Summer at the Little French Cafe by Karen Clarke ~ an Audiobook Review

by Donna Huber

We are at the height of summer and I was looking for a light, summery audiobook so that I pretend I'm on vacation while I work. The cover of Summer at the Little French Cafe caught my attention with its waterfront landscape and little red, white, and blue flags. And of course, with summer in the title, I figured it was just what I was looking for.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free audiobook was provided for an honest review.

July 2022; Saga Egmont Audio; 9788728277584
audio (7h 43m), ebook, print; women's fiction

The first thing I noticed about this book was how fast the audiobook went. Usually, I will listen for 30 minutes to an hour and then take a break. When I thought about taking a break from this book I realized I had been listening for more than 3 hours. It was just so soothing that it was easy to listen to.

If a book can be a lazy listen, this is definitely that kind of book. There wasn't a lot of intricate details to keep up with or complicated twists. It is mostly about the characters with most of the action being of the everyday variety. Lucy Bromilow does an excellent job and her voice was so easy to listen to.

And the characters are so enjoyable. I was ready to jump on a plane for Chamillon (though it is a fictitious village I could go to Champillon) just so I could meet these people.

Elle Matheson has never known her birth mother. The woman was a vacation fling and her father isn't even sure of her name. All he knows is that nine months after their triste, a woman shows up in England with a 1-week-old baby and says she can't raise her. Elle had a good life with her dad who was engaged at the time and his fiancee readily accepts Elle as her own. Shortly after her father dies she finds a postcard of a cafe in the French village where her father had met her birth mother - it's just signed M. With her sister being her only remaining living relative she decides to go look for her birth mother.

With a 30-year-old protagonist, I did wonder if this would be a romantic comedy but it leaned much more towards women's fiction. The risk she takes to search for her birth mother also takes her on a bit of a journey into self-discovery. There is a little bit of romance but it is very much in the background and the novel is a clean read.

If are looking for an enjoyable, but easy listen, then I highly recommend this book. I didn't realize that this is book 2 in the Little French Cafe series until I got to the back matter. I think it is a series that is about different characters and the common denominator is the cafe so you don't have to have read book 1 to enjoy this one. But I liked the characters so much I will be looking for Escape to the Little French Cafe just so I can visit with them more.

Buy Summer at the Little French Cafe at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour. 

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