After reading Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery, book three in the Little Beach Street Bakery series did I just have to read the first book because I found the one I read marvelous.

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery: A Novel Kindle Edition Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery: A Novel Kindle Edition

I rather like Polly, though her indecisiveness and hesitancy drove me a little crazy. (I would probably understand her better if I’d read the previous books.) Her friend Kerensa is a mess, though. Polly certainly seemed to have enough on her plate without having to deal with Kerensa’s drama. And Mrs. Bradley was standing there with a face like fizz. She had one of those monobosoms . . . you never see those any more, do you? I suppose she wore a corset. They’re a dying breed . . . I don’t know how I’ve failed to mention the best part of the story this far into my review! When Polly moves to Polbearne she unintentionally takes on a new pet which she names Neil. Neil, the puffin.And there is many a challenge for Polly to face, this including the demons of her past that she worked so hard to escape and the manner in which her relationship with her gorgeous boyfriend keeps evolving.

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery - Goodreads

She used to say in old tin miners cottages near Polperro as a child and the days spent at Polperro beach still bring happy and vivid memories which goes to show that the beaches which feature heavily in her books as a whole have a real sense of place over time.Setting that aside, I was pleasantly surprised by Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery which, while the third book in a trilogy, was my first visit to Mount Polbearne. Jenny Colgan does a wonderful job of putting the reader right into this little Cornish community, a bit cut off from the mainland. When high tide rolls in, it can be dangerous crossing over to the village, water lapping at the tires of the vehicles who dare to cross. Mount Polbearne is a coastal village that prides itself in maintaining a more traditional feel, which means updates and modern additions aren't always welcome. Review: Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family by Omid Scobie & Carolyn Durand But then she lost the boyfriend and the business eventually went bankrupt. Polly was forced to leave the life she thought she loved so much in favor of a Cornish tidal town called Polbearne. Polly’s move was necessitated by the fact that the town was the only place she could afford to live. It makes you think of Narnia, of happy places, of childhood innocence and the charm of Cornwall all in one. Jenny Colgan is a Scottish author who has lived all over Europe and the United States. A wife to her husband and a mother to three children, Jenny Colgan writes science fiction and romantic comedies.

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery - The Book Trail Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery - The Book Trail

Colgan has a wide fan base who find her light novels as warm and delicious as the sweets in her books. Her latest, though, is half-baked. Beyond the window was...nothing. Just a stretch into outer space, or, as it revealed itself to be on closer examination, the sea. The picture had been taken on a day when the sea and the sky were the same shade of gray and blended into one another. It was a great big expanse on which nothing was written. Polly stared at the picture for a long time, fascinated. It looked exactly the way she felt: hollowed out, empty. But also strangely calming. Like it was all right that there was a lot of gray in the world; grey was how it was." I love Jenny Colgan's other books - The Bookshop on the Corner and Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe - but this one didn't hit as well as those ones. It's often the blurbs that convince me to read a book, and it was the last paragraph of the above one that especially captured my attention. As a result, I had a built in expectation of what was coming as I read. By the time I reached the end, I wondered if maybe I missed something. There was a big storm. And it did cause a lot of havoc. However, events didn't play out quite the way the blurb suggests . . .

Most Popular Trails

This is just in case anyone ever grabs you and points a gun at your head and shouts “MAKE ME A TRIFLE! STAT!!!!” so you don’t have to explain about the custard. It’s also delicious and lovely and light. Polly and her husband run a graphic design business together that goes belly-up. Their marriage doesn't survive the stresses of declaring bankruptcy and Polly moves to a dilapidated flat in a small seaside town in Cornwall, as it is all she can afford (slightly hard to believe, knowing how much seafront property goes for in this country, but I'll let it slide).

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan | Goodreads Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan | Goodreads

But when Kerensa, her best friend, entrusts her with a secret, her life is turned upside down. Everything becomes even more tense when an old ghost from her past shows up. Well, at first I was quite excited about that new person in town. I wanted to see how she and Polly clash with each other and I was hoping for a little bitch fight or at least a tiny row. Did I get that? No. Well, that woman owns a cat, which caused some trouble, but not the trouble I was hoping for. That was kind of disappointing, really. In the end, the big secret was unraveld, but did they fight then? No. Because it was in the middle of the big drama (literally) and they were best friends again after that. So disappointing. Fascinating fact: Polbearne was actually based on the real-life island of St. Michael’s Mount. Which, just like it’s fictional counterpart, has a road that is only accessible at times of low tide. I can’t even imagine! The peril is greater this time around, the stakes are higher and things look pretty bleak for a good portion of this book. There are a number of very moving sections and I even had tears rolling down my cheeks twice succumbed to my book allergy and had to start freebasing antihistamines. As it is, what we end up with is that rare beast: a sequel that is actually better than its predecessor! I know; that hardly ever happens, right? Well, in this case, Jenny Colgan has not only managed to bottle the magic she captured in the first book but she's plugged it into the amp and turned it up to eleven.The Little Beach Street Bakery books mostly focus on Polly’s life. They initially explore the manner in which Polly finds new meaning in her life and learns to adapt to the opportunities she discovers in Polbearne. After a while, the novels change direction and explore the impact Polly is having on her new community and the struggles she keeps facing in her efforts to maintain a hold of everything she has gained since coming to Polbearne.