The Cafe by the Sea - Jenny Colgan

Colgan's The Bookshop on the Corner has been on my to-read list for a while now, but I haven't been able to get it from the library.  However, The Cafe by the Sea came up as available without any waitlist, so I snapped it up for a weekend read.

At first, I was very concerned that this was going to be a chick lit book.  Flora seemed like she might be a chick lit type of character--young and living in London and making somewhat questionable decisions while having a gigantic crush on her aloof boss.  She uses London as a refuge, having fled her hometown of Mure--a tiny Scottish island community so far north it's practically Norwegian--after her mother's funeral with plans to never go back.  But when an American billionaire taps the law firm Flora works at specifically because she works there, she finds herself dispatched back to Mure to attempt to prevent a wind farm from being built and blocking said billionaire's view.

While this book teetered perilously towards chick lit at times, it ultimately managed to wedge itself over the line in regular ol' contemporary fiction.  There's an ill-fated love triangle and a lot of domesticity, but Flora is ultimately on a journey of self-discovery rather than "I must pursue a man."  There is a man involved, but her story is larger than that and is more heavily based on reclaiming her place in the Mure community and repairing her relationship with her father and three brothers while determining what to do with the failing family farm.  The titular Cafe by the Sea is a pop-up shop Flora ends up running in an attempt to foster goodwill with the community on the billionaire's behalf (really, he's not as bad as he seems like he's going to be at the beginning of the book, which was good, because I thought he was going to be a straight up Steve Jobs/Donald Trump conglomerate, which was not the case) with recipes based entirely on her mother's cookbook.  Flora seems an indifferent cook before the discovery of the recipes, but is (of course) an amazing one after with no in between.

The love triangle I was iffy on.  It's pretty obvious from the beginning that Joel is going to be a prominent character, but I was unsure of how suitable a partner he really was.  I do think Colgan tries to show his background and why he is so closed off early in the book as the story progresses...but at the same time, if someone is a jerk, they're probably always going to be a jerk, and one conversation with their therapist's wife and a glimpse of a blonde with her hair blowing in the wind isn't really going to change that.  Charlie, of course, was a Class A tool, so don't get your hopes tied up around him, no matter how deceptively nice he seems when first encountered.  That I think Colgan did a good job with--neither guy is as they first appear.  I'm just not sure I'm entirely sold on the switch.

This was a good weekend read.  I'm still interested in The Bookshop on the Corner, and it will probably be similar: light and fluffy but with poignant moments.  Despite my initial chick lit concerns here, I don't think this falls into that category.  A lot of people have shelved it as such on Goodreads, but honestly, this has deeper themes than chick lit ever does, even if it has a domestic main character, a love story, a quaint setting, and a bright and peppy cover.

3.5 stars out of 5.