Christmas at The Chocolate Pot Café

by Jessica Redland

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU

A few minutes of courage might change your life…

Emotionally, Tara Porter finds the festive period a challenge. Christmas Day is a reminder of the family she lost, and New Year’s Eve holds bitter memories of the biggest mistake of her life: marrying Garth Tewkesbury. Shunning invitations to celebrate, she seeks refuge in her flat with only her giant house bunny, Hercules, for company.

Professionally, though, it’s the best time of year. Tara’s thriving café, The Chocolate Pot, is always packed. With the café hosting a wedding and engagement party, it’s shaping up to be the café’s best Christmas ever.

When former nemesis, Jed Ferguson, threatens the future of The Chocolate Pot, Tara prepares for a fight. The café is everything to her and she’s not going to let anyone or anything jeopardize that.

Tara badly misjudged ex-husband Garth and, since then, has refused to let anyone in. After all, if you don’t let them in, they can’t hurt you. But has she misjudged Jed too? Is it possible that he’s not the arrogant, deceitful man from whom she bought the café 14 years earlier? Can she find the courage to find out for sure?

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Nobody had ever kissed my hand before. I felt like a heroine in an Austen novel, being wooed by an English gent. I had to fight hard not to giggle childishly or say anything stupid.

 I’ll admit that there’s a teeny weeny fragment of sympathy for him, but Joyce seems to think the sun shines out of his arse, whereas I just think he is an arse.

I think I may have had an attack of the verbals…

 

My Review:

 

Tara was an enigmatic cross between Pollyanna, a “spiky” cynic, and a secretly prolific crafter and hygge enthusiast. She had limited her life space to her business, her giant house bunny, and her clandestine crafting. Her story tugged and squeezed my heart and I adored her, as I have every quirkily flawed character this talented author has introduced me to with this addictive and entertaining series. Each story in this lively and insightfully written series has been delightfully and lusciously detailed with poignant and original storylines and unique challenges for the lovable yet besieged characters to conquer. This story held several added layers of maddeningly paced intrigue that continually poked and prickled my curiosity. I seem destined to read Ms. Redland’s work out of order, yet it makes no nevermind as while her tales are interconnected, they all have strong legs and are quite capable of standing alone, but what is the fun in that?   Collect and read them all, and be a better person for it. I have unearthed a fun new addition to my Brit Word list with muggins, which Mr. Google defined as “a foolish and gullible person (often used humorously to refer to oneself).”

 

Author Bio 

Jessica had never considered writing as a career until a former manager kept telling her that her business reports read more like stories and she should write a book. She loved writing but had no plot ideas. Then something happened to her that prompted the premise for her debut novel, Searching for Steven. She put fingers to keyboard and soon realized she had a trilogy and a novella.

She lives on the stunning North Yorkshire Coast — the inspiration for the settings in her books — with her husband, daughter, cat, Sprocker Spaniel, and an ever-growing collection of collectible teddy bears. Although if the dog has her way, the collection will be reduced to a pile of stuffing and chewed limbs!

Her passion for North Yorkshire is shared by fellow-writer and great friend, Sharon Booth and, together, they are the Yorkshire Rose Writers.

Jessica tries to balance her time — often unsuccessfully — between being an HR tutor, trying to re-learn how to play the piano, studying towards a Masters in Creative Writing, and writing itself. Who needs sleep?

Social Media Links –

Twitter: @JessicaRedland

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaRedlandWriter/

Website and blog: www.jessicaredland.com