The Pumpkin Spice Café by Laurie Gilmore is a book that has taken social media by storm.
From its perfect autumnal cover to the cosy Gilmore Girls vibes it gives to the fact that the Dream Harbor series of which this is book number one keeps growing. But is The Pumpkin Spice Café actually worth reading? Is there more to this book than just a pretty cover? Well, I recently finished it so it seems like the perfect time to write a full review of this small-town romance book!
What Is The Pumpkin Spice Café Book About?
Jeanie’s Aunt Dot has given up her beloved Pumpkin Spice Café to travel. She hands the entire business over to her niece who packs up her life in Boston to move to the small town of Dream Harbor. Jeanie’s life isn’t quite what she’d like it to be and seizes the opportunity to be able to start afresh. However, within a few days, Jeanie encounters a problem in the form of Logan, the resident farmer, who just happens to be one of the most good-looking guys she’s ever met.
Logan avoids the town as much as possible and he certainly doesn’t have any plans to fall in love and get his heart broken again but there’s something about the new café owner he just can’t keep away from. Her happy-go-lucky attitude and his grumpy shyness shouldn’t work but the two of them find themselves getting closer and closer.
Jeanie is desperate to make her new life work to fit in and find friends but Logan has been here before and believes that Jeanie is only using Dream Harbor as a pitstop to figure her life out and he’s not looking for a fling, he’s looking for love. Between a town that loves to gossip, someone out to drive Jeanie away from the café and new budding friendships the new café doesn’t want to ruin, can Logan and Jeanie find a way to be together?
Book Review:
I’ll be honest, the main reason I bought The Pumpkin Spice Café was for the cover. I am a huge autumn lover and I just couldn’t resist those cute, cosy vibes. I know it would look lovely out on a shelf. This is not my usual sort of book at all. Even though I don’t have one particular genre that I stick to I just don’t do romance books at all. Or at least that’s what I thought.
Given that I’d spent money on the book, I was always going to read it, it was just a question of whether I’d even enjoy it or if I’d end up ditching it after a few pages. Well, it turns out that I more than enjoyed it. I absolutely loved it and it was probably the most fun I’ve had reading a book all year! Honestly, I never saw myself as a romance or spice reader but here we are!
The Pumpkin Spice Café came along at just the right time for me. I’ve been reading a lot of horror books recently and I just wanted something lighthearted where you didn’t have to think about anything that was happening and could just truly relax and boy did this book provide that!
I ended up giving this 5 stars and not for all of the usual reasons I would give a book 5 stars. It’s purely for how much fun I had reading this. I can acknowledge its faults and I understand why it gets quite a lot of middle-of-the-road reviews but it was honestly so nice to not dedicate any brain space to a book for once and just enjoy it. And for that reason, it’s totally worth awarding 5 stars.
Now obviously this isn’t a negative review because I honestly could not get enough of the book, faults and all but to be objective I do think it’s worth pointing out what some people would dislike about this book. It’s not the most well-written book but then again I didn’t expect it to be and that wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s fairly simplistic and low-stakes and there are some repetitive phrases throughout the story. There are a couple of subplots around friendship and some mild mystery elements but it’s basically just Jeanie and Logan deciding whether they should be in a relationship or not.
It’s super cheesy and predictable but that’s really what I loved about this book. It’s just cosy, feel-good fiction that’s perfect for this time of year or when you just need something more lighthearted. It’s the perfect palette cleanser between other books. When I say I could have happily read another 300 pages about Logan and Jeanie I’m not even exaggerating because I didn’t want the book to be over.
Star rating:
The Pumpkin Spice Café Tropes
The Pumpkin Spice Café has all the typical tropes that you would expect from an easygoing romance book like this. While it can make books predictable, there’s nothing wrong with a little predictability now and then!
- Grumpy x Sunshine
- Small town
- Found family
- Spicy
- Falling fast
- Happily ever after
Is The Pumpkin Spice Café Based on Gilmore Girls?
It’s easy to see why people might think that this book is based on Gilmore Girls. It does have the same autumnal, cosy vibes as the TV show. However, despite the author’s name, the book has nothing to do with the show. Laurie Gilmore is actually a pen name for Melissa McTernan. The author publishes her Dream Harbor books under the pen name to separate them from the romantic fantasy books that she publishes under her real name.
Is The Pumpkin Spice Café Book Smutty?
I would say that the book is more spicy than smutty. There are sex scenes towards the end of the novel and while they are fairly explicit, they’re not hardcore at all. It’s all fairly vanilla stuff. However, I know the spicy element can take some people by surprise as on the whole it’s a pretty wholesome book.
There are only a few pages of spice which can be skipped and I can appreciate why some people think that the spice doesn’t fit with the rest of the book but I didn’t have an issue with it. I appreciated that the spice elevated it more to an adult read rather than Jeanie and Logan skipping off into the sunset hand in hand with each other declaring their love when they’d not even got down to business!
I can’t personally speak on this yet, but I have seen reviews that say the second book is spicier though so if the level of spice in this book wasn’t for you, I’d probably stop there!
Is The Pumpkin Spice Café A Standalone Book?
The Pumpkin Spice Café is book one in the Dream Harbor series. While you can read this book and be done with it, the other novels explore some of the other characters and businesses in the fictional town of Dream Harbor. Here are all the books currently released or available for pre-order in the series (release dates are UK only):
- Dream Harbor #1 The Pumpkin Spice Café – out now
- Dream Harbor #2 The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore – out now
- Dream Harbor #3 The Christmas Tree Farm – out now
- Dream Harbor #4 The Strawberry Patch Pancake House – out March 13th 2025
- Dream Harbor #5 The Gingerbread Bakery – out September 11th 2025
Final Thoughts
Personally, I loved this book. I haven’t been able to stop talking about it since I read the first few pages. I was hooked instantly and I’m so glad that there is a whole Dream Harbor series to enjoy.
The Pumpkin Spice Café is the perfect autumnal book, if you can look past its faults and you want something lighthearted then I can’t recommend this book enough. I’m so glad that the cover of this book made me want to buy it because I would have never have picked it up without that.
Have you read The Pumpkin Spice Cafe? Will you be enjoying the rest of the Dream Harbor series? Let me know in the comments!
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