Little Beach Street Bakery ~ Jenny Colgan

Colgan, Jenny. 2015. Little Beach Street Bakery. New York, NY: William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0062371225. $14.99 USD.


I have fallen in love!  Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Street Bakery was a delightful vacation read, with a strong sense of place, local color and well-developed, quirky characters including a hilarious Puffin named “Neil.”




Polly Waterford, together with her long-term boyfriend, owns a graphic design business in Plymouth, England that is failing.  Polly has done everything she can to save the business, but ultimately finds herself facing bankruptcy, a depressed boyfriend and homelessness. Seeking an affordable place to live (harder than it looks), she eventually lands, single again, in a flat above an abandoned bakery located in a quiet seaside town on the Cornish coast, only accessed by a causeway that has high tides twice a day.



 As she rests and tries to figure out what she is going to do for the rest of her life, she bakes bread for comfort, and ends up starting a business, caring for her neighbors, falling in love and finding her place in the world.  Brimming with vivid descriptions of a Cornwall coastal town and its inhabitants, this book is a treat for the senses, a feel-good novel of pure escapism.  And admit it, sometimes that’s just what we need!  A sequel, titled Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, was published in March.