The Strawberry Patch Pancake House by Laurie Gilmore
Laurie Gilmore has hit gold with her series of cozy small town romance novels set in the fictional town of Dream Harbor. The Strawberry Patch Pancake House is the fourth book in the series, but each book can be read as a standalone novel. It is an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Romance and was chosen by my four year old as my Christmas gift. He gravitates toward romances with pretty covers. This book deals with grief, pregnancy, and the death of a parent. Oh, and a grisly murder. No - I'm kidding about that last one.
Archer is a classically trained chef. Until recently, he was living in Paris, working on getting his first Michelin star, having one (maybe two) night stands because he was too focused to ever commit to more, and stressed beyond belief. And that's the way he liked it. What he never expected was to receive a call telling him that one of his previous one night stands had just died and left their five-year-old daughter, who Archer had never been told about, without a parent. Now he lives in the small town of Dream Harbor where he can't even seem to get a basic pancake recipe right, he's running the local diner and the town is constantly disappointed in his cooking, and his daughter won't speak to him and keeps sneaking out and showing up at the neighbor's house. To put it likely, Archer feels like a failure and is counting the days until he can move Olive to France and pursue that Michelin star once more. For the interim, he needs help taking care of Iris while he fixes up the diner. Enter Iris, who Archer is convinced to hire as his nanny even though the woman has never taken care of a kid in her life and hasn't held down a job for more than just a couple of months.
Alright, let me start by saying that this book several things I'm not a fan of. Firstly, why would you hire a woman who has never taken care of a child before and doesn't even really like kids that much, even if several old ladies in the town tell you to. And no background reference? I mean, it worked out but that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Also, sleeping with the nanny. I get it, she was hot, he was hot, there were midnight pancakes. A man cooking me pancakes is right out of a fantasy if I'm being honest, but keep it together! To give credit where it is due, they did acknowledge that it was incredibly not okay. And lastly, I'm not a fan of the surprise pregnancy trope in any capacity. Now that that is out of the way, I thought the setting was very charming but no different than any other small town romance out right now. I did like the characters but more like an acquaintance than a close friend. And the romance was just meh. And Archer deserves better than a pancake house, in my opinion. Although the pancake names were cute. All in all, not my favorite.
I'm giving The Strawberry Patch Pancake House by Laurie Gilmore 3.5 stars out of 5 with a spice rating of 1. It didn't feel like this book had anything in it to make it stand out from the crowd. It was fine, but nothing special. I will be giving another one of the books a try though, so I'll report back my findings.
For more from Laurie Gilmore, check out https://www.thelauriegilmore.com/
Pairs well with lemon poppyseed pancakes (Archer serves his with creme fraiche) and a water aerobics class. With seniors if you can manage it.
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