Cherry can see other people’s bad feelings. After the death of her father, she takes over his bakery and starts adding something special to her recipes that helps customers feel better about themselves. Every few years, she moves on until she lands in Plymouth where she meets someone with similar powers and things take a dark turn.
This was an interesting and quirky read that I flew through in a day. In terms of mystical realism, this story weighs heavily towards the magical spectrum, with a omnipresent narrator overseeing the telling. It was more about explaining the imaginative concept of people having feelings hanging around with them, rather than a tale of a baker with a special gift interacting with the locals in a new town. The story spins off into even more unexpected territory in the the second, dystopian-like part. Like the characters, some readers will have good feelings about this book, others not so much.
Every little thing she bakes is magic in Carrie Hope Fletcher's latest novel, All That She Can See. The summary says: "Feelings are part of life - feelings are life. If you take away what people feel, you take away anything meaningful. Wanting to diminish the evil in this world is a good cause, one I have fought for the majority of my life, but not like this ...
Cherry has a hidden talent. She can see things other people can't and she decided a long time ago to use this skill to help others. As far as the rest of the town is concerned she's simply the kind-hearted young woman who runs the local bakery, but in private she uses her gift to add something special to her cakes so that after just one mouthful the townspeople start to feel better about their lives. They don't know why they're drawn to Cherry's bakery - they just know that they're safe there and that's how Cherry likes it. She can help them in secret and no one will ever need to know the truth behind her gift.
And then Chase turns up and threatens to undo all the good Cherry has done. Because it turns out she's not the only one who can see what she sees ..." All That She Can See is out in July 2017.