Note: Starting in January 2025, we began publishing long-form book reviews written by GFPL staffers. The books are all available to check out at the Library, or from one of our Partner Libraries. We post a new review each month! Come back next month to find the next review.

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe is a Fun, Charming Romance Novel That Does Not Let You Down

Review by Autumn, Library Specialist
Book by Laurie Gilmore

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe is the first book in the Dream Harbor series by Laurie Gilmore. It’s a cozy romance (with a bit of spice) about a woman, Jeanie, starting over after being stuck in the same boring job for years. She takes on the task of running her aunt’s little cafe in the small town of Dream Harbor after her aunt gives her the business. Jeanie is determined to be the normal, loveable owner of a small town cafe, but of course, life has other plans.

Jeanie runs into the grumpy farmer, Logan, just a few days after upending her life. Do they meet in the conventional way? No, they never do! Their meet-cute consists of Jeanie almost beating Logan to death with a bat in the early morning hours while Logan is just trying to deliver produce.

Early on it is established that Jeanie keeps hearing a strange noise at night that is keeping her awake at all hours.
She thinks she finds out what it is, but instead it is Logan, who, to Jeanie’s dismay, is not the noise keeping her up, but is instead a very strong, very handsome man. Jeanie lets him in to deliver his pumpkins, and ends up talking his ear off, but Logan can’t help being charmed by this kooky new cafe owner. They end up talking about the noise, too. She thinks it’s a ghost, but Logan is skeptical. He invites her to the next Town Meeting to see if anyone can offer her a hand.

Jeanie shows up to the meeting and the typical, yet reliable rom-com trope happens. Logan gets volun-told by the mayor to help out Jeanie. He grumbles, but he’s not actually too upset. Because he does want to get to the bottom of the mystery, and if that means spending more time with Jeanie, then that’s just a bonus.

Along with the mysterious noise that is keeping Jeanie awake, she starts noticing things in the cafe are going wrong. She thinks they might just be coincidences until she finds the refrigerator unplugged twice in one day. Jeanie doesn’t want to drag Logan into this mystery as well, she has to be the one to handle it.

The two end up spending more time together, between Jeanie becoming friends with Logan’s friends, their overnight stakeout at the cafe, and their obvious mutual attraction. But both of them have their reservations about doing anything serious. Jeanie wants to focus on her own life, the cafe, and the mystery noise. Logan is still burnt from his last relationship that ended very poorly and very publicly. Between Logan’s commitment issues, and Jeanie’s plan to settle into her new life before starting anything serious, the tension is thick enough to be cut with a knife.

The main drivers of the plot are the “will they, won’t they” between Jeanie and Logan, the mysterious noise Jeanie keeps hearing in the middle of the night, and the case of who is sabotaging the cafe. All of these plot points seamlessly wind together to form a cohesive and interesting story. Truthfully, I couldn’t put it down, and by the time things started to wrap up, I was sad to see the characters go. Luckily, there are three more books available to read in the series with two more set to be released at the end of this year and mid 2026. Each one follows a different, but familiar character and they are all interconnected. While I was sad to see these lovable characters go, I’m happy that I can just pick up the next book and say “hello” to their friends.