Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

Chick lit. There’s a million books out there claiming to fall under that genre. There’s a million literary snobs out there that claim it’s an easy genre to write. But, the truth is, for every ten chick lit books you could pick up to read, only one of them will be high quality. This is one of the one.

Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe has the classic click lit plot. Middle aged frumpy wife, Connie, finds out her marriage is a sham. Her hubby, Jimmy, is unfaithful, and has been for quite a while, and is about to leave her for his young mistress. As usual, frumpy wife blossoms when she hatches a plan to not only leave her husband, but also to start up a rival business that will destroy his career just as he has destroyed her marriage.

Yes, all sounds familiar, but somehow Johnson makes it all fun and fresh, as well as compelling.

Surprisingly, the family business in this case is cleaning. This seemingly mundane and boring choice of work place by Johnston actually brings lots of opportunities to introduce a range of supporting characters, given that there are a team of cleaners working for Jimmy and Connie's respective businesses, as well as their many clients.

All the characters are well written and fleshed out nicely. Some make you cringe, some make you cry, some make you laugh, and some are downright scary.

Along with Connie, we follow two other female characters closely. Della, Jimmy’s company’s office manager, who has wasted several years by also being in love with Jimmy. Like Connie, Della has her own awakening to his personality and the reality of her unrequited love. And one of his cleaners, Cheryl. Unlike Della and Connie, Cheryl has no emotional attachment to Jimmy, but she has enough of her own man troubles to keep us engrossed. All three women are appealing, and I never once wanted to skip over a particular story line to reach one of the others.

I also enjoyed all this book’s potential beaus. I won’t say too much about them (spoilers!) but they all worked for me. Even Jimmy himself has potential. He's not your cardboard cutout villain, and I appreciated that greatly.

I enjoyed the northern English setting. Johnson doesn’t give us endless descriptive passages, but we still get a nice feel of the place via the characters’ accents and slang.

If the cleaning business idea is putting you off, I must add that there is some food porn. Gorgeous descriptions of chocolate. Enough to make your mouth water and blow your diet just reading them.

I would highly recommend this to those who enjoy the genre, and would definitely try another one of Johnson’s books. 4 ½ out of 5.

I'm a big fan of Milly Johnson's books, they always make me smile (and sometimes cry) but they are always such fun to read, Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café is no exception.
The first time a found Milly was through watching 'Come dine with me' a Uk cooking show. After this I had to try one of her books and then I became a huge fan.

Unlike the previous book, The Teashop on the Corner, the Sunflower Café doesn't play a huge part in the story, but its still an integral feature, as this is where the Diamond Shine girls have their meetings.

There are two main themes running through this book, revenge and friendship. When Connie Diamond discovers that her husband Jimmy has been cheating on her yet again and planning to leave her, she hatches a plan to get even.

As usual, Milly Johnson has created some fabulous characters, from the likeable to the bizzare! Connie, Jimmy's long suffering wife, was the real star of the book for me and perfect proof that some women won't just sit back and be a victim. I was rooting for her all the way and hoping that Jimmy would get his just desserts.

There are many other characters who played their part to perfection - there are too many to mention individually - some were odious and others engaging, but they were all brilliantly drawn and realistic.

There is so much to love about this story, it is funny but also heart-warmingly and written, as usual, in Milly's forthright and down to earth manner. It was wonderful to see characters grow in confidence and be helped by each other.

It is quite a big book, over 500 pages but every page is pleasure to read, there are laughs, some sad moments and little twists and turns. I loved it and I'm sure it will be another huge success for Milly Johnson.

Finally the chocolate!!!!! Hard to read if you are on a diet, it's just a dream.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love Milly's books!
This book reminds me of 'First Wive's Club' crossed with a pinch of the NZ series 'Nothing Trivial'. In the words of Ivana Trump - "Don't get even - Get Everything!" Afternoon Tea will give you lots of laughs, a few people you'd like to slap (don't worry they get what they deserve!) and the happy ending you long for.