Little Beach Street Bakery

Jenny Colgan has become something of a master at what she does, creating little community based books around fledgling business headed by young, love torn women searching for peace and happiness in their lives. We've had the Cupcake Cafe, Rosie Hopkins Sweetshop, a Paris Chocolatiers and now Polly with her Little Beach Street Bakery.

It is not the main heroine nor the possibility of romance which make Colgan's books so special, it is instead the surrounding cast of characters she brings to each book, building not just singular stories but ones which have strong atmosphere and a sense of real community and camaraderie.

In this novel we meet Polly, who facing bankruptcy with her boyfriend Chris decides to uproot herself to a tiny Cornish fishing village where she rents a rickety tumbledown old bakery. Before she knows it her bread is healing her wounds and integrating her into the little fishing community. With all the fishermen, her little puffin Neil and a strange American beekeeper called Huckle it's not long before I was completely hooked on this book.

The way in which Colgan wove in the stories about the dangers of fishing and the worries the families of those who risk their lives fishing face was lovely and gave another perspective to the story and mixing in the eccentric billionaire who lives nearby meant there was never a dull moment in this book.

I truly hope this is not the last we see of Polly, I hope her little bakery is given another novel in the same way as we've been allowed to revisit the Cupcake Cafe and Rosie Hopkins. I'd truly love to read more about Polly, her puffin, Mrs Manse and the little community Polly helped to build.