Book Review: The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore

November 27. 2024

I loved this book. I have always told myself that I am not a romance reader, and that they are just too boring for me, but I could not put this book down. I was in a bit of a reading rut, and was really not feeling anything I was reading, when my library told me that my hold was ready - I forgot that I had put a hold on this book, but it has been on my list! I figured, what better timing than to read it the last week of October ( when I actually finished this book, contrary to when I posted this review ) and started reading it on the way home. Don’t worry, Eli was driving. And I very quickly read the whole thing. Laurie Gilmore has a couple other books in this world and I cannot wait to get my hands on them.

We follow the story of a young girl named Jeanie who just inherited her aunt Dot’s little cafe in the small town of Dream Harbor, and it really could not have come at a better time. Just prior to Dot announcing her retirement, Jeanie had found her boss, to whom she was a personal assistant to for the past seven years, deceased on his desk. The stress, poor diet and overworking had buried him into an early grave and she was worried she was not far behind him. When Dot asked her to take over, she jumped at the opportunity for a slower life in the small town she grew up loving. While she was settling in, she closed the shop up and the townsfolk were anxious to get back to having a steady caffeine fix, and were eager to get to know the cafes new owner. One morning, before the cafe was up and running again, she hears a rustling by the back door and, feeling brave, grabs something to defend herself and whips the door open only to find a, wildly attractive, produce man standing at her back door with a delivery. Over the course of the book, she falls in love with the quirky town, with the life she is beginning to create and with the handsome farmer who provided her produce.

This book was charming, cozy and spicy. The last couple of chapters were fulled with, relatively tasteful, smut between two smitten individuals. So, if you are sensitive to that, I would maybe skip over this book, but I felt it was a tasteful use of smut. It is described, in the front of the book, as a bit of a Luke and Lorelei story, if they just got together already, and I could not agree more. It was very sunshiny-messy female lead meets grumpy-rugged male lead and I am here for it. I am chomping at the bit to read more from Laurie Gilmore.