Nestled at the end of a tiny, cobbled backstreet, is a charming, careworn bakery, its doorstep scrubbed clean and pale green linen blinds neatly drawn. Every night, long after customers have gone and the last crumbs wiped from the shelves, a key turns in the lock. This is a haven, a place where a candle burns through the night for anyone feeling lost or lonely.
Frankie, kneading dough through the night and shaping croissants to bake for morning, hopes the bakery will keep her safe from the heartbreak of her past. But what she hasn’t expected is to meet others who need to heal as much as she does.
William appears one moonlit night. Forging his own new path following years of heartache, he begins to check in on Frankie nightly, his gentle smile letting her know he’s keeping an eye.
Tam, lost and alone, stumbles upon the bakery and it becomes the one place where he can be himself.
Beth, who nurses patients by night and her husband by day, is drawn in by the scent of freshly baked bread and warm sugar, with Frankie’s custard tarts the one bright spark in her long, lonely nights.
Each of them finds comfort, companionship, and hope, as they begin to reveal secrets they’ve kept hidden for so long.
But one night, Frankie finds a letter neatly folded on the countertop. As she unfolds the perfect creases, her heart plummets when she sees the scrawled writing: will everything she’s been working towards be undone in an instant?
Can the four new friends fight for the place they love? Or will they lose the midnight bakery just when they need it most?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Midnight Bakery and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Midnight Bakery is the long awaited new book from Emma Davies who has been a firm favourite author of mine ever since I read her novella Merry Mistletoe. All these years later the character of Amos still has me in his spell. But now it’s time to meet a new set of characters whose story has a glorious and eye caching cover that doesn’t allow any hesitation, you just have to dive straight in. A varied cast of characters is introduced, each with their own story to tell with the midnight bakery becoming the focus. As the tagline on the cover asks will Frankie discover her second chance of happiness? The reader wonders who is Frankie and what necessitated another opportunity for happiness?
Frances Nightingale, now known as Frankie, works the night shift at Duggan’s bakery preparing and baking everything for the next day. The bakery has become her sanctuary and the job is her lifeline, one which she clings strongly to. She lives above the bakery sleeping during the day and generally keeping herself cosseted from the world pushing people away. She loves the night time here when she can observe people unnoticed but yet beneath the protective shield she has erected around her for reasons which become evident further on in the book is a woman who longs to be more carefree, less rigid and constrained and instead some wilder. The dark hours of the night as she kneads and bakes provide calm and strands of who she wants to be emerge whereas the day means pressure and anxiety and trying to conform to expectation to be someone she is not.
Frankie and the bakery were the anchors in the story around which the other characters navigated and then were ultimately drawn to. I could sense she had a history that had really knocked her confidence in every way and that when we meet her although her life is not perfect I came to realise it had taken a huge amount for her to reach the point at which she was at. But still she was afraid of life and hid away from it and if she hadn’t met Beth, William and Tam then she would have continued in the same manner for perhaps forever. The title suggests that Frankie is the main character and focus of the book but I was delighted to see that although she was the glue that helped the characters stick together that also the trio were given their time and all of their individual stories carried equal weighting.
Frankie meets Beth when Beth is rushing home from her night shift as a nurse and fall and hurts herself on wet cobbles. She takes her into the bakery and tends to her and a conversation is started. Little does Frankie realise the seeds of change and transformation have been sown and what she has longed for may very well come to fruition. I loved Beth, she was juggling so much and under immense pressure and the cracks and strain were showing but she was determined to endure. The love she had for her husband Jack was felt in her every thought, action, word and deed. His life changing accident on their farm several years ago left him disabled and she was the one who had to pick up the pieces and keep the show running. But now she is tired, bone weary tired both mentally and physically and although she would hate to admit defeat and say that things need to change that is what needs to happen and with the threat of being made redundant the pressure just mounts on a daily basis. I loved the connection that was established between Beth and Frankie. The development of their friendship felt natural and not in any manner contrived. That chance meeting one night was meant to occur for a reason and observing their journey and how Tam and William fit into the overall picture also was a pure joy to read.
William works in a nightclub as a bouncer. He is tall, dark and brooding but I felt there was a heaviness and sadness surrounding him for whatever reason and I couldn’t pinpoint what this was. He too meets Frankie at the bakery when he rescues her from a group of men who are unsettling her. He is like her knight in shining armour and when help is needed at the bakery he provides it and the pair grow closer in their friendship. William was perhaps the most secretive of all as to his background and story and when it was revealed I was surprised but glad that I hadn’t figured out what was going on with him. Tam was my favourite out of the two male characters. He was a man who had reached the very bottom and wasn’t afraid to expose his vulnerable side although asking for help is always very difficult. He had been a successful businessman with his horticulture business but he had been taken for granted and burned by his business partner leaving him with nothing but crippling debts. Despite enduring a very tough life, he is slowly trying to pick up the pieces and is on probation working in a care home although his living situation is heart-breaking I loved how Tam always put others before himself and I felt he was like Amos as mentioned up above. He is trying to recover from pain and loss but as he does so he always wants to help, inspire and offer comfort, advice and solace to others and I loved how he did this especially with Beth and Jack. All four main characters form a bond that is unique, heart-warming and very special and what they do for each other is remarkable and memorable.
The pace of the book is pitch perfect as the chapters effortlessly move back and forth between the different characters viewpoints. At no point at all did it feel as if the reader was being bamboozled with information on the characters. If so it would have felt over powering and disjointed. Instead the reader is allowed the space and time to absorb details and put little clues together at their own leisure. A sense of comfort and familiarity soon begins to develop and you are transported to the heart of the story where a range of themes, emotions and difficulties become apparent and it’s the delicate, sensitive and informative manner in which these struggles are delivered and solved that make this a little gem of a book.
There wasn’t one character that I didn’t like or form some sort of connection or affiliation to which is very rare for me. Usually, there is the character that you love to hate or that you skim through their viewpoint but here I felt each member of the newly founded friendship group had an interesting story to tell and it soon became clear that they had all been brought together for a reason. Each had qualities that could help the other and make a difference in their lives. I could see the path they needed to take and what things needed to fall into place in order for that journey to begin and initially I was like hurry up, come on, what needs to be done is clear cut, let’s just get on with it. But my initial frenzy of feeling this way soon dissipated as I become more immersed in the relaxed ambience pervading throughout each chapter. Yet, still there was just the perfect amount of tension and angst also.
Emma Davies has written a story that readers will readily lose themselves capturing both their heart and imagination. The characters all have their flaws but are never dull and all are enduring challenging times but at it’s heart is a story of friendship, human connection, endurance, kindness and generosity. It will steal a little bit of your heart and as you reach the final page you will be reluctant to leave the bakery for the lost, lonely, needy and invisible and anyone who needs a little light in the dark. But you will have been glad to have spent time in their company as you watch the nightingale and her newfound friends soar to heights they initially would never have dreamed possible. This was an utter triumph for Emma Davies and I would love a return visit if at all possible as the characters are memorable whom you root for all the way and although even now that I have finished the book they still remain in my head. If another book based on the same characters is not possible I am still desperately hoping that there will be another book in what I presumed was to be a series set around Clearwater Castle. I felt it was left on some cliff-hangers which I would love some resolution to. But in the meantime you won’t go far wrong if you pick up The Midnight Bakery, a wonderful, engaging and heart-warming story awaits you.
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