Let's Bust a Recap : The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café

I picked up The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café in mid-February just after we decided to sell our house and move to NC. I was looking for a sweet, romantic novel that would be entertaining but not too stressful. Something I could read in the midst of packing boxes and getting our house listed that wouldn't be all-consuming but would keep me coming back for more when I needed a break. 

It didn't quite hit the mark, but it was okay, I guess. I originally bought this book because on the very front cover there's a little blurb from prolific author James Patterson saying anyone who liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society would "devour" The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café. 

Hi. That's me. Guernsey was my favorite book of 2018.

James Patterson lied. 

I have no idea if he's ever read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I also don't know if he actually read The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café, but to even mention the two in the same sentence is criminal and led to a somewhat disappointing experience for me. 

In this 2013 debut novel from Mary Simses, we meet Ellen Branford, a high-powered Manhattan attorney who is on a quest to fulfill her grandmother's dying wish: delivering a letter to her grandmother's childhood sweetheart in Beacon, Maine. What Ellen anticipates being a quick 24-hour trip turns complicated when she nearly drowns in the ocean and is rescued by the hunky town carpenter. 

Do you see where this is going? Because literally by the third page, I knew exactly where it was going and I was 100% correct. This book was made to be a Hallmark movie, and, as it turns out, it is one.

I was interested in Ellen's discoveries about her grandmother's childhood in Maine....but the author didn't develop that part of the story very much.

My mouth was watering over the tasty food descriptions....but no recipes were included in the book.

The glimpses of small town, coastal Maine were evocative and beautiful....but Simses didn't fully establish the world she was trying to create on the page. She basically stuck to Ellen and her far-fetched interactions with Hunky Carpenter Guy and that's really all you get. 

As for the rest of it, Ellen was extremely unlikeable and not believable as a character at all. For somehow being this hotshot New York lawyer, she couldn't make the simplest decisions, she constantly questioned herself, and she had absolutely zero communication skills. The scenarios she finds herself in are silly and over the top, and the ending was hardly satisfying as the grandmother's story is not resolved in any meaningful way.

I was drawn to this book by the cute, red gingham checked spine and fun title. When I saw a comparison to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I thought I'd be in for a treat. But what I got was a generic, played out Hallmark plot wrapped up in a cute cover that turned out to be more frustrating than entertaining. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. But here's to starting a petition to recall any statement comparing The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. We don't deserve that.