Review of Spring at the Little Duck Pond Cafe by Rosie Green

Welcome to the book blast for Spring at the Little Duck Pond Cafe by Rosie Green! Today I have a sneak peek into this story, as well as my personal thoughts about it. Be sure to follow the tour for more excerpts and reviews and let the author what you think along the way. And of course, be sure to enter the great giveaway at the end!

Spring at the Little Duck Pond Cafe

Fleeing from a romance gone wrong, Ellie Farmer arrives in the pretty village of Sunnybrook, hoping for a brand new start that most definitely does not include love!

Following an unscheduled soak in the village duck pond, she meets Sylvia, who runs the Little Duck Pond Cafe. Renting the flat above the cafe seems like the answer to Ellie's prayers. It's only for six months, which will give her time to sort out her life, far away from cheating boyfriend Richard.

But is running away from your past ever really the answer?

Clashing with the mysterious and brooding Zak Chamberlain, an author with a bad case of writer's block, is definitely not what Ellie needs right now. And then there's Sylvia, who's clinging so hard to her past, she's in danger of losing the quaint but run-down cafe altogether.

Can Ellie find the answers she desperately needs in Sunnybrook? And will she be able to help save Sylvia's Little Duck Pond Cafe from closure?

Read an excerpt:

I have never climbed a tree in my life.

But I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

It’s a gaspingly cold mid-January morning with an ice-blue sky overhead – not exactly the ideal conditions in which to be lurking on the pavement outside a stranger’s house, nervously eyeing up the oak tree in their garden.

Camera gripped in my freezing hands, I stamp my feet and blow out misty breath as I psyche myself up to be bold. I’ve driven sixty miles from Newtown, where I live, to the pretty, chocolate-box village of Sunnybrook in Surrey – with the ultimate goal of climbing this very tree and taking photos of the view from up there.

The tree is almost exactly how I pictured it in my imagination – old and gnarled with broad, evenly-spaced branches. My eye homes in on one branch in particular. It reaches out to the left, a little over six feet from the ground; the perfect place to sit and gaze out over the village green and the duck pond. (As I knew it would be.)

Tears fill my eyes. But I’m smiling, too.

It’s all in a good cause.

Stop dithering and just do it!

When I push it open, the garden gate swings inwards without creaking and the windows remain blank. I drop my bag by the gate and head for the tree.

It’s amazing how fear can give you almost super-human powers. Under normal circumstances, I’d need someone to give me a bunk-up into this tree. But today, with adrenalin pumping through my system, I manage to swing myself up there with no problems at all . . .

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**My thoughts**

I fell for Ellie right out of the gate because she manages to get herself into all kinds of embarrassing scrapes in the first few minutes of the story. I felt like we were kindred spirits. And then her life really starts to fall apart when she realizes she has to break things off with her cheating boyfriend. Plus her mother is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's and Ellie is understandably struggling with that. I don't have the misfortune of a recently cheating boyfriend, but I did recently lose my mother to Alzheimer's. So I understand Ellie's turmoil in these early days. And I need to note it because it is going to be a big factor in the plot of this book and subsequent books in the series, but isn't in the blurb.

Ellie is fortunate to literally fall into a new life in this small town of Sunnybrook. She thinks it is going to be temporary, but you know she is going to get sucked in to the small town life and all of the quirky new friends she is able to make. I want to hang out with these women and feel like they are going to be able to teach each other a lot in spite of their age differences. Plus when you have a hottie writer like Zak right there, how could you want to leave? He has his own damaged past and secrets, but I feel like the two of them could make things work and really heal each other.

I was slightly unsure about how I was going to feel when this story started. But then I found myself getting completely sucked in to all of their lives and was disappointed when I got to the end. I am glad to see that there is a whole series to follow this one and will likely continue on with it as time allows.

Thank you to the author and Goddess Fish for providing me a review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About Rosie Green

Rosie has been scribbling stories ever since she was little.

Back then, they were rip-roaring adventure tales with a young heroine in perilous danger of falling off a cliff or being tied up by ‘the baddies’.

Thankfully, Rosie has moved on somewhat, and now much prefers to write romantic comedies that melt your heart and make you smile, with really not much perilous danger at all – unless you count the heroine losing her heart in love.

Spring at the Little Duck Pond Café is the first in Rosie’s brand new series of novellas centred around life in a village café. Each novella is a ‘stand-alone’ read.

You can connect with Rosie Green on Twitter: @Rosie_Green1988

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Rosie-Green/e/B07CZYV7DW

Rosie Green will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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