A few months ago I wrote about the annoyance I had with the lack of British writers being published here in the States. Luckily, as much as this still bugs me, I was in Great Britain just about a month ago and I was able to remedy this situation by purchasing about a million books that I'd been coveting on Amazon UK. Most of those books were written by Jenny Colgan. I'd like you to notice that while she's written about a dozen books, only one is available currently on our Amazon.
After devouring not only Meet Me at the Cupcake Café, which was the first of hers that I had read and the reason I scooped up so many in England, Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams, West End Girls & The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris, I'm officially hooked and will read pretty much anything this lovely writer churns out. I also have Christmas at the Cupcake Café currently resting on my book case - it's being rationed until we get a little closer to Christmas.
What first drew me to the stories were the recipes. I'm a sucker for a story that includes the perfect recipe for Chocolate Cake. The fact that she's able to weave these tales together with some seriously delicious (sounding that is - I haven't been as adventurous yet to actually try them) recipes is pretty impressive. The other thing she has going for her are the characters. In most Chick Lit series, if you'll excuse the term, the girls are always flighty, blonde and grumpy until they've met Mr. Right and then they're brilliant, blonde and far from grumpy. In these stories, each main character is completely different than the last. They're all flawed and really remind me of me as a 29+1 single person trying to find her Prince Charming.
Of course, all these characters have found their Prince Charming by the end (Spoiler Alert!), so that makes me hate them the tiniest bit, but I can actually see myself being friends with them. (Is that weird? Do other people think about characters in books like this? I hope so...) Lastly, it's the England tie-ins that do it for me. How can you not like a book that takes place in your most favorite place in the whole world? But she's not content to stick to the same part of the island each time: she moves around to the lesser seen, but no less beautiful places - Chelsea (ok so not lesser seen but you get the idea), a small working town up North, Stoke Newington, and Paris (also not really lesser seen).
Like most things do, seeing parts of England through their eyes, made me all the more envious and grumpy that I'm here in the States - but in a good way, I promise ; ) Her books are wonderful, funny, breezy and sometimes sad (just finished tearing up over the end of The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris - so don't say I didn't warn you.) and I promise you will love every last page if you are an avid reader or just a sucker for a happy ending! And if you figure out how to obtain the rest of her canon, please let me know. It's at least a few months until I get back there and I could really use some more books to add to my reading list.
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