Reviewed by Emma Crowley
When Emily loses her job, house and boyfriend all within a matter of days, she's determined to turn a negative into a positive and follow her dream of running a small cafe in the gorgeous Yorkshire village of Essendale.
But she quickly finds she's bitten off more than she can chew when the 'popular' cafe she takes over turns out to secretly be a failing business. Emily desperately needs a way to turn things around, and help comes from the unlikeliest of places when she meets local board game-obsessed GP Ludek. But when a major chain coffee shop opens on the high street, Emily is forced to question if she'll ever be able to compete.
Has she risked everything on something destined to fail? Or can a playful twist, a homely welcome, and a sprinkle of love make Emily's cafe the destination she's always dreamed of?
Book Challenge: #24in24 24 countries in 2024: Book Eight - England
Many thanks to Aria and Aries via NetGalley for my copy of The Little Board Game Café to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Little Board Game Café is the debut novel by Jennifer Page and yes it has taken me some time to get around to reading as it was published around this time last year but better late than never as they say. It also means that I have book two to catch up on and book three will be published in June. So perhaps waiting to read this wonderful and engaging read has paid off as I read can read the books more or less one after the other instead of patiently waiting for each book to be published. I loved the cover for The Little Board Game Café as it was so bright and colourful and it reminded me of the Love Heart Lane series by Christie Barlow and yes having now read this books I do thinks fans of Christie will love Jennifer’s writing. I’ve read lots of books set in cafes or shops etc that need renovating or something drastic must be done to make them survive and to be honest I am a sucker for this genre. But this book was different, original and inventive as it focused on a board game café. Such a unique idea and if you weren’t a fan of board games prior to reading this then you definitely will be by the time you reach the end.
The prologue introduces us to Emily who as a teenager works in the same café as her mum Trixie during her summer holidays. Emily would wait tables and Trixie would run the kitchen. Their dream was to one day open up their own café together but one fateful summer a fortnight after she returned to school her life totally changed and that aspiration was no longer a possibility. Fast forward many years later and Emily is having a very bad day. She has just been let go from her job. Admittedly she had never wanted to work there or really fitted in but the fact that it was her fiancée, James who did the firing makes it a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.
Following the bad morning Emily wanders through the village of Essendale where she has lived for three years. She ventures down a street she has never gone to before. Here she spots a building with a sign saying Nico’s café is for sale and as we know from the prologue her dream has always been to have a café of her own but can she do it without her mum who was meant to be by her side? It’s clear from the outset that Emily is not someone who likes taking risks and let’s be honest you have to have a certain strength and inner confidence about you in order to do that. Having a boyfriend in James who is so uptight and wants to mould her into someone else doesn’t help her really either. So I was glad when they split up within the first few chapters as it meant the focus really could be on Emily and her next moves. I was delighted when Emily bit the bullet and used her inheritance to buy the lease on the café.
Emily really stepped out of her comfort zone when she took on the café and it takes great courage and grit to do this especially has she had no formal food qualifications but what she lacks in this area she makes up for in enthusiasm, eagerness, energy and passion. But will that be enough? As when she opens up the café under the new name of The Lancashire Hotpot, the costumers fail to materialise. Only for one regular named Stan who I felt was coming through a sense of routine for him rather than any real loyalty to Emily. Although that does change over time and the friendship that developed between the two was lovely. I don’t think without Stan and some of the others that Emily comes to know would she have continued on the way she did. Despite tasty and delectable cakes and savouries the costumers just don’t come through the door. The Café is off the beaten track and as the days pass by Emily becomes more and more despondent as she can see her dreams dissipating before her very eyes.
When best friend Kate makes Emily join a running group with her it’s not Emily’s idea of fun, but she does meet GP Ludek and instantly I could see she her interest was aroused. Ludek is part of a board games group that takes place at the local pub and he invites her to attend. This is when the book really began to take off and the title starts to come into play. To some people the topic of board games might seem a bit nerdy and boring but it wasn’t at all. What made it different from the norm and that little bit more exciting is that a whole new world was opened up for Emily as traditional games like Monopoly and Buckaroo etc although fun and mentioned here, were not exactly what Ludek and his fellow board gamers played. Such inventive games were mentioned and the seriousness with which they took everything astounded Emily and she was drawn into a world she knew nothing about.
In doing so she started to really connect with Ludek although for a lot of the story I felt he held himself back a bit and yes he was slightly obsessive when it came to his own personal board games that filled his house but at the same time that was a sweet side to him as well. One evening when the pub is double booked for the board game club Emily steps in and volunteers to hold it at the café. Soon she realises she needs a unique selling point to try and attract customers to the café or otherwise she will have to shut up shop but she is not about to go down without a fight. Having the board game cub at the café sparks an idea and she decides to rebrand the café as The Little Board Game café and with the help of Stan and some others she sets about transforming her little café.
I really enjoyed reading these scenes as the author let her creative mind let rip with all the quirky details included in the café. I was desperately hoping that things would be a success for Emily and was rooting for her all the way. She comes up against many obstacles and setbacks many of which were very interesting and added some drama to the story, but she kept plodding on and this made me admire her more and more. The Ludek strand of the story developed nicely even if it was a little bit predictable at times with crossed wires, misunderstandings and times when you wanted to give the pair a good shake. Will they realise that they both actually like each other? Will the board game café succeed, or will it become another statistic in the ever growing list of shop closures? You’ll have to read this delightful book yourself in order to discover the answers?
The Little Board Game Café, was just such a lovely book to read. It had the right balance of angst and needing to work hard to achieve something combined with lots of moments of laughter, comradery and or course romance. Emily, takes brave steps and learns to not let what’s happened in your past hold you back in your present and it’s advice we can all take on board. Jennifer Page has demonstrated through this heartfelt, appealing and warm story that she is a talented author that will go far in the future. This was a great debut read and I am delighted now that I can get stuck into book two, Love Letters on Hazel Lane and Second Chances at the Board Game Café will be another one to look forward to as well.
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