Book Review: Much Ado About a Latte

Kathleen Fuller
Thomas Nelson, 2022
336 pages

Amazon Description:

Anita Bedford needs to face reality. It’s time to decaffeinate the dream that she and Tanner will ever be more than friends. Growing up in small-town Maple Falls, she’s had a crush on Tanner for years. But he’ll only ever see her as good, old, dependable Anita. Now she’s finally ready to make her own goals a reality. In fact, that deserted building next door to Sunshine Diner looks like a promising location to open her own café . . .

Tanner Castillo may know how to operate a diner, but he doesn’t know beans about love. After pouring his life savings into buying the Sunshine Diner, he needs to keep his mind on making a success of it and supporting his widowed mother, not on kissing Anita Bedford. First order of business: improve his customers’ coffee experience. Next, he should probably find out who bought the building next door . . .

It’s a bitter cup to swallow when ambition turns longtime friends and coworkers Anita and Tanner into rivals. Now that they own competing businesses, how could they ever compete for each other’s hearts? Or will the two of them come to see what’s obvious to the whole, quirky town of Maple Falls: potential for a full-roast romance, with an extra splash of dream?

Welcome to Maple Falls, where everyone knows your name, your coffee order, and your relationship status.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I might make some extra coffee money at no extra expense to you if you buy something through one of my links. Read more about that here.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing a copy of Much Ado About a Latte so that I could participate in the tour for this book.

I had never heard of Kathleen Fuller before reading Much Ado About a Latte, and I think it’s because she has written extensively in the Amish romance space that I don’t usually venture into very often. But her new series is not Amish at all, but a set of sweet contemporary romances set in a little town called Maple Falls. This book is second in the series, and I can say, having not yet read the first one, that they don’t have to be read in order. While I do plan to circle back and read the first one at some point, I enjoyed Much Ado About a Latte all on it’s own.

What I liked about this book is the hook at the beginning, the full cast of quirky characters that come alongside Anita and Tanner, and the small town atmosphere. I thought the author did a good job highlighting the cozy aspects of a small town without overdoing it so that the town itself didn’t outshine the people. I also like that Anita has a learning disability and that she is able to work through the challenges associated with that and become a successful woman in her own right.

The only thing I didn’t really like is the inconsistencies on the cover. It’s actually a great, eye-catching cover, but in my opinion the models don’t look like the characters they represent, and I wish the number above the door matched the address in the book since it was mentioned multiple times. I realize that’s pretty insignificant complaint, though, and they story itself was sweet and engaging.

Overall I liked Much Ado About a Latte and would recommend it to friends and family. I do plan to read the first book in the series, Hooked on You, and will look forward to whenever the third book in the series comes out.