloe to the bedroom and vents his anger, and Chloe lets out that she is pregnant. She says that she plans to have an abortion because she doesn't want children. Charlie is shocked because she had told him when they started that she couldn't have children after a botched abortion. Chloe now admits that she lied; she had never been pregnant before and there had been no abortion. The reason why she told him this lie was that she knew he didn't want any more children, and she wanted him to have no reasons to leave her. Now Chloe says that she still doesn't want children, and Charlie, even though he had no intention to have more, thinks that he wants this child and they should talk.
Poll has a happy moment when Aidan proposes and she says yes. Her demons which keep telling her that she is not good and Aidan would end up leaving her do not stop. Then at the end of the holiday when she goes to find the neighbour, Gerry, and when she doesn't find him, she walks into the barn. It is here that she remembers coming here to hide when she and Thomas were playing hide-and-seek. In the dark there was a man with his trousers and pants down and he was doing something that at her young age she didn't understand. On finding her there the man, Spencer, (Gerry's cousin) called her wicked and bad girl over and over again, and that is the reason why she has this trauma, and now she understands.
At the end of the holiday Lily realises that she can't sell the place. It means too much to her and her children.
Thomas has also had a change of heart. When Chloe and his father were arguing in the house, he overheard how Chloe talked about him and his obvious devotion. That made him realise that Chloe was not the person he thought she was, and his infatuation finished at that moment.
When he returns to Dublin to discover that the café is closed. He realises that he has eight missed calls from an unknown number. First, he tries to call Freda and the call doesn't connect, and then he calls the unknown number. It is Freda's mother, who tells her that on Saturday Freda had a bad fall in the café and an ambulance took her to hospital. She broke her leg in two parts and had to have surgery to have a pin inserted in her leg. Thomas feels guilty because if he hadn't left early on Saturday, Freda may not have had his fall. At once he goes to see her.
A year after the holiday Lily is back in the house. She has made a big change in her life. After feeling tired of teaching and school problems, she decides to turn Land's End in a Bed and Breakfast again just like her mother. She has redecorated and added ensuite bathrooms to the rooms. This weekend she will mark the anniversary of her mother's death and has invited her family too. Poll and Aidan can't make it because they are on their honeymoon, and we learn that Poll is seeing a therapist for her problems.
Thomas is now living in the village. After Freda's accident she had to close down the café for all the time she had to be coalescing. However, she and Thomas had gone into partnership and bought the local pub and live in the rooms above it. They are good together, and Lily hopes that maybe one day they will be together as a couple because it is obvious that Freda is smitten with him.
Charlie and Chloe had a baby daughter, Melanie. Yet, a week after her birth, Chloe left her and Charlie, and as far as Charlie knows, Chloe has moved to Austria. Lily is helping him, and she has no problem giving him a hand becaus she loves little Mel. Lily knows that she and Charlie won't be a couple again; he hurt her and she can't trust her in that department, but they can be friends. Chloe's mother helps but Lily can tell that he heart is not with Mel.
This has been a lovely read. I loved the characters with their flaws, passions, problems and all.
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