Savoring the Seasons

One of my favorite settings for a novel is an small, quaint country English village. I guess I found my love for them after watching the movie The Holiday. But I became truly enchanted when I picked up the Chilton Crosse novels and found that love I had been missing. In each novel in the series, the reader gets to know each of the village's residents a bit more that live in Chilton Crosse and with Savoring the Seasons, by Traci Borum, the fourth novel, the reader gets to really know Julia Bentley who runs Rose's Bakery in town. Her ninety year old father does his part by sitting outside the bakery handing out samples to those that pass by, whether tourists or simply someone in town. In fact, the entire town knows how much of his life and love he has poured into the bakery.

The bakery has been open now close to 40 years and with that, the town decides to celebrate all the hard work that the Bentley's have put into their baking. Mrs. Pickering decides the best way to do that is to form small committees to complete the tasks need to pull this off as a surprise of a lifetime and the only thing they will allow Julia to do, is bake a cake. So as the town sets off to complete their assignments, Julia discovers Tristan Hannigan, the new delivery man for supplying the bakeries needs and feels immediately drawn to him. Until he shaves off his beard and she realizes he is more than a decade younger than she is. While she is 40, and he is only 29 going on 30, she wonders if there might be a possibility for them. For now, they agree to be friends, something everyone can do with more of, especially Julia who's life consists of waking up early to begin baking, and taking care of her elderly father.

Just reading about all the tasty treats Julia whips up since discovering an old cookbook left behind with all her mother's notes, makes the reader want to indulge in some as well. Just as it seems things might be looking up in the romance department for Julia, Tristan's mates from the University show up since he refused to attend their reunion and with it, Tristan's old ex who is drop dead beautiful who still seems to have a thing for Tristan. With the retelling of all their old school stories, Julia can't really contribute much except for smiling at this and that, and begins to wonder if the feelings she has for Tristan aren't just hopeful anticipation and perhaps the age difference between them is more than meets the eye.

I received Savoring the Seasons by Traci Borum compliments of Red Adept Publishing. The delightful thing about this novel is the quips of wisdom that opens up each chapter. While it might allude to baking advice it also parallels life advice as well. For example, "Don't take fresh ingredients for granted. Smell them, touch them, turn them over in your hand and really look at them. Appreciate their qualities and what they're about to do for your recipe. Don't get to busy that you forget to savor the small things." And that is just the theme of this novel. Savoring the Seasons in our lives. Too often we are consumed by our daily to do lists that we forget to engage in the people around us and before we know it, life has passed us by. I know if you love novels that take place with a small group of people that love and care for one another, pick up the Chilton Crosse series. For me, this one was well worth all 5 out of 5 stars in my opinion.

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Savoring the Seasons by Traci Borum

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