Sunday 1 December 2013

Christmas Reading Challenge & Giveaway: Rebecca Raisin - Christmas at the Gingerbread Cafe

The icing on her Christmas cake!

Christmas is the season the Gingerbread Café was made for…but owner Lily couldn’t be feeling less merry if she tried. She’s spent another year dreaming of being whisked away on a sleigh-ride for two, but she’s facing festive season alone – again. And, just to give her another reason to feel anything other than candy-cane perky, a new shop across the road has opened… Not only is it selling baked goods, but the owner, with his seriously charming smile, has every girl in town swooning.


But Lily isn’t about to let her business crumble — the Gingerbread Café is the heart of the community, and she’s going to fight for it! This could be the Christmas that maybe, just maybe, all her dreams – even the someone-to-decorate-the-Christmas-tree-with ones – really do come true!



Amazon link: Kindle

I loved the sound of Christmas at the Gingerbread Cafe and the cover is utterly gorgeous, so when the author Rebecca Raisin contacted me to ask if I would like a copy to review I was in seventh heaven especially as I had set myself a Christmas Reading Challenge for December so novellas like this will certainly help.

Lily has been running her Gingerbread cafe alongside employee CeeCee for a number of years offering the locals delicious home-cooked delights and with Christmas fast approaching they are busy preparing mouthwatering dishes for their customers.  But when a handsome stranger Damon Guthrie opens up shop across the street and it looks like he is a direct competition to her business, it looks like she might have a battle on her hands to stay afloat...

What follows is a hilarious tale of one-upmanship tactics that both Lily and Damon devise to try and get one over on the other but underneath the rivalry there's definitely something else brewing...

There is so much to love about this novella, the descriptive writing of the various food dishes will definitely tempt your tastebuds, I even loved the sound of the gingerbread creations and I don't like gingerbread!  But that's not all there is to offer there were so many different moments to enjoy; comedic - I found myself laughing out loud on numerous occasions, sentimental - the mention of Amazing Grace was both emotional for Lily but also for me as it brought back so many memories for me of my mum as it was her favourite Hymn and she'd always be singing it around the house, and of course romantic.

I loved the relationship between Lily and CeeCee, they were a unique partnership and were more like mother and daughter than employer and employee especially when CeeCee has her matchmaking hat on.  CeeCee was definitely my favourite and I would love to hear more from her in the future.

Overall this was a real feel-good read that was the perfect story to kick-start my Christmas reading challenge.  Thank you Rebecca for sending me a copy of your book to review as I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

And if you like the sound of it too then you're in luck as Rebecca has very kindly sent me a gift copy from Amazon.com as a giveaway prize, enter via the Rafflecopter form below.  Once the winner has been selected I will email the gift certificate to the winner to enable them to redeem the eBook.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

12 comments:

  1. Sounds a good book

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  2. The cover and title of this novel caught my eye earlier this week and your review certainly makes it sound... appetising! (sorry for the terrible pun) :)

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  3. Sounds good, thanks for the giveaway

    Lainy http://www.alwaysreading.net

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  4. Sounds like a lovely book, you really got me excited with that review! Can't wait to read it (fingers crossed).

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  5. Love the book cover and sounds like an amazing read
    thanks for the giveaway
    Toni

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  6. The cover looks really pretty and the story sounds brilliant. I have my fingers crossed!

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  7. Sounds great, would love to win this. x

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  8. I really love books set in cafes. Thanks for the giveaway
    http://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.co.uk/

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  9. Thank you so much it sounds a great book xx

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  10. this book looks great!

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