Review: Christmas Wedding at the Gingerbread Cafe by Rebecca Raisin

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Looking for a cozy, warm-hearted read on a chilly day? Christmas Wedding at the Gingerbread Cafe is full of yummy baked goods, loving friends, and sweet romance… not to mention lots of snow!

Lily and Damon must plan their wedding among the ups and downs of real life. I liked that Damon was so supportive and loving, but it was a little too convenient that he always walked into the cafe at just the right moment!

Lily’s friendships and family relationships were believable and fun. Her woes seemed real and would have me on the same emotional roller coaster she was riding! The characters dealt with heartbreak – from whatever cause – although things did happen a little more neatly than they do in real life. (Of course! Or else it wouldn’t be a romance!)

My favorite part of any romance is the happily ever after. Here, there are some predictable twists and turns on the way, along with a very interesting wedding cake.

It was a little bizarre reading a British romance set in a small, northeastern American town with an important character having a southern American dialect. And even more bizarre when I would read British vocabulary (braces for suspenders) after reading a southern accent in a northern town! But I managed through it for this charming Christmas romance.

-Calliope

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Review: The Bookshop on the Corner by Rebecca Raisin

20140714-202708-73628623.jpg Rebecca Raisin infused this book with total cliched cuteness. From the bookshop owner who wanted to read all day to the loud hairdresser in a nearby shop to the roving reporter who falls in love with a small town and considers staying… It’s all been done before. But it hasn’t been done like this: with complete honesty about the fact that the bookshop owner wanted her life to be like the lives of her romance heroines. Sarah wanted the perfect boyfriend, the perfect falling in love story, the happily ever after. So Rebecca Raisin has Sarah openly admit what some of us in real life won’t!

It’s all very meta… The whole time I was thinking YES/EXACTLY, followed by THAT’S SO TRITE, followed by BECAUSE IT’S SO TRUE. I felt like I WAS Sarah because I’m a book lover too. And aren’t we all pretty much reading characters we identify with in one way or another?

So yeah, it’s clichéd. But it’s also literary and layered and symbolic and entertaining and relatable. If you like books, that is. 😉

-Calliope

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