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Title: The Sweet Life CafeAuthor: Helen RolfeFormat reviewed: EbookSource: NetgalleyPublisher: Boldwood BooksPublication Date: 17th January 2026Rating: 5 Stars
Only a taste of home can heal old wounds ❤️🩹🧁☕️
When sisters Addie and Susanna receive invitations to a memorial for their Aunt Gayle, they’re heartbroken to learn the woman who raised them has passed away. But arriving on Anchor Island, they’re met with the shock of their lives: Gayle is alive and well, busily preparing her own 'Celebration of Life' at her beloved pudding bar, The Sweet Life Café.
Agreeing to stay for the event, the sisters begin sorting through their late father’s belongings, reopening wounds they thought long buried, and forcing them to reflect on their lives since leaving the island. Addie is struggling as a single mother, torn between love for her son and doubts about the life she can give him. Susanna’s marriage is crumbling, and being back on the island only reminds her why she couldn’t wait to escape.
But as Gayle prepares gooey brownies, steaming lattes and delicious cakes for her customers, and for her big event, she is hiding secrets of her own – including one that could change everything the sisters thought they knew about their family...
A story of reuniting a separated family by way of a living funeral.
Gayle hasn't seen her nieces since Addie was old enough to leave Anchor Island and the rift in the family pains her.
She's also suffering ill health and thinks a living funeral should be a way of hopefully attracting Addie and Susanne back home. Only the invite was missing a key word and the siblings get a rather big shock instead.
Addie and Susannah have always been incredibly close, possibly not always in the healthiest way,, and they have never really been totally fair to Aunt Gayle.
There is also Gayle's Sweet Life Cafe which sounds wonderful, and is key to so many key events in their various lives.
It's a story about forgiveness, and understanding and family, and it was interesting to learn just why the siblings have such differing views of their own father.
I loved Anchor Island, and getting to know various people on it, and also getting to see how the siblings lives change as a result of this one trip.
A really uplifting read, and I would expect nothing less from this talented author.
Thank you to Boldwood Books and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
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