A Cornish Christmas at the Farmhouse Bakery – Linn B. Halton

Published By: Aria
Pages: 320
Released On: 12/10/2023

Newlyweds Ivy and Adam Taylor have put their heart and soul into building their own businesses, but when circumstances conspire against them, it all comes crashing down. Could a Christmas miracle be just around the corner when best friend Jess suggests Ivy open the bakery she has always dreamed of at her Cornish Farmhouse.

Ivy is not so sure she has the heart to start over and winter is hardly the best time to launch a new business near the seaside. but it’s not long before the couple realise that although they are starting from scratch in a new place, they are far from alone.

There is nothing the community at Renweneth Farm does better than Christmas, and as the nights draw in and the snow falls, nothing is impossible.

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and Aria for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

I don’t think there’s a book title in the world that grabs me more than one containing the words “Christmas” and “bakery”. My favourite thing to do is write recipes for, and bake, festive treats, so this earned a five-star rating before I’d even opened the first page.

It is book two of the “Escape to Cornwall” series, but I haven’t read the first one and I didn’t feel any worse off for not doing so. Sure, there’s probably little things you may pick up if you’ve read the first, but it doesn’t negatively impact the reading of this one.

Just the very descriptions of festive baking…oh it’s gorgeous. I don’t bake nearly as much as I used to, for health reasons, but I used to be in the kitchen from dawn to dusk at Christmas time, baking fruit cakes, gingerbreads and stollens. And so this book really took me back. You can practically smell the festive aromas and taste the goods. It’s really well thought out and written. It has made me really excited for the colder months and to go and lose myself in my festive cookbooks.

It is written from the point-of-view of both Ivy and Adam, across Cornwall and Gloucestershire. It means we get an insight into each of their lives, their thoughts and worries. Whilst I would say Ivy is the key protagonist for whom everyone else orbits, by splitting the chapters, it puts Ivy and Adam on an equal billing which was lovely to see, as male characters in romance novels are often not as well developed as the female.

I like the intergenerational aspects of the characters. We have the main adults, but we also have their own children, and their own parents, which allows Linn B. Halton to fully explore what Christmas means to the different age groups.

As a whole, this is a book about community, about helping others and loving others and supporting others. About how strangers can become friends, and friends who can become family. And it’s a community I would quite happily be a part of.

There’s hardships, like in real life: single parenthood, new relationships, relationship difficulties, moving house, unemployment, long-distance employment, self-employment, mortgages, financial issues etc. But that’s what makes it real. That’s what makes the good times so great, because you’ve got to overcome the bad.

I have never been to Cornwall in the winter before but I think it would just be idyllic. I love it in the summer – and I hate summer – but love winter, so assume it would just be the most perfect time.

Like I say, I didn’t read the first in the series, and I don’t know if there will be anymore in this series, but I really hope there is. It just grabbed me and I’m still thinking about it now.

It is just a really uplifting, cosy, warming, beautiful cuddle of a book and I highly recommend it.