Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Romance books are always so lovely, they have the happy ending, the beautiful heroine and, of course, a gorgeous hero to swoon over. Jenny Colgan is a master at merging the romance genre with the very delectable foodie obsession we are all under. Her Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe was sugary, her Rosie Hopkins Sweet Shop of Dreams was delightfully sweet and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris was full of chocolatey goodness. However, if I am going to be honest, I have to say that Rosie Hopkins was my favourite (I am not going to mention the sequel - as it just didn't work for me at all) of her most recent foodie romance. It was sweetness and light with a brilliant hero, relateable heroine and a beautiful historical romance that pulled you straight in.

So, now we have all of that sorted, let me tell you about her newest baking romance...Little Beach Street Bakery. This started out brilliantly: Polly Waterford is recovering from losing her business compounded by a bad breakup, and having to give up her home and social life all in one fell swoop. Now, she is desperate and a little scared, but when she stumbles across an affordable island in Cornwall she is able to get back to her first love...baking bread. And perhaps a little love of her own...

I loved the gorgeous descriptions of the baking process, the kneading, rising, delectable flavours Jenny threw in to make my stomach growl with hunger. My only problem with this light read was the length. It felt a little too long, a little too indulgent and by the time we find out who the hero is (yep, you guessed it, there are some options here in this little sleepy town for Polly) I was struggling to remember if I liked him or not... This is not ideal and by the end I really didn't care one way or the other - it should have ended at least 50 pages earlier! But all in all this is a lovely story for a holiday - a great book to lie on a beach with and forget about your real life - the one with tubes and buses, crowded coffee shops and worrying about money. In Jenny Colgan's delightful Cornish town all of these worries are there, but there is also bread, hot from the oven just waiting for you to spread it thick with butter or perhaps a dollop of honey...