Book Review: The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

The Strawberry Patch Pancake House is the 4th book in the Dream Harbor series by Laurie Gilmore. I read it a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it!

The novel follows Archer and Iris. We’ve met Iris before in the previous books, especially in The Christmas Tree Farm, when she worked seasonally at the farm for Kira. Iris has lived in Dream Harbor her whole life and works all different jobs – aqua aerobics for seniors and yoga seem to be her steady jobs. She has a bit of a reputation around town that she’s flighty, but has a big heart and wants to help people all the time.

Archer is a world renowned chef and has spent the last few years in Paris. He just moved to Dream Harbor when he found out he has a 5 year old daughter and her mom is someone he had a casual, short-lived relationship who recently suddenly died. He is now adjusting to a new town and has been thrust into a new life of being a parent. His daughter, Olive, lost her mom and now has to live with a guy who is apparently her dad, and she doesn’t know him. Archer needs help. The well-meaning busy bodies in Dream Harbor get him a job as the new chef at the diner and convince Iris to be his live-in nanny. We follow along as Archer figures out his new life in a new small town with his new daughter and trying not to fall for the nanny. Iris tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life while helping this new dad and daughter warm up to one another and trying not to fall for her boss.

I loved this book. I loved Archer and Iris and Olive was so adorable. I loved watching them all figure things out along the way and the character development for them all was really satisfying to watch. I was only a little annoyed with Iris during the third act breakup, but thankfully she recognized her mistakes quickly.

Overall, I loved the book and the ending. I know we always see the prior characters in the subsequent books since Dream Harbor is small and they’re all friends with each other, so I hope we see a lot more of Archer, Iris, and Olive in the next books!

Read this if you want a spicy romcom with the single dad, single dad x nanny, small town romance, and forced proximity tropes.

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