Review: Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

Posted 14th July 2016 by Emma in Blog Tours, Reviews / 0 Comments

I received this book for free for a Blog Tour in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: Summer at the Comfort Food CafeSummer at the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson
Also by this author: Cold Feet at Christmas, Pippa's Cornish Dream, Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper, Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe
Series: Comfort Food Cafe #1
Also in this series: Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe, Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café
Published by One More Chapter on 29th April 2016
Genres: Chicklit, Humour, Love & Romance
Pages: 347
Source: for a Blog Tour
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The Comfort Food Cafe is perched on a windswept clifftop at what feels like the edge of the world, serving up the most delicious cream teas; beautifully baked breads, and carefully crafted cupcakes. For tourists and locals alike, the ramshackle cafe overlooking the beach is a beacon of laughter, companionship, and security – a place like no other; a place that offers friendship as a daily special, and where a hearty welcome is always on the menu.

For widowed mum-of-two Laura Walker, the decision to uproot her teenaged children and make the trek from Manchester to Dorset for the summer isn’t one she takes lightly, and it’s certainly not winning her any awards from her kids, Nate and Lizzie. Even her own parents think she’s gone mad.

But following the death of her beloved husband David two years earlier, Laura knows that it’s time to move on. To find a way to live without him, instead of just surviving. To find her new place in the world, and to fill the gap that he’s left in all their lives.

Her new job at the cafe, and the hilarious people she meets there, give Laura the chance she needs to make new friends; to learn to be herself again, and – just possibly – to learn to love again as well.

For her, the Comfort Food Cafe doesn’t just serve food – it serves a second chance to live her life to the full…

Firstly thank you to Harper Impulse for my review copy via Netgalley.

Ok before you start reading this book I would recommend buying a big box of tissues. I was 3% in when I had to tweet Debbie because I couldn’t stop crying. While I spent a lot of this book with tears in my eyes they weren’t all sad ones. This book will give you all kinds of tears and you come out of it stronger than before.

This book follows Laura and her children as they try to move on from losing the most important man in their lives Dave. Laura’s husband, Lizzie and Nate’s father died 2 years ago. Laura is apply for a job at The Comfort Food Cafe because she thinks this is what they need to start their live AD, after David.

I loved this book. I loved all the characters. Let’s start with Laura. She’s a bit fragile and still struggling with the loss of the love of her life David. She’s going through the motions do exactly what she should be doing but inside she is empty. Then we have her two kiddies. Lizzie is 15. She’s a surly teenager who is mad at her mum for taking her away from her friends for the summer. Nate is 12 and misses the much needed man figure in his life. Without his dad he’s been a little lost.

Now lets move on to the Comfort Food Cafe and it’s VIPs. We have it’s owner Cherie Moon. She sounds like quite possibly the maddest and best boss in the world. I love her and I want her to be my boss. Then you have Frank. Frank who couldn’t tell his wife he hated her breakfast and got so used to it he missed it after she passed. Frank is a right sweetheart and was definitely a heartbreaker in his day. Edie May’s story broke my heart and I couldn’t help but want to give her a big hug. Now if there’s one thing that makes me go weak in a man it’s an Irish accent, the lovely Sam not only has that but his good looks, cheeky charm, his rock hard abs and the benefit of understanding woman by having 7 sisters. A catch or what girls?

Now there’s one more character that I want to mention and that is Matt the vet. Matt is a little shy and awkward around people but give him an animal and his whole face comes to life. Matt is the first person that Laura and the kids meet, and what a scene that is. Matt has been hurt in his past and is quite a mystery at the beginning of the book.

This book will make you sob your heart out in one scene to crying with laughter in the next. I’ve also  seen that we will be returning to the Cafe for a christmassy book which I cannot wait for! Debbie has written a couple of christmas books previously and I adored them both.

About Debbie Johnson

Debbie Johnson is a best-selling author who lives and works in Liverpool, where she divides her time between writing, caring for a small tribe of children and animals, and not doing the housework. She writes romance, fantasy and crime – which is as confusing as it sounds!

Her latest book, The Birthday That Changed Everything (HarperCollins), has been described by Sunday Times best-selling novelist Milly Johnson as ‘a lovely, emotion-filled, giggle-inducing story.’

Her other romantic comedy best-sellers include Cold Feet at Christmas, Pippa’s Cornish Dream and Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper. Her next tale, The Comfort Food Cafe, will be out on HarperImpulse in May 2016.

You can find her supernatural crime thriller, Fear No Evil, featuring Liverpool PI Jayne McCartney, on Amazon, published by Maze/Avon Books.

Debbie also writes urban fantasy, set in modern day Liverpool. Dark Vision and the follow-up Dark Touch are published by Del Rey UK, and earned her the title ‘a Liverpudlian Charlaine Harris’ from The Guardian.

Emma

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:


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