About the Book
Everyone expects great things from Emma Billings, but when her future gets derailed by an unexpected turn of events, she realizes that getting back on track means traveling in a different direction.
She finds it in the closed-down pub on Carlton Square. Summoning every ounce of ingenuity, and with the help of her friends and family, she opens the Second Chance Café. The charity training business is meant to keep vulnerable kids off the streets and (hopefully) away from the Metropolitan Police, and her new employees are full of ideas, enthusiasm … and trouble. They’ll need as much TLC as the customers they’re serving.
This ragtag group of chancers have to make a go of a business they know nothing about, and they do get some expert help from an Italian who’s in love with the espresso machine and a professional sandwich whisperer who reads auras, but not everyone is happy to see the café open. Their milk keeps disappearing and someone is canceling the cake orders, but it’s when someone commits bloomicide on all their window boxes that Emma realizes things are serious. Can the café survive when NIMBY neighbors and the rival café owner join forces to close them down? Or will Emma’s dreams fall as flat as the cakes they’re serving?
My Review
I was so excited to get a follow up from The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square, because that book was a chick lit delight! I’m happy to report that I thought truly the same thing about The Second Chance Café in Carlton Square. It was a blast catching back up with Emma, now married and a mother of twins, and about to open her own café. There was the usual loveable drama, from Emma’s friends and mommy-group, her close-knit family, and her husband, but there was also the main drama of opening her café and the sabotage she has to deal with from a rival business woman. And I can’t forget the little crush from a customer that added a fun twist as well! I breezed easily through this and quite enjoyed it from beginning to end. I highly recommend both from Lilly Bartlett!
5 stars
