The Pumpkin Spice Cafe

By: Laurie Gilmore

2.5/5 ☕️☕️

After suddenly inheriting a cafe from her aunt, Jeanie is ready to leave behind her busy life in Boston and settle down in Dream Harbor. What she doesn’t expect is for the cafe to have problems of its own. With things going wrong at every turn, and mysterious happenings occurring each day, Jeanie starts to wonder if she made the right choice.

Logan—longtime resident and sexy farmer—is still healing from a very public breakup. When Jeanie strides into town, Logan is unsure whether his heart can handle another go. He refuses to fall for someone who doesn’t want to stay in the cozy town he calls home. Will Logan be able to let go and start something new?

Let me start off this review by saying this is NOT a cozy romance. This is smut. Fully, completely smut. I mention this because when I first began this book, I thought it was a cozy small-town romance, so I innocently recommended it to my poor, unsuspecting mother. We decided what a cute book to do a buddy read for. I think my mother is traumatized!! So, don't let the cozy vibes fool you. There are some sex scenes that will make you blush, and for my mother (who has never read smut), it was a little too much. As an avid reader of smut, I have my own opinions that I will share later.

Moving on. This story had so much promise. The beginning was filled with perfect fall vibes, and had a really cozy atmosphere. The characters who were introduced had potential to be riveting. It truly felt like a community the reader would fall in love with and want to continue to go on a journey with. Even the meet-cute with Jeanie and Logan—while a little dramactic—was nicely executed. Gilmore even sprinkled some mystery into the plot, which kept things fresh.

She lost me about halfway through. When Jeanie and Logan (spoiler) first got together, I liked the pace. The smuttiness was written in a way that didn't detach me from the story and the characters remained likeable. However, after the first time the pair have sex, the writing just went downhill. The relationship moved at the speed of light. The dialogue was horrendous, and even the mysterious element was anti-climatically solved.

By the point of their relationship conflict, I was skimming the pages, just begging for the end. I watch Hallmark movies, but even the proclamation of love was too soon for me. The inner thoughts of the characters were so juvenile and annoying, it made me dislike all of them. And don't even get me started on Norman and Jeanie's Aunt Dot.... I'm not even going to discuss that, I get irrationally mad.

Finally, the reuniting of Jeanie and Logan... those sex scenes just made me cringe. First of all, there was like three separate scenes pushed into one. Second of all, Jeanie's thoughts during the spicy scenes just took me out of them completely. I could not take any of it seriously. I found myself rolling my eyes and getting aggravated at the writing. As my mother said, "it's like a different author took over halfway through!"