The Cosy Tea Shop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts

The Cosy Tea Shop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts

Published: 25th February 2016

Publisher: Harper Impulse

Pages:  257

Available in paperback and on Kindle

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Blurb

When Ellie Hall lands her dream job running the little teashop in the beautiful but crumbling Claverham Castle, it’s the perfect escape from her humdrum job in the city. Life is definitely on the rise as Ellie replaces spreadsheets for scones, and continues her Nanna’s brilliant baking legacy.
When Lord Henry, the stick-in-the-mud owner, threatens to burst her baking bubble with his old-fashioned ways, Ellie wonders if she might have bitten off more than she can chew. But cupcake by cupcake she wins the locals over, including teashop stalwart, Doris, and Ellie’s show-stopping bakes look set to go down in castle history!
Now all that’s missing in Ellie’s life is a slice of romance – can Joe, the brooding estate manager, be the one to put the cherry on the top of Ellie’s dream?

Review

After reading Caroline’s first novel The Torn Up Marriage last year I was very excited to read her new book The Cosy Teashop in the Castle. While her first book took me on an emotional rollercoaster I could tell just from the very pretty cover that this was going to be a more light-hearted and “cosy” read.

Ellie Hall is desperate for a change, in the last eighteen months she’s lost her beloved Nana and broken off her engagement to her fiancé. So when she spots the advert for someone to run the teashop at Claverham Castle in Northumberland she just has to go for despite having virtually no catering experience. Armed with her determination to succeed and her nana’s “Choffee” cake Ellie heads off for the interview. After landing her dream job Ellie soon realises that getting the job was the easy part and making the Teashop a success will be the hard bit.

I love all the characters in this book and Ellie makes a great main character. She’s determined to do her very best to succeed, she’s someone you can instantly warm to as she seems to be able to put people at ease and get them to open up…such as hunky Joe whose closed heart she manages to finally open. The other characters Deana, Lord Henry, Doris and Nicola and of course the lovely double act of Derek and Malcolm all added to life at the castle.

This is a lovely story to get lost in one cosy afternoon and the only downside I found was the ending. I was a little gutted the author finished the book the way she did as I would happily have read more from Ellie and Joe and how things worked out. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the ending, I did I just wasn’t ready to let these characters go!

One of the things I loved most about this book was all the baking talk. I love all things cake so was extremely happy to find a recipe for a certain “Choffee” cake at the end of the book, definitely one I’ll be making soon as every time it was mentioned in the story I wanted some.

I’d like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for this copy to review and would like to rate The Cosy Teashop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts 4 out of 5.