When Christmas season is just a reminder of terrible memories…

Synopsis

As the nights draw in, gingerbread lattes and festive hot chocolates are on the menu, and the Little Duck Pond Café girls are gearing up for the cosiest time of the year. But new recruit Laurel just wishes she could sleep through the whole jolly affair! It might be October, but she’s still haunted by the events of last Christmas. Could a new start in Sunnybrook help to heal her heart?

My review

After last Christmas, Laurel has had enough of the season. Her broken heart even took her away from her home and took her to Sunnybrook. In Sunnybrook she is hoping to rebuild her life, without the constant reminder of her past life. And working at The Little Duck Pond Café is the perfect way to distract herself, and she is even ready to make new friends, with the girls that have bonded in time and are welcoming Laurel with open arms. What Laurel doesn’t know is that The Little Duck Pond Café Girls are all into Christmas. So despite her own aversity to the holiday, she hopes that Sunnybrook will still be able to give her the fresh start and new life she truly needs…

There are places and characters that you cannot wait to see again. And Sunnybrook and the girls of The Little Duck Pond Café for sure falls in that category!

And what a delight it was reading this next story in a most marvellous series.

But it needs to be said too, Rosie Green has the ‘great’ ability to let her next chosen main character go through so many things, they for sure have a baggage when the story takes off.

And Laurel… it’s not just one thing that happened to her, or not even two, no she had the whole shebang already happening in her young life.

Even if not knowing all the details, my heart went out to her. She has been treated badly by the people that should be by her side no matter what. And I could understand her need to get away from the place she has been calling home for a very long time. But it saddened me also reading how it was her leaving everything behind…

And with the snippets of revelations we get, I have to admit that Rosie Green for sure perfectly mastered the talent of twisting and turning. Because I was on completely the wrong track with the final revelation. Yet that also made me understand Laurel even better.

Sunnybrook is always the perfect place for someone that needs a fresh start. And thus, Sunnybrook is exactly what Laurel needs. Because she needs to find the good in people again, but she also needs to find calmness in her life again. She needs a place that is not contaminated by hurtful memories. But most of all, she needs to learn to live again. Because of her past, she has not only been running away, but she also went into hiding.

And slowly, very slowly, with the help of the girls at the Café, she gets out of her shell. Even if she is reluctant to opening to the new people in her life, she finds it impossible to keep her distance. And that is not only with the girls, but also with the person she keeps on bumping into, literally too.

While there is obviously a love interest for Laurel in this story, and an amazing one (even if I still have doubts of how on earth his final gesture is possible, or that if I were in Laurel’s shoes, it wouldn’t be possible at all 😊), I felt that this isn’t that kind of love story.

But I felt like it was more a story about a big journey, a journey of letting go of the past, forgiveness in a way, but also about allowing yourself to live again, to love again, to let people in (despite the disappointments faced in the past).

Rosie Green once again swept me of my feet, not letting me take a break in this story, as I devoured it so quickly! And you would think that the more chapters are added in a series, the quality would diminish in a way, yet Rosie Green has set the bar so high, and easily manages to keep it sky-high!