Laurie Gilmore’s Dream Harbor series is cozy and comforting, and the newest addition, The Gingerbread Bakery, proves that Gilmore knows exactly what her readers are looking for. While some cozy comfort romance novels lean into their BookTok style a bit too much, overwriting trope after trope, Gilmore understands how to stay perfectly measured with The Gingerbread Bakery’s timeline hopping plot.
Throughout the Dream Harbor series, Gilmore has moved from pairing to pairing, sharing sweet, romantic stories. From The Pumpkin Spice Café setting the tone of the series with Logan and Jeanie to the most recent installment, The Strawberry Patch Pancake House, sharing Archer and Iris’ heartwarming start, Dream Harbor has introduced a group of friends who have stuck around throughout each book.
Though the Dream Harbor world builds consistently from book to book, each of the novels can be read as a stand-alone piece. Buying into the world, however, makes each story richer. While there are often predictable twists and turns within the novels, the characterization allows for those predictable twists to feel far less trite than they would without Gilmore’s style in the mix.
The Gingerbread Bakery Brings Former Dream Harbor Characters Back To The Table
The Fifth Installment’s Backdrop Is A Familiar Wedding
True to their titles, the books in the Dream Harbor series have been able to become the ultimate comfort series in recent years. After 2023’s The Pumpkin Spice Café became a quick success, launching the town of Dream Harbor into readers’ minds, Gilmore followed the first slice of life up with another comforting story. Book after book, Dream Harbor has become a tangible world with each novel.
The Gingerbread Bakery finally brings the stories of Macaulay “Mac” Sullivan and Annie Andrews to the forefront. While the pair have been background characters in previous books, readers have yet to see Mac and Annie take the spotlight. Despite appearances in Pumpkin Spice, The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore, The Christmas Tree Farm, and Strawberry Patch, Mac and Annie’s story is unfolding in the newest installment.
Reaching back to her past works for characters and story updates, readers of the Dream Harbor series will get the opportunity to learn more about the couples they’ve watched get together in previous books from the series. With Logan and Jeanie’s wedding the backdrop for The Gingerbread Bakery, readers also receive updates from the other Dream Harbor pairs, as well.
The Gingerbread Bakery’s Plot Is Predictable, But Done With Ease
Gilmore Can Get Away With Predictability
Although The Gingerbread Bakery moves along the same lines as Gilmore’s other works, providing a predictably tangled plot for the main characters to work through as the novel progresses, it’s done with such ease that the predictability isn’t a problem. As Mac and Annie are introduced fully, readers get the chance to invest in the characters more thoroughly into their story.
Annie, who’s saddled with perfectionistic, type-A traits that push her to viscerally fear failure, has a task at hand that won’t allow her to be swayed when feelings bubble up. Mac, who appears like a ladies man on the surface, moves through his life with an air of charm to ensure he won’t find himself hurt, limiting his relationships tremendously because of it.
While the emotional baggage is clear from the start, the most interesting piece of The Gingerbread Bakery’s puzzle surrounds the time jumps within the narrative. Bringing readers back to the scene of a decade’s old connection between Annie and Mac that their friends don’t know about, as the story unravels, the characters gain a sense of depth that Gilmore knows exactly how to work with.
The Gingerbread Bakery Shines In Its Characterization & Inner Monologues
Annie & Mac Consistently Feel Three-Dimensional
Although The Gingerbread Bakery has a plot that doesn’t often leave readers surprised at what comes next, the cozy page-turner does its best work weaving the somewhat complex romance between Mac and Annie. Gilmore knows how to write into a trope without overstating it, which allows for the readers to fully immerse themselves into each moment without any cringe-worthy elements.
As Mac and Annie learn more about each other in the present, readers get the opportunity to understand more about their short-lived past connection. Though it’s a predictable reveal, the 19-year-old versions of Mac and Annie that The Gingerbread Bakery paints breathe life into the versions of the characters we then meet in their 30s. Providing a closer look makes the pair’s choices far more understandable.
Moving through The Gingerbread Bakery, readers will get the chance to visit all the tropes they love without the heavy-handedness of many BookTok era romances. With Dream Harbor as the backdrop for the couple’s sweet love story to unfold, The Gingerbread Bakery paints a sweet, steady portrait without hurdling over the edge into being overly saccharine or trite in its storytelling.
The Gingerbread Bakery is available now.
Source: HarperCollins Canada/Instagram
