Christmas at Carly's Cupcakes by Jessica Redland

It's December on Castle Street; the fairy lights are twinkling, snow has settled and the festive season is in full swing.

For Carly, the owner of Carly's Cupcakes, it's the busiest time of year getting everyone's Christmas treats ready on time. However with her clumsy sister, Bethany, as a co-worker, it's proving a difficult task. They say you shouldn't mix work with family. Maybe they have a point...

As Christmas approaches, Carly is also eagerly awaiting the return of her best friend to Whitborough Bay. Liam has no idea he's been the object of her affection since their schooldays. After years of pining after him, can Carly pluck up the courage to finally tell him how she really feels by 25th December?

The last two books I have picked to read I really struggled to get into, one of which was a favourite author of mine and I was unsure if I was losing my reading mojo or if it was just a case of the wrong book at the wrong time. I decided to browse through Amazon to see if I could find a light read and that was when I saw the wonderful festive cover of Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes and me being a sucker for a cupcake shop novel, I instantly downloaded it to my kindle.

How far would you go to support your family?

Carly wants to be there to support her sister Bethany when due to terrible circumstance she is unable to return to her job but Bethany is anything but a natural when it comes to cake decorating! With a whole host of mistakes, it starts to become detrimental to Carly’s business but how can she let her sister go?

With the stress of this situation Carly is desperate for the return of her best friend Liam who is serving in Afghanistan but having this distance between them has made Carly question is her feelings for Liam is purely friendship.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Jessica Redland this is the first book in a long time that I have sat down to read and ended up finishing the whole thing in one greedy sitting. From the opening chapter I was pulled straight into the storyline and took an instant like to our main character Carly who is such a selfless and hardworking woman who puts others needs before her own. Her and her sister Bethany are completely different characters but I also loved Bethany and my heart went out to her as she was so lost and felt like she failed at everything that she turned her hands to which I am sure is something many of us would have experienced at one point or another in our lives.

As I mentioned before I am a complete sucker for books that are set around running businesses especially Bakery or Café these call out to me from the bookshelves and I am never able to resit but on some occasions the storylines don’t really go into any detail about the business but this was not the case with this storyline this one had me dribbling and I could visualise all the intricate details of the personalised cakes that Carly created.

I loved the friendship that had built over many years between Liam and Carly and I could see why Carly was worried about admitting her feelings for him incase it would put their friendship at risk. Although I thought the love story was predictable this didn’t affect my enjoyment of the storyline I enjoyed watching everything coming together.

There is a sprinkling of festivity but this book could easily be read anytime of the year. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and found the characters incredibly engaging, the storyline pacey and heart warming. I have found a new author in Jessica Redland and I am already looking forward to reading Starry Skies over the Chocolate Pot Café next.

 

My next read by Jessica will be