Autumn at the Cosy Cottage Café
Series: Cosy Cottage Café, Book 2
By: Rachel Griffiths / Narrated By: Rebecca Courtney
Length: 3 hrs and 15 mins
Kinda sweet, but where was the Autumn? Where was the Cosy?
I don’t know if you’ve ever checked it out, but certain veins of chick-lit have similar covers. So I was looking for a cosy autumnal listen whilst checking out chick-lit seasonal fare, and tho’ I never listened to the first book: Summer at the Cosy Cottage Café and thus was unfamiliar with the characters, I thought I’d give this, Autumn at the Cosy Cottage Café a go. I liked the cover, okay? So sue me.
Well, you’ll have to sue me, cuz the book didn’t entertain me, and I should be punished for choosing a book by its cover… and title. I mean, really: All I wanted was Autumn and a bit of charming café characters.
Uhm, no. Allie and Chris already had their stories told in the first book where the Cosy Cottage Café began, so we barely see the Café as the story moves on to another couple with Dawn, Allie’s good chum, stopping by only a couple of times to chat and to show a dead guinea pig. I know… So ANYway, where’re the quirky café characters? Nowhere.
This book is only about a very pregnant Dawn wondering whether her husband Rick is cheating on her. She’s tired, she’s cranky, and she has to put up with Rick’s mother coming in to “help out” after she suffers a health crisis. It’s a novella, actually, so it’s very short with everything being a problem: boom! Coming to a head: Boom! Getting straightened out in a “charming, feel-good” way: BOOM! You’re in; you’re out, end of story.
I totally canNOT understand the rave reviews over on Amazon. It was sweet, sure, but there’s no depth, and you can’t tell me that there’s no time to develop characters in three hours. Mapping the Interior is only two hours, and the author managed to create some pretty awesome character twists. Okay, so that’s not chick-lit, but c’mon! Gimme something more than Is He Cheating On Me for three hours.
Plus, Dawn’s sister is trotted out peripherally so that we know the next book/novella will be her love interests, and the Café will barely be in that too. So while I do like chick-lit, and I don’t have really high expectations (Seriously, it’s not something I listen to and think proudly of… ), I do have SOME standards. This just seems like it was written to chuck onto Amazon and to pad a series.
And that, my friend, I neither approve of, nor shall I support. I don’t care how antsy I get for a Winter listen: I’ll be going somewhere else for my crackling fire and hot chocolate!
Oh. But the narration was decent…
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