The Pumpkin Spice Café follows Jeanie after she finds her boss dead and decides to leave Boston and assume the responsibility of her Aunt Dot’s adorable coffee shop. In the process, she encounters a few mysteries and a local farmer, Logan. Logan has some baggage and a few hang ups that are incredibly annoying. The mysteries will be solved (and be kinda obvious) and Logan will help her in more ways than one. This book made me want to live in the town, or at least visit it in the fall.
This book was cute and gets 3.5 stars from me, mostly for the vibes, honestly. I would recommend this book if you love fall (I do), if you just want a cozy, cheesy rom com (I did), and you don’t want to think too much about what’s going on (I didn’t).
I really wanted a chance to say “Oh my gourd” and this is definitely something the people of Dream Harbor would appreciate. The town was honestly the main character in this book. And, I’ve seen many compare the vibes of this book to Gilmore Girls, and it’s definitely spot on.
What you won’t get from this book is a lot of depth or character development. I also struggled a bit with the pacing, and found the story probably could have been accomplished in less than 300 pages. There are a lot of characters, but I did struggle with telling them apart. (This could be my attention span, but there are a lot and they all kind of blend together).
This book is written in third person dual POV, which I also struggled with. Sometimes it was hard for me to tell which POV it was since there wasn’t a distinct difference in tone.
Should you read this book? I think so! I recommend going in to the book knowing what it is – a predictable, fun, cute rom-com. It checks all those boxes and I’ll definitely be reading the second in the series next!
Random Thoughts
- Logan is advertised as grumpy – I didn’t find him grumpy at all, everyone loves the man, he’s just an introvert.
- There’s a corresponding Spotify playlist and I loved it.
- The cover art is amazing!
- Look at me actually reading something I planned from my fall TBR.
Favorite Quote/Moment
The animal names in this book are top-tier, and I love Harry Styles so this was just the cutest.
He stopped in front of the old fence that kept Harry Styles, his rescue alpaca, safely out of the driveway.
Laurie Gilmore, The Pumpkin Spice Café