The Cafe by the Sea by Jenny Colgan

• Title:  The Cafe by the Sea
• Author:  Jenny Colgan
• Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
• Pages:  416
• Published:  June 2017 – William Morrow Paperbacks
• Source:  Publisher

Description:  Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up — and she hasn’t looked back. What would she have done on Mure? It’s a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious… and hopelessly in love with her boss.

Yet when fate brings Flora back to the island, she’s suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers (all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework) and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking — and find herself restoring a dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbor: a café by the sea.

But with the seasons changing, Flora must come to terms with past mistakes… and work out exactly where her future lies…

My take:  Flora might enjoy living in London, a place where no one knows her as anything but the young, bright paralegal. She likes her friends, her work is ok, and she has an enormous crush on her boss. But when she’s sent back to her island home (that’s as far north as one can get before the north pole) for work she feels the walls of everything that happened before closing in. Will she be able to mend some fences in her family that she’d torn down when she last left? Can she look at the island with new eyes while showing her boss around the place? Jenny Colgan’s story, as usual, is full of heart, lovely characters, and the possibilities that are within reach if they just take a chance. I loved Flora’s family, the island itself, and how everything played out. Recommended to fans of the author and breezy contemporary fiction.

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