The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane

By: Ellen Berry / Narrated By: Katie Scarfe

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Slow crafting makes this ANOTHER grand Ellen Berry Listen!

I was taken aback by the first book in this series, The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane, because, dude! Where was the bookshop? -BUT- it was so well crafted, the characters were slowly and beautifully developed, the romance baaaaarely was there but it WAS there, just not enough to make this a Wham Bam INSTANT LoveFest. I mean, what kinda chick-lit was it?

It wasn’t chick-lit; it was just grand writing of a really good story, more akin to Women’s-Lit than sappy One-And-Done. So I was soooo into getting this second in the series posthaste.

And then I immediately forgot about it UNTIL Ta-Dah: A bakery/food-themed story just right on time for Thanksgiving!

Soooo satisfied with this, The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane, wherein, dare I say it: Dude! Where’s the bakery?

>GASP< Did I actually choose a story for Thanksgiving where I KNEW it’d be more about story and characters and baaaaarely about Baking?!? Yup! I did, and I really really liked it, this step or two above chick-lit.

The first book had us with Della and her crumbling marriage that was heaped upon her mum dying that was heaped upon her daughter growing up and leaving an empty nest. This book has her sister, Roxanne, in her kinda sorta (un)apologetic life as a single childless woman of a certain age. Life in grand ol’ London (As opposed to snooze-fest small village, Burley Bridge) is starting to morph a bit. Roxanne is seeing a DESperately handsome and famous fashion photographer (But she’s starting to wonder if maaaaybe, hopefully, maaaaybe it could be more), and her job as a high-power Fashion Director for a glossy magazine is suddenly and irrevocably upended by a new editor who pretty much demotes her, leaving her to work under a loathsome woman. She’s confused, is wondering where she is in her life, to the point where, rather than have her quit, the gung-ho editor offers her a 2-month leave to go to Burley Bridge and start a blog: A Fashionable Woman Hanging out in Yorkshire sorta deal. Roxanne striding through the moors, done up in raincoat and stomping through the mushy fields in Wellies? Wellll, okaaaay.

That and a feverish argument with Uber-handsome photographer has her storming to see Della in Burley Bridge.

Told from mostly Roxanne’s perspective, we dooo get a few chapters from our Hero’s point of view. This would be the completely respectable-looking Michael who is just baaaarely ready to move on from an ugly end to his marriage. Oh, and? Yep, he and his kids are running a little bakery. On Rosemary Lane.

Turns out that Della’s successful bookshop has rather revived the village, drawing the well-heeled to Burley Bridge to see that quirky little bookshop that has EVERYthing CookBook, all SORTS of arcane volumes. Naturally, oooodles of people have thrown their lots in, starting darling little shops that draw in tourists galore. And naturally Michael would be looking for a book on fermented breads on Roxanne’s first day there.

This story goes reeeeally slooowly, which I loved. Roxanne’s life is full of friends, her job, her dreams, that rockin’ photographer; things unfold gradually even tho’ there are ups and downs.

Katie Scarfe does the honors for this audiobook in the series, and she does a fine job. She handles a multitude of accents (Remember, we’re bouncing between London and the Yorkshire countryside—with an Irish fashion photographer to boot), and she handles a score of men (Delightfully NOT growly), and even throws in the whole spectrum of ages (What with Michael’s teenaged daughter, Roxanne’s elderly friend/London neighbor Isabelle, plus her bestie’s two young daughters), and she manages them all really well, even as there are rapid-fire conversations going back and forth. Scarfe never drops the ball… well, maybe once, -but- in an audiobook that clocks in at 10 1/2 hours? Dude, AWEsome.

Yup, sweet story, and it has me eyeing the third audiobook in the series. I’m not gonna read the Publisher’s Summary, but I thiiiink it leans towards Christmas?! Whaddaya think? Should I just go ahead and chuck a credit at it?

HOPEfully, it WILL be about Christmas, and it WON’T have me shamelessly apologizing for the lack thereof.

Oh heck! Stay tuned for Christmas of 2021…. :)