Review - The Beach Cafe by Lucy Diamond

The Beach Cafe is a delightful, brighten up your day read by Lucy Diamond.

Evie, is drifting along, happy with her lot in life with level headed boyfriend Matthew and his son Saul who stays regularly.  Unsure about what to do with her work life, and always feeling like she’s the one sister of three that the others look down on as the black sheep, she signs up to do teacher training.  When her Aunt Jo dies and leaves her The Beach Café in a gorgeous bay in Cornwall, where she spent many a happy time in her younger days, she is astounded and tries to prove to her family and Matthew that she can work things out. 

Evie takes off to Cornwall to see how the land lies and to see what she should do with the café, should she sell, should she get a Manager in, or find out what other options are available?  She finds the café being run appallingly by a dreadful chef who is more interested in drinking and playing poker with his mates, and two waiting staff one of which is rude and ignorant to the customers and the other a real clumsy-clot and breaks and drops things.  When Matthew dumps her, she makes the decision that she thinks is best, and with nothing and no-one to keep her in Oxford, she moves to Cornwall to run the café herself.   The villagers are tough to crack, as they have been told that she is selling up and don’t help her at all! 

Can’t tell you anymore, without giving more of the story away, and you know I’m not going to do that!  You’re just going to have to read it for yourself!  What I can tell you is that this is a wonderful book which left me nearing the end with half of me wanting to find out the end of the story and the other half just wanting to stay in the bay and carry on living the wonderful life I had been living for the last few days whilst I have been running The Beach Café. 

The smell of delicious bacon sandwiches wafting through from Ed’s kitchen and the glorious sunsets I enjoyed whilst sitting on the decking of the café overlooking the beach with a beer in my hand, were just so real that I was a bit confused as to whether I was Kim or Evie.  It did have me driving home from work looking forward to having time to catch up with the story.  It also had me wishing that I was in Cornwall enjoying the sun, the sea and the sand and wondering what I was doing in the rainy West Midlands!  

Evie was a wonderful character, always ready to help anyone in need, whether she knew them or not, with her no holds barred generosity and compassion.  A real little angel!

A perfect ending to a perfect book, makes this a thoroughly enjoyable must read.

Lucy Diamond lives in Bath with her husband and three young children. The Beach Cafe is her fifth novel for Pan Macmillan.

She also writes children's books under her real name, Sue Mongredien.