Monday, 16 May 2022

Summer at the French Café, by Sue Moorcroft

Regular blog readers will know I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm also pleased to be one of her beta-readers and thoroughly enjoyed her latest novel, Summer At The French Cafe, which has just been published in paperback and e-book.

Sparkling sun, strolls in the gorgeous French countryside, that first sip of cool, crisp wine – Summer is Kat’s favourite season. And this year should be no exception…

As soon as Kat Jenson set foot in the idyllic French village of Kirchhoffen, she knew she’d found her home.

Now she has a dreamy boyfriend, a delightful dog and the perfect job managing a bustling book café in the vibrant Parc Lemmel.

But when she learns her boyfriend isn’t all he seems, it’s the start of a difficult summer for Kat. Vindictive troublemakers, work woes and family heartache follow, and the clear blue sky that was her life suddenly seems full of clouds.

Then she gets to know the mysterious Noah, and her sun begins to shine brighter than ever. But Noah has problems of his own – ones that could scupper their new-found happiness. Together, can they overcome their many obstacles, and find love again?

The perfect summer read for fans of Trisha Ashley, Sarah Morgan and Carole Matthews.

Katerina ‘Kat’ Jenson manages the the bookshop Livres et Café at Parc Lemmel, on the edge of Muntsheim, in the Alsace region of France.  When it turns out her boyfriend is not only a family man but his wife is a computer whizz who’s perfectly happy to cause havoc, Kat swears off men.  But then she meets Noah - who comes with his own baggage - and finds herself falling for him.

Another winner from the ever consistent Sue Moorcroft, this is a quick and heartening read filled with the usual mixture of romance, raunch, good humour and grit that she does so well.  Sue is very good at creating instantly believable characters and Kat is exceptionally well realised (she reminded me a little of Cleo from the excellent All That Mullarkey. Kat's character never has a false step and she's equally matched by Noah, who's new to the area as he tracks down his mildly autistic daughter Clemence.  It turns out, his ex-wife Florine is being controlled by her new husband Yohan, who wants a new family in his own image and the little girl is caught up in the middle.  

With Kat’s family and the bookshop owners causing their own issues, the summer is a mixture of incidents and excitement and very soon, you’ll be rooting for this well developed couple to prosper.  

Told with a keen eye for detail, a wonderful grasp of location and a pace that is absolutely pitch-perfect, this is a fantastic read that I heartily recommend.


Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Published by HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by other publishers around the world.

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.

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