*I was given an ARC of Snowed in at the Cat Cafe in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Rachel Rowlands for my copy of the book*
Synopsis:
Welcome to Catpurrcino, the cosy cat café where you’ll fall in love with every cat you meet – and maybe even one special human…
When Emmie’s aunt offers her a job at Catpurrcino, it is the fresh start she needs after a rough year. Now, in the lead-up to Christmas, Emmie can’t imagine anything more purr-fect than pouring hot chocolate for customers and taking care of the café’s many feline residents.
Needing an extra pair of hands for the holidays, Emmie’s aunt hires Jared as a driver. Emmie is immediately struck by how tall and handsome he is, but there is something guarded about Jared, not to mention his allergy to cats. Emmie could never fall for someone who can’t be around her furry friends - and she doesn’t have much time to spare, anyway.
Until an unexpected blizzard arrives on Christmas Eve.
Trapped in the café with Jared and the cats, Emmie discovers Jared has been holding on to more than one secret – and is in desperate need of someone to help him lay his past to rest.
What seems like the most disastrous Christmas might not be such a cat-astrophe after all. Will being snowed in finally open Jared up and let Emmie into his heart?
Review:
Snowed in at the Cat Cafe was quite a lovely read. I love romance books that have a strong setting like this, especially when it’s themed in such a way. All of the cats sounded adorable and I loved how much thought was put into how the cafe functions. I’ve never been to a cat cafe but I do imagine you get cat hair in your food, but not at Catpurrcino, they’ve thought of everything.
Sadly, this book wasn’t really festive at all. Which is fine because the title doesn’t suggest it should be, but if you’re going to set a book in the lead up to Christmas and include the actual day itself, I expect some kind of festive activity to take place. I get that the circumstances made that a little difficult but the lead up could have been more festive.
Emmie took Jared’s lie about being allergic to cats a little too seriously. It’s really not that big of a deal. She gets so mad she doesn’t even ask him why he lied about it. As it’s such a tiny lie you’d surely think something has happened or there’s something else to the lie, but no. She completely freezes him out and doesn’t let him explain. I despise the miscommunication trope so this was the worst part of this book for me.
The other drama is quite a spoiler so I won’t mention it in detail, but they spend a lot of time discussing why they shouldn’t do it and then oh what do you know they’re in that exact situation. I’m not a fan of creating drama for the sake of drama. Which yeah I know, it’s a book it’s all created for the sake of creating something, but there was already a different situation going on that would have been enough drama for this type of book.
Although saying this, I did really like both Emmie and Jared. They have a shared love of art and seeing them bond over this was really cute. I didn’t like how they thought about each other though, it was a little too risque in my opinion.
Snowed in at the Cat Cafe is the type of book that I definitely enjoyed but I can quite vocalise why. It was a fairly quick read that had a lovely setting and good characters but there wasn’t anything particularly special about it. I would recommend it if you’re a cat lover though.
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