My 15th read of this year was The Gingerbread Bakery by Laurie Gilmore, the 5th book in the Dream Harbour series.
Potential spoilers for earlier books in the series, I’ll try to be vague though.
If you want my thoughts on earlier books in the series you can find book 1 – The Pumpkin Spice Cafe here
Book 2 – The Cinnamon Bun book store
Book 3 – The Christmas Tree Farm
Book 4 – The Strawberry Patch Pancake House
A plot summary
This book follows Annie and Mac, who we’ve seen have a love/ hate (mostly hate) relationship through the other books in the series. It’s clear there’s something between them from the past but we don’t find out anything about it until this book. The storyline flashes between the present day, where they are attending a wedding for one of Annie’s close friends and are both in the wedding party, to the past, when 18 year old Annie and Mac had one magical Christmas together.
Mac did something stupid back then that Annie has never forgiven him for, but during the week of the wedding he finally has an excuse to be around her where Annie can’t avoid him. So he makes it his mission to finally clear the air from when they were young. Lucky for Mac, the Grandmother of the groom goes missing the day before the wedding, so he manages to persuade Annie to let him help, as the groomsman and the only one of the two of them with a full tank of gas and snow chain on his tyres.
Maybe it’s the magic of a Christmas wedding, or someone taking care of her for once, but Annie starts to find it harder and harder to resist Mac’s charms. Can she let go of all the hurt and embarrassment from years ago? Would she and Mac even work as adults?
My review
I still think my favourite book in the series is the first but I did really like this one. It had all the nostalgia of a first love, against the realities of finding love again in your 30’s and the baggage you inevitable carry with you by then. I love the Gilmore girls-esq town setting of these books and that they don’t pretend to be anything other than that what they are, cute romances with a hint of plot to keep you interested.
Antonia Bernardin 