Meet Me at The Cupcake Café by Jenny Colgan Review and GIVEAWAY!

When this book first showed up in my mailbox, my middle child, 5-year old Daniel, stared at it in fascination. “Mommy, what are you reading,” he asked. “Meet Me at the Cupcake Café, “I responded. “I want to go to the cupcake café,” he said dreamily. After finishing the novel, I find too that I would love to travel to the cupcake café!


Issy Randall is a born baker. Her flighty mother left her with her grandfather for most of her life. Her grandfather raised her with love in his three bakeries and taught her the secrets to good baking. Now a thirty-something worker bee at a real estate firm, Issy finds herself let go by her boss/boyfriend Graeme due to the hard economic times. Issy decides that now is the time to pursue her dream and start her own cupcake café. Through shear hard work, determination, and the help of a few friends, Issy Randall works through trials and tribulations to make the perfect dessert and business. She also meets her handsome banker, Austin, and sparks fly.

I LOVED this book. Issy is not a skinny, beautiful woman waiting for Mr. Right to find her. She is a plump regular woman with an amazing skill of baking and grit to make her dreams come true. She has her own self-doubts and wonders if she has chosen the right path, but she works hard to pursue her dreams. She has her best friend and roommate, Helena, a nurse that knows how to get the job done and does not take any guff. As Helena and Issy enter their thirties and watch their friends marry and start families, they start to wonder if they have made the right decisions, especially in regards to men. I found Issy and her friends to be very relatable.

Each chapter of the book opens with a recipe. As an American looking at the measurements that are strangely metric and old school, I’m going to have to think about this. Many of them sound scrumptious and fun to try out.

Overall, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café is a delightful book full of wonderful characters and a great story line about a woman making it on her own. I was sad when it ended and hope that the characters will turn up again in another book. I’ve added author Jenny Colgan on to my list of authors that I really need to find more of her books!

Book Source: Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thanks!

Giveaway

Sourcebooks has graciously offered a giveaway of one copy of Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan.
If you would like to win this book please leave a comment about what most intrigues you about this book.
As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a monte carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!).

No P.O. Boxes.

The deadline for entry is midnight on Friday August 2nd, 2013.

Please make sure to check the first week of August to see if you are a winner. I send emails to the winner, but lately I've been put in their "junk mail" folder instead of their inbox.

Good luck!