What they say: CAN GRETEL FIND THE RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS?
The Gingerbread Café is always full of Christmas magic. Come rain or shine (or even a July heatwave), there’s always a hot chocolate bursting with cinnamon and marshmallows waiting for you. For introverted Gretel, it’s been the perfect escape from ‘real life’. The owner, Nell, is Gretel’s last link to her late mum, and hiding out at the café feels so much safer than making new friends.
So when Nell suddenly passes, Gretel is left heartbroken. Then she discovers that Nell has left the café to her – but there’s a catch. Gretel has to share the running of The Gingerbread Café with the least festive person ever: Nell’s nephew, Lukas. Head chef at the local fancy restaurant, Lukas makes it clear he has no time for the café, Gretel or even Christmas itself, and Gretel’s too busy struggling to save her burnt batches of gingerbread to work out why.
Gretel is determined to keep Christmas alive and make the café a success before Lukas hands the keys over to the scrooge-like developers. But she can’t do it alone; besides an over friendly ferret and a waitress with a secret, the only person she has now is Lukas. Will it take a Christmas miracle to get the pair to finally see eye to eye, or could the ice already be melting?
Packed full of sugar and spice, The Gingerbread Café will tick all the wishes off your Christmas list this festive period. Perfect for fans of Heidi Swain, Jo Thomas and Bella Osborne.
The Review: Well it’s getting really close to Christmas now and I suppose before now might have been the better time to start introducing you to some of my favourite Christmas reads this year but here we are!
Anyhoo. This is the story of Gretel. Gretel has lost someone who has always been there for her, Nell, a warm character who ran a cafe where it was eternally Christmas. If there was ever a premise to grab me straight away it was this! Add to this a relative of Nell’s who was the absolute anti Christmas character- a grinch if you will, but also not bad looking, and I was hooked! This book had it all, not least because Greta was attempting to run said cafe with my kind of baking skills;)
Great characters, a brilliant setting, some serious fireworks for me in terms of chemistry- this was totally one of my fave reads this year- talk about feel good loveliness-as lovely as Ms Faulkner herself, who is something of a queen in bookland (check out A Colourful Country Escape for a stunner of a book set in a stately manor home)! Thanks so much to Netgalley for this gem in return for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
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