Breakaway Books

Authored by Laurie Gilmore; Published 2023; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️/🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

I confess: I had low expectations for The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, made famous on none other than the platform TikTok. If the main selling point of a book is that it blew up on TikTok, I am somewhat inclined to turn up my nose at it. I am a millennial, I get nearly all of my Tiktok content filtered through Instagram.

And yet, the novel defied these low expectations. The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, which depicts Jeanie starting out anew after moving from Boston to small town Dream Harbor, picking up management of her aunt’s cute cafe, and of course, falling for local farmer Logan, is perfect fall coziness. The writing flows easily, and I was far too charmed by the New England setting to notice if it was a little too idealized. Who doesn’t want to spend a couple hours this autumn thinking about pumpkin festivals in small New England towns?

We watch Jeanie struggle to adapt to the small-town culture after she escapes from a job that took over her whole life in Boston. Sounds like the premise of a Hallmark movie, right? It is, but there is a little more character to the narrative. The townspeople feature a cast of kooky characters, including a mayor who claims to have prophetic dreams and a book club that appears to be the harmless version of Mean Girls’ plastics. These quirks take it out of Hallmark territory and into a land all its own.

Logan has to get over the memory of his last great love, who refused to stay in the small town of Dream Harbor with him forever. Jeanie doesn’t want the pressure of dating the town’s darling/mascot Logan. While the obstacles between them aren’t monumental, they are more realistic than some that I’ve read in romance novels. In the end, the fact that they openly communicate about them and even go to therapy, made me sigh with contentment at this book.

Also, there’s a farm where all the animals are named after famous singers. If that doesn’t make you laugh, I’m worried for you.

There is almost no reason not to get The Pumpkin Spice Cafe on Kindle and spend a fine fall afternoon getting cozy.