Very mixed feelings on thsi one. While a good plot and potenially a great wee book. I felt the author wasted to much time on work/personal problems and not enough time on the bakery that was what i thought the book should have been about. Slow because of that. But lovely once it got there. But sadly lost those points due to this

The first part of the book is a great introduction to Roxanne's character and her life in London along with her relationship with Sean. After a disastrous day at work and then a terrible evening (let's be clear on things Dancing Queen is a fab song) events have well and truly spiralled out of control for Roxanne. With her life suddenly changing she finds herself on her way back to Burley Bridge to see her sister Della.

I loved Burley Bridge although I did wonder at first how Roxanne would cope with a more sedate way of life after living in London for so long. Along with seeing how she would react to being so near to her sister and reconnecting with her. I loved seeing Roxanne's personality shine through as the story progresses and she became a more likeable and rounded character. Ellen Berry manages to bring the place to life with her writing along with the people who live there.

This book is full of charm with a wonderful light and heartwarming feel to it that will certainly put you in a good mood. The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane moves at a lovely pace and is perfect to curl up with and enjoy!

With thanks to Avon Books for my copy. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Roxanne has it all - a glamorous job as a fashion editor for a glossy magazine, a gorgeous boyfriend Sean and a party lifestyle in London - that is until Marsha is brought in to oversee the magazine and she brings in her sidekick who knows nothing about fashion!

Finding herself on a sabbatical for two months Roxanne decides to go and visit her sister in Burley Bridge - the place that she spent her life getting away from - but Della is building up her new business and Roxanne could help her. Arriving in Yorkshire is a bit of a culture shock - especially with her clothes for dog walking - and Roxanne had forgotten how quiet it was but she soon finds her feet and is amazed at how many people she still knows...........and then there is Michael the owner of the Little Bakery!

A lovely warm feel good story - great characters - I loved Roxanne at Sean's birthday party.......she certainly deserved better - and the sort of book that you just want to curl up and read in one sitting

The Little Bakery is a very well written romance. I loved the plot and the small town setting. I have not read this author's work but see myself reading more in the future. I recommend this to readers who enjoy losing themselves in a good romance.

The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane is the second book in the series Rosemary Lane.
I enjoyed the first book and wondered if I'd like the second book as much, no need to worry I did!!
Last book focused on Della but this book looks into the life of her sister Roxanne.
Did think there might be a bit more reference to the Bakery owned by Michael as the title suggests but perhaps there will be more of their budding relationship in book three.
Overall a great easy read book that kept me interested throughout.

I started this book and almost gave up. The beginning was slow and the characters where making me mad. I did continue with the story and was pleased with the way it ended. Cute story after all. I did not know there was one before this so I'll hunt it down and read that one too.

Really enjoyed this book. Took me a while to figure out the connection but i wonder if the brother will be next...

Roxanne Cartwright, fashion editor for a glossy London magazine appears to have a perfect life. If you fancy single(ish), child free and living in central London mixing with glamorous models and styling dazzling fashion shoots (you may guess this was once my dream...) but changes being implemented within the magazine by a know-nothing editor start to crumble Roxanne's perfect job and make her seek refuge with older sister, Della, who runs a cook book shop in her home town of Burley Bridge in rural Yorkshire. Somewhere that Roxanne had been trying to run from all her adult life.

We first met Roxanne, but mainly Della, in Berry's first book (one of my favourites, Fiona Gibson writes under Ellen Berry for these Burley Bridge novels). We didn't get to know too much about Roxanne but she did come across a bit selfish and caught up in her glamorous London life to help Della when their mother died. I must admit I wasn't keen on her character when we met her in The Little Bookshop on Rosemary Lane, but getting to know her properly I really did like her in this book.

So with her sabbatical in the country well underway she begins slowly to reacquaint herself with the village and the natives, and begins to realise they're not all Cath Kidston wellies and pots of homemade jam (although IMHO nothing is wrong with either of these), and friendships begin to blossom.

Her relationship slightly cool - on/off boyfriend Sean (a bit of a creep) plays on her mind a lot while in Burley, she knows something is amiss but still tries her hardest to make it work, so keeps the lovely Michael from the quaint and gorgeous sounding bakery at arms length when it's clear they both like each other, and the friendship that is sparked between Roxanne and Michael's teenage daughter, Ella is charming and probably my favourite aspect of the book.

The book itself is beautiful, the writing superb and the descriptions charming, how I'd love to live in Burley Bridge, I quite fancy opening up my own boutique there, or perhaps a chocolate shop? Anyway, I did love the book but it fell slightly away from getting 5* as I would have liked it to have been a little bit more about the bakery - which really did play quite a small part? I seemed to be waiting throughout a lot of the story, then realised by 90% it wasn't coming. But don't let this put you off unless you want a blow-by-blow account of how many cream horns Michael sells throughout the week, because it really is a lovely, charming, witty and well written book. I'd love to see, and am sure there will be, another Burley Bridge outing to come.

Can you go home again? Roxanne has created a life away from Burley Bridge but when it implodes on her, she takes off to her sister in Yorkshire. In some ways, Roxanne seems immature but you know what- we all react differently when we're knocked off our compass. Rosemary Lane, with it's bookshop (owned by her sister Della) and the bakery, owned by Michael (the love interest) is a comforting, healing place. There's a lovely setting, nice dialogue, and while you pretty much know what's going to happen from the outset, it's nice to watch Roxanne think differently about how he's been living in London and how she'd like to live in the future. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is a positive, encouraging read with a great character who are just so relatable - you're going to root for all of them.

I am back visiting Rosemary Lane and it has been just over a year since I have been here. I was there when Della set up her bookshop specialising in one type of books - cookery ones. I wanted to go back and see how she was getting on and so I do with this new novel from Ellen Berry.

Back on Rosemary Lane, we do see something of Della, her bookshop is expanding, her happiness clearly there for everyone to see but she still worries about her sister, Roxanne.

Roxanne becomes the main protagonist for this story as she escaped Rosemary Lane as soon as she could for the bright lights of London. From nothing she has worked her way into the fashion industry and is a Fashion Editor on a glossy magazine, the sort you flick through in a waiting room but would not necessarily buy!

She has everything she wanted but it seems that something is perhaps missing - when fate means her job is suddenly changed to something else and her rather reluctant boyfriend refuses to commit to anything.  Roxanne leaves London and returns to her sister in Rosemary Lane. But what is she going to do?

Roxanne discovers that there is very little to do. Della does not really need her help in the shop and it seems the only thing left her to do is to walk the dog. Trouble is her fashion knowledge and walking a dog on a wet Yorkshire dale are at odds with each other.

Whilst Roxanne learns that comfortable practical clothes are the way forward, no one is judging her and they take her at face value with no ulterior motive. Here she meets Michael who is just starting to find his feet in the new bakery on Rosemary Lane and when his daughter becomes friendly with Roxanne it seems that perhaps the bright lights of London have finally dulled. Of course it will not be that easy.

I enjoyed the interesting world of fashion and fashion photography. I certainly don't want to be part of that world and the author I would guess has had some experience within it, to get it across the way she did. The bakery is perhaps not a strong feature in the book and others have commented on this, but this was a very character driven novel but it has its place in setting the scene of the village and the lane of shops.

The story of Rosemary Lane has not finished, there has got to me much more to come?  I am sure the pub that is featured in this book has a tale to tell and of course the bakery surely needs to expand? I can but dream and that is the sort of book this is. A lovely read.

great read and easy to follow story line. have found a new author i enjoy reading. look forward to reading more from this author.

This is the second book in the Rosemary Lane series. I enjoyed the first one,The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane and I was looking forward to his one.

Roxanne has made it in life. She has managed to escape the boring village she was brought up in and is now a London fashion editor on a glossy magazine. Roxanne loves her life and shares it with her equally successful photographer boyfriend Sean.

Things suddenly change at the magazine and new brooms are brought in which shatter Roxanne's working life. Life with Sean looks like it's going down the plug hole and this prompts Roxanne to seek peace back in her home village where her sister runs the local bookshop.

Reading this book was like putting on a nice warm,cosy jumper, familiar and safe. I was happy to be back in Rosemary Lane. I would love a job in the bookshop it sounds devine. But this book is about the bakery and although we meet the owner Michael and his family I would have liked the story to have been about them and their bakery more than it was.

Roxanne was the centre of the story and I suspect book three might be about her too. The descriptions of the village and surrounding countryside and the people who lived there made me want to pack my case and open a shop of my own right next to the bookshop.

Roxanne Cartwright has it all- the high-power job at a fashion magazine, a boyfriend she adores and a flat in London…. Until it all starts to unravel. Heartbroken, she returns to her hometown and her sister. Burly Bridge is not as she remembers. Della’s gorgeous cookbook shop (see The Little Bookshop on Rosemary Lane) has breathed new life into the town. Now there are tourists, boutiques, a greengrocer and an adorable bakery-with the handsome Michael at it’s head. The longer she is here, the more she loves it, and begins to question her life in London. Can the fast-paced fashionista find peace in the country?
My thanks to Netgalley and Avon publishers for allowing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I loved the first book of the series, and being able to get a better look at Roxanne was great. I loved her, craziness and insecurity and all. These are rich, charming characters that make you long for Burly Bridge. While not always fast paced, it never seemed to drag, and the descriptions of the places were charming. Like any book, it isn’t without it’s faults. I often got annoyed at her interactions with Sean. I understand that for this was necessary for the story, but I hated their relationship. Even still, this is a four star book for me.
On the adult content scale, it has a bit of language and sexual content though neither are at all explicit. I would not worry about age here. This is maybe a three.

Mixed Feelings.

On a very positive note, I enjoyed this book a lot. It is an easy, engaging read with a lovely, relatable MC, a low-key romance and pleasant story.

I loved the fact that Roxanne is no spring chicken, but rather a mature (? :) ) woman in her late forties. She has a fulfilling career as a fashion director of a stylish magazine without being a slave either to her job or her appearance, has no children, but is neither apologetic, nor devastated about it, just accepting that life had something different for her in its store. She is not a very practical, but a thoroughly nice person, had disastrous relationships in the past and her present boyfriend -Sean, a much-sought photographer- does not show any inclination for settling down with her either.
When her magazine is taken over by a new editor with rather different ideas & mentality from hers, Roxanne accepts her offer of going on a sort of sabbatical & decides to visit her sister in their Yorkshire homevillage where Della runs a cosy, successful (cook)bookshop. There she befriends Michael, the owner of the newly set-up bakery and slowly, though unintentionally, learns to let go of her former existence and finds new purposes to her life.

For the "negative" side: the title is very misleading. The eponymous bakery hardly features in the story at all & I know it feels like hairsplitting when I say this, but there is no mention of a single cupcake in the book, although the cover blurb mentions them with relish.
OK, so it is not really about the cupcakes, rather about the inconsistency between the blurb and the actual content of a book. Roxanne and Michael bond over anything else -dog-walking/pub-visiting/meeting in the bookshop- rather than cupcakes.

I was also very much irritated by what I call "book-abandon".

The story -while of course it implies that it will be a happy ending- has not what I would call a full closure. The author just leaves the story, the characters and the readers hanging almost in mid sentence and we are cheated out of at least 2 chapters: one, where everything is wrapped up nicely and another titled "1 year later" or something. There are lots of unfinished storylines that would deserve a decent conclusion and so would we, readers.

The little bakery on Rosemary lane

By Ellen Berry

This is the first book I've read by this author. It was an enjoyable read. Simple and cute. The main character is Roxanne, a fashion magazine editor. Who's broken heart takes her back home. Where she reconnects with her sister. Walks her dog and meets a bakery owner named Michael.
Let the sunshine in...⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Felt a bit let down that this book did not focus much on the bakery at all. Rather focusing on Roxanne's life as a fashion editor in London. The bakery played such a small part that I felt cheated.

I did enjoy reading about Roxanne's adventures back in Burley Bridge once she actually got there. The author should have spent more time on this than Roxanne's man and work problems in London.

The first part of the book should be edited out completely, Marsha's point of view adds nothing to the story and may out off some readers. If you can look past that and the overuse of the term ponce, stick with it. The story does end up lovely after a bit.

I loved Ellen Berry’s first book under this name, “The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane”, and eagerly awaited the sequel. I wasn’t disappointed – “The Little Bakery on Rosemary Lane” was just as good!
This time, the main focus is on Roxanne, Della’s sister. After problems with her love-life and job, she escapes London to find solace in Burley Bridge, where Della has her bookshop. Della is really not sure that Roxanne will fit into village life after living in the capital, but things start to fall into place and Roxanne’s new life begins.
Ellen writes with just the right balance of romance and humour, and her characters and storyline are always totally believable. I was grabbed within the first few pages of both books, so I hope that we hear more from Ellen in the future.

Roxanne works for “Your style”- A high end fashion magazine as their fashion director in London. Her background is Yorkshire. 3 hours and a million miles away from the life she now leads and enjoys. Her bubble is burst when changes are a foot at the magazine and Roxanne decides to get away from it all, especially as her relationship with Sean is rather wobbly to say the least. This is a well written book that took me awhile to get into, probably as from the title I was expecting the bakery to feature early on. Once I accepted that is wasn't, I enjoyed the lighthearted story and Roxanne’s character. A feelgood read for any time of year. I voluntarily chose to read this ARC and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

This book follows on from The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane, which I read with great enjoyment last year. I have been looking forward to reading this sequel ever since, and am delighted that it has appeared at last. Although this is a follow on story, it can be read on its own. Points referring to events happening in the first book are explained as we go along.

The central character in this story is, in fact, one that we met briefly in the first book about Rosemary Lane. She is Roxanne, sister of Della, who runs the bookshop. Although Roxanne lives and works in London as fashion director of a glossy magazine, she feels that the time has come to visit her sister and take some time away from the hustle and bustle of her busy life and a career that seems to be turning in a direction she doesn't relish. She is also beginning to have doubts about boyfriend Sean. On her return to Burley Bridge, the Yorkshire village where she was brought up, she finds that things are different from how she remembered them, and she soon finds herself relaxing into the much quieter life there. As well as meeting up again with people she knew when growing up, Roxanne gets to know divorcee Michael, who owns and runs the bakery on Rosemary Lane along with his teenage children.

I have enjoyed reading this book just as much as I did the first one. I always enjoy reading stories containing characters I have met before and find out what is happening with them. There are some lovely new characters in this story as well. I particularly enjoyed reading about Roxanne's elderly neighbour in London, Isabelle, who had obviously led a really interesting life; I would really like to hear more about her. Some of the other characters from Roxanne's life in London are not quite so likeable, living strange, almost false lives. The contrast between the two locations in the story is marked; the author makes the little village of Burley Bridge sound so appealing that I would love to visit. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read to curl up with.