Fearne Hill’s Salt is book one in her new Island Love series of romances set on the beautiful Île de Ré off the western coast of France. It’s a gorgeous, slow-burn, May/December love story between a young French salt farmer and an Englishman who has come to the island to recuperate after an illness. The story deals with some sensitive topics, but as always with this author, the health and mental health issues are portrayed knowledgeably and sympathetically, the characters are likeable, the romance is heartfelt and very satisfying, and the whole thing is peppered with warmth, humour and insight.

Thirty-nine-year-old venture capitalist Charles Heyer has rented a house in the small village of Loix and retreated there in order to recuperate after having a breakdown. Thrown off balance by the sudden death (by suicide) of his beloved mother, Charles buried himself in his work as a kind of coping mechanism, but not pausing to properly process and grieve her loss meant he didn’t realise just how unwell he was becoming. Stress and overwork tipped his already fragile mental state over the edge into full-blown mania, and after spending several months in a psychiatric hospital, Charles has been advised to take at least three months to rest. He’s aware of the part his workaholic tendencies played in his illness and knows he can’t afford to go back to the way things were, but his business partner, Marcus, is subtly (or not so subtly – Charles can read between the lines of his frequent texts) pressuring him to return to work. Deep down, Charles wonders if he’ll ever be ready to go back to his old life, but Marcus has been single-handedly running their business for months, and the longer Charles stays away, the guiltier he feels.

Charles is walking back to the house late one afternoon when he notices an elderly man wandering around the village square looking lost, and goes over to ask if he needs any help. The man says he’s looking for Florian, who is drinking coffee at L’Escale; when the man doesn’t seem inclined to make use of Charles’ offered directions, he escorts him to the café himself. It’s not until the next day that he realises that Florian is the young man he’s seen working in the salt marshes on the edge of the village, and when Florian stops him to offer his thanks for helping his grandfather, Charles, momentarily dumbstruck by the man’s beauty, doesn’t immediately register Florian’s words of thanks. It’s been a very long time since anyone has turned his head quite like this – but then a teasing exchange follows about Charles’ good French but terrible accent, and when Florian invites him out for a drink – to say thank you properly – Charles is surprised to find himself not only agreeing to go, but for the first time in a long time, actually feeling like himself again.

Before Charles leaves the bar, Florian suggests he should visit the marsh for a tour – and is promptly teased by his friends afterwards – but there’s something about the elegant, reserved Englishman with the tired, grey eyes that really pushes all Florian’s buttons and makes him yearn to mess him up a little – or a lot.

The romance between Charles and Florian has the feel of a gentle slow-burn, and I was completely captivated by the development of the relationship between these two very different men. Florian is around ten years Charles’ junior, and his opposite in almost every way. Outgoing and naturally flirtatious where Charles is cautious and reserved, Florian’s contentedness and his ability to find pleasure in the most ordinary, everyday things are quite alien to Charles, who has never felt particularly comfortable in his own skin. Fearne Hill articulates Charles’ struggles incredibly well; the depth of his grief, guilt and loneliness are beautifully communicated, their gradual lifting as he rediscovers himself and begins to fall in love a palpable thing. Charles is upfront with Florian about his mental health and explains how his synasthaesia – a rare condition he inherited from his mother – impacts him (he generally ‘sees’ emotions as colours) and the part it played in his breakdown. I really appreciated that Charles doesn’t try to hide it and treats Florian like the grown man he is, talking openly about his illness, his time in hospital and his fears for the future. I liked the way Florian’s calm acceptance and unquestioning support give Charles back his sense of ‘personhood’, reminding him – for the first time in a long time – that he’s more than his illness, and that in return, he trusts Charles with his worries about his grandfather and about the future of the salt cooperative. They each provide something the other needs and hasn’t found elsewhere.

Of course, Charles and Florian’s island idyll can’t last, and the sudden intrusion of Charles’ past life into his present one explodes like a rock thrown into a millpond. The events that unfold around two-thirds of the way into the story are hard to read and hard to discuss without giving away too much; although it’s probably easy to guess what happens, and it’s exactly as heartbreaking and powerful and terrifying as you’d expect.

There’s a well-drawn set of secondary characters here, from Florian’s loveable Papi, who is, very sadly, in the early stages of dementia, to his good friends Jerome and Nico (whose book is up next), and the love between Florian and his grandfather, and the affection and camaraderie shared by Florian and his friends come across very strongly. There’s an interesting sub-plot, too, concerning the future of the island’s cooperative of salt producers, who have been offered a very large sum of money by a conglomerate that wants to buy them out, and I enjoyed the glimpses we’re given into the traditional methods of salt-farming employed on the island – the author has clearly done her homework on the subject!

Salt is funny, sad, tender, sexy and utterly compelling. Charles and Florian’s path towards a happy ending has quite a few bumps in it, but the journey is gratifying and deeply emotional, and their HEA is all the sweeter for being so hard won. Fearne Hill has been one of my must-read authors for quite a while now, and this book again shows her to be among the best writers of contemporary romance around.

Note: this story refers to the previous suicide of a parent and depicts an episode of acute phsychiatric illness (which includes suicidal ideation).