Book Review: Sunshine at the Comfort Food Cafe by Debbie Johnson

Title: Sunshine at the Comfort Food Cafe
Author: Debbie Johnson
Publication date: 8th March 2018
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Comfort Food Cafe #4
Source: Review copy via NetGalley

Description: For Willow, the ramshackle café overlooking the beach, together with its warm-hearted community, offers friendship as a daily special and always has a hearty welcome on the menu. But when a handsome stranger blows in on a warm spring breeze, Willow soon realises that her quiet country life will be changed forever.

My thoughts: I love Debbie Johnson's Comfort Food Cafe series - while they've always got some really sad bits (and are quite formulaic with that aspect) they're real celebrations of found-family and how communities can come together. Willow has been in the series from the beginning, a young woman who spends most of the time caring for her mother who has Alzheimers. I was pleased to hear that she was a main character in this book, because we've seen her as a continual side character, and I was eager to find out more about her. Also, she's younger than some of the main characters have been, and at a more similar stage of life to me, so I thought I might relate to her situations more than I have with the characters who already have kids, for example.

When she's not looking after her mum, Willow works as a cleaner, with a business she set up and runs by herself. She's been employed to clean up a big local house, which used to be a children's home, and soon meets her employer, who turns out to be surprisingly handsome and surprisingly young. I loved that Tom was a bit of a geek, interested in sci fi & fantasy and how to survive a zombie apocalypse - a man after my own heart!

They have the usual mix of ups and downs, and deal with problems like Willow's strained relationship with her siblings, the trials of looking after her mum, and the interference of well-meaning neighbours who have seen her work so hard & just want her to be able to have some nice things for herself sometimes. It's an emotional ride in places, but as with the rest of the series, very uplifting and - as you might guess from the name - comforting. I love this series as a quick read to perk up a weekend. Overall, I'm giving it 8/10.