Summer At The Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson

Snapped this one up when I was looking for Christmas Reads - bought the second book in the series and when I realised it was the second thought what the heck and bought this one as well.  I am so glad I did!  I could have happily snarfed up this book in a day but the family had Board Games in mind so had to stop at a frustrating 90% of the way through and just polished it all off this morning.

Laura and her children Nate and Lizzie have been living in a grief-induced fug ever since her husband David dies a couple of years ago after a silly accident.  Desperate to start finding herself Laura replies to a strange advert for help at a Dorset Cafe and lands the job.  Cue a disastrous journey down from Manchester with a sniping teen, a vaguely incontinent black labrador and a very car sick 12 year old.  The sort of journey that the thought of makes the parent within us wince at the mere thought of, let alone the true horror of so many hours cooped up with the kids.  An hour in the car with a surly teen was my personal limit.

Although the hottest summer on record for several years, not all is sunshine for Laura as she slowly starts to emerge from her grief.  Told from her perspective nothing feels contrived about this book, and her emotion flows effortlessly on to the page - congratulations Ms Johnson as I am sure it took many a long day and night to achieve this seeming ease.  I soon found myself rooting for Laura because she was so clearly a real person with the same contradictory thoughts and feelings as the rest of us and I was just grateful that I was not lost in widowhood as she is.

Whilst this book is very definitely about Laura the secondary characters are fully fleshed and we get the same glimpses of their eccentricities and personal foibles at the same as Laura so they seem to be just as vivid and alive as she is.  Doesn't matter who they are and how small a part they play in this book they are living and breathing away from the book and you know that from the sensitive way they are dealt with.  Nobody is all good or all bad but the genuine mixture of both that we all are - some with quite poignant back stories too; Edie just made me want to hug her and never let go.

I was only going to give this 4 stars but then realised that I was eulogising and fawning over this book so I had to upgrade it to a five.  I hate giving a five because nothing is perfect but this gave me so much enjoyment and a genuine feel-good feeling at the end that I had to.

**Review originally published December 4th, 2017**