The Second Chance Café in Carlton Square – by Lilly Bartlett

Original Cover (UK)

My own copy (US cover)

The blurb:

One chance isn't always enough…

Everyone expects great things from Emma Billings, but when her future gets derailed by an unexpected turn of events, she realises that getting back on track means travelling in a different direction.

She finds that new path in the closed-down pub on Carlton Square. Summoning every ounce of ingenuity, and with the help of her friends and family, she opens the Second Chance Café. The charity training business is meant to keep vulnerable kids off the streets and (hopefully) away from the Metropolitan Police, and her new employees are full of ideas, enthusiasm … and trouble. They'll need as much TLC as the customers they’re serving.

This ragtag group of chancers have to make a go of a business they know nothing about, and they do get some expert help from an Italian who's in love with the espresso machine and a professional sandwich whisperer who reads auras, but not everyone is happy to see the café open. Their milk keeps disappearing and someone is cancelling the cake orders, but it's when someone commits bloomicide on all their window boxes that Emma realises things are serious. Can the café survive when NIMBY neighbours and the rival café owner join forces to close them down? Or will Emma’s dreams fall as flat as the cakes they’re serving?

My Opinion:

*Book provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*

This is book two of Lilly Bartlett’s Carlton Square series and is actually set two years after the first one, so it can easily be read as a standalone. It’s lovely though to already know the characters and the first book was wonderful.

Emma is now happily married and has twins. She is now experiencing the real life: toddler dramas, marriage problems, exhaustion and much more. The Second Chance Café is a new path for her. Of course opening a café adds some more work and drama to the story, which was very exciting.

Emma is a very relatable and so are all the other characters. They are a great bunch and so much fun to follow around. This book is so much about family and friendship, which is great and Emma needs this fab community of people.

The book is full of great humour and the atmosphere Lilly Bartlett created is beautiful. The storyline has a great flow and there are so many fun and authentic moments in it.

Rating: 

UK: http://amzn.to/2qOjV7L 

US: http://amzn.to/2pSLI8X 

Lilly Bartlett Bio

Lilly Bartlett’s cosy romcoms are full of warmth, quirky characters and guaranteed happily-ever-afters.

Lilly is the pen-name of Sunday Times and USA Today best-selling author, Michele Gorman, who writes best friend-girl power comedies under her own name.