Spoilers Ahead: 

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I’d had it recommended to me so often when I was scrolling through Amazon. Naturally, after the peer pressure, I had to buy it, and although it has taken me a while to get round to reading it, I decided, to go with the Autumnal vibe, that I would finally read. In the nicest way possible, you can tell this book was a recommendation from TikTok... and I’ll explain why in a second. 

First of all, though, we follow Jeanie as she is gifted a café from her Aunt. After the death of her boss, she decides to go for it, and so she moves away, hoping for a fresh start. When she relocates to the small town of Dream Harbour, she hopes that it’s everything she wants it to be... however, immediately after arriving, things start to go wrong. And, in a town like Dream Harbour, not only does everyone know your business, but they also love a gossip, and news travels fast. 

Jeanie almost assassinates the farmer that comes round, who is only trying to deliver her groceries. This is Logan, and he is painted as the grumpy farmer with a kind heart, and he’s all dark and mysterious, you know the drill. He thinks she talks too much at first, but then he figures out that he finds her cute, and the he becomes wildly possessive over her. 

Logan has his own baggage, however. He had a romance with a girl, Lucy, who had no intention of settling down in Dream Harbour with him. Of course, unbeknownst to this, he proposes to her in front of everyone, and she runs away, never seeing him again. He’s so hurt by this, he’s not interested in ever being in a relationship again, and so hasn’t dated anyone since. His biggest fear is that he’ll be left again – his father died when he was young, and his mother left him, so he very much has some abandonment issues, although this isn’t common knowledge to him yet – and so this is why he doesn’t want to be as drawn to Jeanie as he is. 

When things start being sabotaged around the café that she is trying to re-open, Jeanie has to look at the staff and find out who she thinks is doing it. It starts off harmless, messing with the thermostat, and then it ends with her being broken into. Logan does his best to try and help her with it, though she believed it was a ghost at first, and, much to his disgust later on, he downplayed her problems to make it seem like they weren’t that important. He wants to be with her, but he doesn’t want her to leave him, especially when her house is still packed up, so it looks like she’s going to leave again. That makes him not want to get involved with her, because he’s terrified history will repeat itself. 

Although they share a few kisses, he treats her as if he’s ashamed of her, hiding their feelings from the rest of the town to avoid the gossip, and she knows she deserves better. Eventually, of course, they find their way back to each other, and they end up getting together. Awh, how sweet! 

I can’t lie to you, I was a little disappointed with this book. It started off promising, but it dwindled off slowly. Very quickly, I realised that the book was written from a “TikTok” perspective, which is sort of when the story, for me, is a little forced, unrealistic, and more idyllic than real-life is. Personally, for me, I’m not a fan; I like stories to have a bit of grit to them, meaning that characters have flaws, and their troubles are a lot less trivial. Even though Jeanie being targeted is a horrible thing, it’s also being much trivialised by the language Gilmore was using. If she was being targeted, especially by someone from within the café, it should have been more of an important point in the story. It seems to have been glossed over, and the ending was very anti-climactic, and it could very well have been left out, the amount it was mentioned. 

Romance-wise, I think the book was very lacking. Spice-wise, it wasn’t doing anything for me, and felt very juvenile in the way it was written (personally speaking). Not only that, but it felt like they were both creating obstacles to not be with each other, and it was fine the first time it was mentioned about them not being able to get with each other, but it became so infuriating after that. You can tell when there isn’t actually a problem, and it’s just being put on for the plot, and this is what it felt like for me. Because of that, the whole romance and the dynamic of the two was really underwhelming, and a little disappointing, to be honest. 

Moreover, I personally think that as this is labelled as a “grumpy x sunshine” novel, I think that Logan isn’t actually grump. Sometimes, I think he’s a bit boring to be honest. He was sort of made into a character that Avery really loved, but as a reader, we didn’t get the chance to love Logan ourselves. We were told how good he was, but not shown, and so I didn’t feel the devotion to him that I thought I would. And, anyway, the things he did do weren’t worthy of the pedestal he was being put on. 

Overall, there was a very juvenile feel to the story, so I would definitely recommend it for teenagers, possibly, but personally, it wasn’t working for me, and I don’t think it was worth all the hype it was getting (and the notifications telling me to buy it!).