The Cottage by the Cliffs
(2025)(The first book in the Love in Ballycove series)
A novel by Maeve McBride
One fake ring. One broken heart. One chance to finally stop running.
Big-city marketing star Tara Quinn returns to windswept Ballycove to sell her late grandmother's cliff-top cottage, and to escape the memories of the teenage sweetheart she left behind. Local carpenter Cillian Byrne offers a daring solution: announce a pretend engagement so nosy villagers, greedy developers, and Tara's own guilt all stay off her back while they restore the house. Strictly business. No feelings. Definitely no complications.
Then the complications arrive.
Shared sunsets on salt-brushed cliffs. Laughter over sagging roofs and relentless village gossip. The way Cillian looks at her like she never left, and the way Ballycove itself starts feeling dangerously like home again. Selling would solve everything. Staying means facing the grief she fled, the wound she left in Cillian's heart, and the truth about why she never came back.
When their sham engagement unravels at the midsummer regatta, Tara must choose: retreat to Dublin's neon comfort, or stand beside the carpenter who has rebuilt far more than a cottage.
Perfect for fans of sweet fake-engagement romance, slow-burn second chances, and small-town Irish love stories with heart. Book 1 of the Love in Ballycove series — each book is a standalone with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Genre: Romance
Big-city marketing star Tara Quinn returns to windswept Ballycove to sell her late grandmother's cliff-top cottage, and to escape the memories of the teenage sweetheart she left behind. Local carpenter Cillian Byrne offers a daring solution: announce a pretend engagement so nosy villagers, greedy developers, and Tara's own guilt all stay off her back while they restore the house. Strictly business. No feelings. Definitely no complications.
Then the complications arrive.
Shared sunsets on salt-brushed cliffs. Laughter over sagging roofs and relentless village gossip. The way Cillian looks at her like she never left, and the way Ballycove itself starts feeling dangerously like home again. Selling would solve everything. Staying means facing the grief she fled, the wound she left in Cillian's heart, and the truth about why she never came back.
When their sham engagement unravels at the midsummer regatta, Tara must choose: retreat to Dublin's neon comfort, or stand beside the carpenter who has rebuilt far more than a cottage.
Perfect for fans of sweet fake-engagement romance, slow-burn second chances, and small-town Irish love stories with heart. Book 1 of the Love in Ballycove series — each book is a standalone with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Maeve McBride's The Cottage by the Cliffs