Friday, December 9, 2016

Christmas at the Little Village Bakery by Tilly Tennant

2.5 Star

Snow is falling in Honeybourne and Spencer is bringing home his American fiancĂ©e Tori for a traditional English Christmas with all the trimmings. But when his hippie mum and dad meet her high-maintenance parents, sparks of the wrong sort start to fly. Then Spencer bumps into his first love Jasmine and unexpected feelings come flooding back. 

Millie is run off her feet with Christmas orders at the Little Village Bakery and new baby Oscar. Thank goodness her cousin Darcie is here to help her. Although she does seem to be rather flirty with Millie’s boyfriend Dylan. 

Will Darcie ever find true love of her own? And is marrying Tori a terrible mistake for Spencer if his heart is with someone else? 




Kathryn - 2.5 Star

I’m glad I picked up this sequel to The Little Village Bakery and read is so soon after the first novel because a lot of the characters were brought into the next book and I felt the flow from one story to the next.  There’s something charming about the village and I like the camaraderie between the neighbours.  This time they are trying to help the owners of the village pub and all the villagers take turns doing a shift behind the bar to keep the place open.  I love that sense of community that Tennant so carefully places in her novels.

I was also pleased to be re-acquainted with my favourite character Jasmine who is still larger than life and made me laugh and despair despite her small role in the plot. I was happy to have busy-body Ruth back in the thick of things and she doesn’t fail to disappoint in her nosing her way into everyone’s affairs. I found myself frustrated at times though with Spencer and Tori’s relationship. Although I liked them both individually and even liked (or appreciated the position of) both their sets of parents I was irritated about their inconsistency. They really appeared to love each other, their mutual attraction was strong and they seemed to appreciate each other and yet they had had no discussion about their future plans and seemed to think throwing their very different histories together would be a good idea without some forward planning. As much of the novel centres round their to-ing and fro-ing I was a bit let down by the plot.

Overall though I like the setting of these books and I enjoy the various personalities but I think there is sometimes a lack of back story line (unless you happen to have read previous novels) and more could be made of the ongoing character development in each book.  Could just be me…


Thank you to Bookouture for our review copy.  All opinions are our own.

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