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Preview
  • Sunrise by the Sea

  • Little Beach Street Bakery, Book 4
  • By: Jenny Colgan
  • Narrated by: Catrin Walker-Booth
  • Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (153 ratings)

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Sunrise by the Sea

By: Jenny Colgan
Narrated by: Catrin Walker-Booth
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Summary

In a quaint seaside resort, a charming bakery holds the key to another world....

Returning to the much-loved world of the Little Beach Street Bakery, Jenny Colgan will delight existing fans of the series and entrance new listeners with this spellbinding new novel.

Marisa Rosso is struggling. Since the death of her beloved grandfather back home in Italy, she can't seem to find a way out of her grief. She's a registrar and knows losing grandparents is a natural part of life, so why does she feel so lost?

When she hears a hospital is recruiting in Mount Polbearne, a tiny and remote tidal island off the Cornish coast, Marisa thinks she has found the perfect retreat. Perhaps some solitude is just what she needs to combat her homesickness and rediscover her equilibrium.

But Mount Polbearne is a far cry from the sleepy little place she was imagining. Between her noisy Russian piano-teaching neighbour and the hustle and bustle of a community determined to get back on its feet, Marisa finds solitude is not so easy to come by. Especially when finds herself somehow involved with a tiny local bakery desperately in need of some new zest to save it....

©2021 Jenny Colgan (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK
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Critic reviews

"A sheer delight." (Sophie Kinsella)

"An evocative sweet treat." (Jojo Moyes)

"Nobody does cosy, get-away-from-it-all romance like Jenny Colgan." (Sunday Express)

What listeners say about Sunrise by the Sea

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review

a story to take you away from the harsh realities of a cold wet winter.
easy to listen to and easy to understand. Jenny Colgan has the ability to bring happiness to any reader.

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A natural vaccine..

Anyone reading this book can see it’s a representation of the strange and worrying times we are living in now. The main themes are loneliness, grief, anxiety, fear, solitude and finding a new “normal” Covid was never mentioned in this book but you can see it has been an influence.
Marisa is grieving and struggling with everything that comes with grief, the feeling of being alone and no one understanding and how it can completely overwhelm you. She is cramping her sociable flatmates style so he arranges for her to stay in his uncle Reubens holiday home on mount Polbearne. Marisa is expecting to be able to lick her wounds and try to slowly heal herself, by spending time alone and with video calls from her very busy therapist. However she didn’t realise that mount Polbearne and her piano playing neighbour were not going to let her hide away. The tidal island and it’s residents manage to bring her back to life in the same way they did with Polly in the previous books of this series.
You can easily read this as a stand-alone book, but if you have read the previous books it’s wonderful to catch up with Polly, Huckle and her children, not to mention Neil the Puffin of course who is still watching over Polly whilst devouring her baked goods!
Polly becomes acquainted with her neighbour Alexei after complaining about him playing the piano day and night. He is lost in his music whilst facing up to his own tragedy that brought him to mount Polbearne. At first Polly is too scared to approach him to ask him to keep it down, but with a little encouragement from a never ending Skype call from her Nonna and a struggling Polly she learns to appreciate the music and Alexei’s gentle teaching. A brutal storm that causes chaos on the island helps her form a connection with Polly that can change both their lives.
I often struggle listening to audiobooks, I find some of them over performed. I thought this was a fabulous narration that captured the very essence of the characters and for the first time I think I preferred listening over reading.
I thought the story was beautiful and perfect at getting across all the themes of lockdown and living in a pandemic without it being shoved down our throats more. This was a touching story of survival and how our biggest battles are with ourselves. The open Skype call in the story was unique and touching and highlighted how useful technology can be.
This was one of my favourite Jenny Colgan books. I do enjoy reading them all but find they can be hard to tell apart as they often have a similar structure and theme, I think with this book she managed to weave a story relating to
Covid without ever referring to it. That in my eyes is very impressive. I certainly felt less alone reading it and it gave me hope.. I too have very small paws :)

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Classic Colgan

Utterly brilliant, I love all Jenny's books, narration is excellent! Lovely trip back to the seaside, xan be read as stand alone but much better if you read the series

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Continuity counts

A shame that little or no effort was made to ensure continuity in performance with previous 3 books in the series.

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Great story

I love these book but for this last book they changed the reader and i accents were totally different then before. it is a great story

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not quite as good as the last book

bit slow to get started. Also it's a shame that there is a 5 year gap between the end of the last book and this one. I would have liked a book in-between.

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Comfortable & predictable

Like a cosy armchair - this visit to Mount Polbearne was lovely and easy to listen to, with familiar characters and new ones. You knew where the plot was going and I frequently told the characters what I though they should do!

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Lovely story

I loved this gentle love story. Sad, but uplifting at the same time. Have read others by this author and it doesn’t disappoint.

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Fabulous book that meant a lot to me

I have listened to all of Jenny Colgans books and loved them all.

This book ended up meaning a lot to me. I listened to it at a time in life when I am suffering from crippling anxiety and agoraphobia like I never knew existed. Although a couple of bits were far fetched, such as her moving to a place and a new home where she knows no-one, most bits were realistic and sensitively done. I thought I may have to stop listening as bits would bother me, but I didn’t! My main take away from this book was when the love interest says ‘you need to get out of your own way’ and they talk about that statement. This is one of my new life’s mantras, and it has made a big difference to my way of thinking. Thank you Jenny.

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Keep going

I've read the series but the narrator here was different and the American accents were tricky. Karenza had a broad west country accent which did not work with her character but perhaps this was a hangover from the previous narrator.

As another reviewer said, you can draw simarities between the situation and lock down. I found the first 2 hours hard going and a bit depressing, the narrator did not help, that said, Marissa was having a tough time so upbeat would have been out of place. It was good if you pushed through the first 2 hours. I enjoyed it.

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