The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe

 The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe

Reviewed By  Grasshopper2       March 3, 2025

 

Author  Catherine Greer

Distributor:      Allen and Unwin
ISBN:                 9781761471223
Publisher:         Allen and Unwin
Release Date:   March 2025  

   Website:   https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Catherine-Greer-Bittersweet-Bakery-Cafe-9781761471223

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As a first-time author, Catherine Greer, has written an impressive novel in The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe. It has many interesting aspects and is certainly not predictable. It is lovely to welcome an Australian author, who has set her story in Sydney and country New South Wales.

The main character is a fifty-three-year-old woman, Audrey, who is smart and courageous. There are several other characters who are well rounded and interesting. It is the solutions to problems and the development of relationships between characters which hold the reader’s attention.

Audrey was a very smart businesswoman who had just developed a publicity advert entitled “Love your age. Live beautifully.” She was passionate about promoting older women as visible members of the community. However, her promotion had to go before the board of the company for acceptance.

On that board was a young woman who scorned Audrey and coveted her role. Convincingly she managed to sway the directors into rejecting the promotion and at the same time offered her ideas for youth and beauty in the ad. When Audrey realised, she would have to report to Summer, the young woman, she resigned and left her position.

This was easy for Audrey as she had a stable marriage, a small mortgage on her large home, no children and a supportive husband. When she arrived home to break the news to her husband, she found out he had been having an affair with his secretary. So, two dramas in the one day. Audrey packed her bags and left for the small coastal town that she and her mother lived in during her childhood. She just needed time to clear her head.

It is here that the local characters begin to interact with Audrey. Buddy walked to the beach each morning on his walker naked, except for a towel slung around his shoulders. Shez was the local beauty advisor and Billie, a trans gender teen all help Audrey to gradually recognise what was important in her life.

The Bittersweet Bakery Café is hopefully the first of many novels from Catherine Greer.

Fiction, General