Review: The Artisan Heart

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

From Goodreads:
Hayden Luschcombe is a brilliant paediatrician living in Adelaide with his wife Bernadette, an ambitious event planner. His life consists of soul-wrenching days at the hospital and tedious evenings attending the lavish parties organized by Bernadette.

When an act of betrayal coincides with a traumatic confrontation, Hayden flees Adelaide, his life in ruins. His destination is Walhalla, nestled in Australia’s southern mountains, where he finds his childhood home falling apart. With nothing to return to, he stays, and begins to pick up the pieces of his life by fixing up the house his parents left behind.

A chance encounter with a precocious and deaf young girl introduces Hayden to Isabelle Sampi, a struggling artisan baker. While single-handedly raising her daughter, and trying to resurrect a bakery, Isabelle has no time for matters of the heart. Yet the presence of the handsome doctor challenges her resolve. Likewise, Hayden, protective of his own fractured heart, finds something in Isabelle that awakens dormant feelings of his own.

As their attraction grows, and the past threatens their chance at happiness, both Hayden and Isabelle will have to confront long-buried truths if they are ever to embrace a future.

This is one of those books you know is going to have a happily ever after. Still, you are perched on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Hayden is one of those so dedicated to their profession that they forget everything around them, to save someone's life. On his free-time, he is one of those awkward people who secretly wish they could ditch the suit they're wearing and return to the more comfier scrubs. His wife Bernadette is the exact opposite of him. Always presenting a perfect image of herself, always on top of things, always running towards the next goal. Their married life has become almost non-excistent. More cohabiting than having a life together.

Hayden flees to the secluded village of Walhalla, a village he grew up in. The village holds painful memories of his childhood, his sick mother and a distant father he never made amends with before his passing. Slowly, he settles in the village life, far away from the hustle of a large city he spent so many years in. And slowly the village begins to heal him.

The Artisan Heart is addicting. I couldn't put it down once I began reading it. The awkward doctor flees the big city and his distaster-of-a-marriage, then heals his broken heart in his childhood home. The entire book just makes you feel good, and makes you laugh and cry. The feelings are real in this one. The book teaches you anger grief, and how to finally let go. 

The characters compliment the plot and vice versa, each and every one was needed in the plot. The way the author has gotten the extreme contrast between Hayden and Bernadette is what first reels you in. You kind of feel bad for Hayden and begin to root for him. The emotional bond is set and it only grows throughout the book.

The book is not void of action either. The plot is moving quite quickly and there are a few twist and turns that you may not see coming at all. And those are what keeps even more rooted in your place, waiting for all to turn out for the better.