Customer Reviews

Little Beach Street Bakery (Unabridged)

This is a lovely story and has a real feel good factor about it. The main character, Polly, is written about in such a way that you actually begin to care about her and what happens! I loved the descriptions in the book - made me want to move house nearer the sea...

This book is light reading and enjoyable. The kind that you want to read in one sitting.

Would recommend.

If there is only 1 book you read this year then it has to be Little Beach Street Bakery. This novel definitely has the 'feel good factor'. There are lots of interesting characters in it & my favourites were Reuben & his relationship with Kerensa, Jayden & of course, the wonderful Neil! Please Jenny write a sequel

In the past couple of years Jenny Colgan has really become an author I admire and enjoy. She’s started writing books that are mainly based around food – mostly the type of food I love, in fact, sweet food! A chocolate shop in Paris, Rosie Hopkins’s Sweetshop of Dreams, Cupcake Cafes… Her novels are so sweet that if you read too many of them in a row you may find yourself in a not-unwanted sugar coma. She’s also one of only a few authors who is giving us TWO novels a year, which is just amazing. I admire any author that can bring us two books per year, when let’s be honest, books normally take a year when there’s just one of them, so I have no idea how she does it, but I just hope she continues forevermore, because I can’t get enough. Her latest is Little Beach Street Bakery (I DARE you to guess what it’s about.)

Little Beach Street Bakery was a delight in every sense of the word. I pretty much devoured it in just over 5 hours, because I was so enjoying being around everyone! Polbearne sounds like such a fantastic little place to live (I find myself saying this more and more, authors really do know where to set their books that make me dream of living there…) and I quite liked the fact that you could only leave if the tide dicatated you could. That’s ace. I loved how everyone welcomed Polly, except Mrs Manse, obviously, and I loved the immediate camrederie there was between Polly and between the fishermen, particularly Jayden and Tarnie. I loved reading about Polly’s baking – the loaves of bread sounded DELICIOUS and I can’t wait to try the cheese straws, or the plain white loaves, of which there are recipes in the back of the book. Polly and Jenny make it sound so easy to bake! But would you like to know what I loved most of all about the book? The puffin. Yes, Polly acquires a puffin, called Neil. There were just no words to describe my joy at Neil being present in the book. It made me smile like a loon, the way he acted like he was a pet not a wild bird, and I loved reading about it, it made my day. I decree that Jenny must now put puffins in all of her books, just because. Books can no longer be enjoyable if there isn’t a puffin present. I’m just saying.

I truly believe that Jenny Colgan gets so much better with every book of hers I read and I have no idea how she’s going to top Little Beach Street Bakery, unless there’s MILLIONS of puffins in the next one. I just enjoyed it so much! Polly was such a lovely, heart-warming character, and I loved to see her succeed and I loved how easily she cultivated relationships with everyone around her, especially Huckle. Yes, he has a silly name, but he’s a bee-keeper and makes honey, and is American and sounds delicious, so the name is forgiven. The book actually surprised me, because there was a sad strand to the novel, that I didn’t like at all, because it was quite gutting (NO, Neil the puffin didn’t die, jeez, you don’t kill off pets in books) and unexpected – this is a happy novel! So to see such tragedy was awful, and it just brought back a stark reminder of how real even novels can be! I really, really enjoyed Little Beach Street Bakery, and it’s given me a desperate craving for a good home-made loaf of bread, I really should know better by now than to read a Jenny Colgan novel on an emptyish stomach, because it never ends well. So before you read the novel, stock up on sweet treats, sit back and enjoy!

Slow going at first but now really enjoying it, Looking forward to see what happens in the end. Makes me feel like making some bread.

Great light read for holidays etc. A little predictable but I enjoyed it - an easy read. Great recipes included at the back of the book

Excellent read, charming and full of great characters. Recommend you read if you want a lighthearted, fun but emotional read.

A lovely tale with a likeable ,human main character. One of the best of this genre. Read it if you want a quick, undemanding but satisfying escape.

Once again, Jenny Colgan has created a delectable novel filled with quirky characters and a beautiful backdrop. Her descriptive knowledge of the beach location will make you feel like you're right there alongside the characters. As with all her novels, with Little Beach Street Bakery Colgan has created a heart-warming and enjoyable story; a tale featuring quirky charatcers and enticing plot and a moral undertoke about finding yourself, changing your life and of course, finding love. I hope this becomes another 'series' of books like the cupcake cafe.

Polly Waterford is recovering from a toxic relationship. Unable to afford their townhouse, she has to move miles away from everyone, to the sleepy little seaside resort of Polbearne where she lives alone above an abandoned shop.

Polly takes out her frustrations on her favourite hobby...making bread. But what was previously a weekend diversion suddenly becomes far more important as she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, and each loaf becomes better and better. With nuts and seeds, olives and chorizo, with local honey (courtesy of local bee keeper, Huckle), and with reserves of determination and creativity Polly never knew she had, she bakes and bakes and bakes...and people start to hear about it.

While the book was cute, and the setting was beautiful and fantastically described, I found it very hard to get in to the book. There was no sparkle for me and overall the entire book was very bland and boring for me.

I felt like there wasn't any chemistry between Polly and Huckle, which took away from the enjoyment of the book for a start. The lack of sparkle overall and the lack of fire and passion in the main romantic relationship made for a very below average book.

It wasn't all bad though, I could picture the little island town perfectly, and it was written very atmospherically, but overall it was bland, boring and very average.

This is the first book I have read by this author. It started well and then became a bit bogged down with the heroine's care of a baby puffin, all a bit surreal. I almost gave up on the book but persevered and enjoyed it in the end.