About the Book: The Boulangerie on the Corner
🥖🥐🥖🥐 Grab your passport for the first in the European Escapes series 🥐🥖🥐🥖
No home. No job. No boyfriend.
When Lia loses her job straight after a break-up, she escapes to the Molins’ family-run boulangerie in Toulouse – the place she was last happy, far away from her cheating ex.
Sworn off men, she isn’t prepared for the spark she feels for charming cheesemaker Jean-Luc, nor for things heating up at the family’s country home in Gascony when handsome, self-assured vineyard-owner Théo asks her out.
Torn between the two and her connections to the Molins family, Lia has some tough decisions to make.
Lia loves being back in France with the people she cares about, helping in the boulangerie. On discovering it is under threat of closure, she is devastated and resolves to do everything in her power to help it stay open.
Will she succeed? And will she be able to choose between the two handsome Frenchmen and live her happily ever after?
For fans of Gillian Harvey, Rebecca Raisin, Jo Thomas and Veronica Henry.
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About the Author: Susan Buchanan 
Susan Buchanan writes contemporary romance, women’s fiction and romantic comedies, usually featuring travel, food, family, friendship, community – also Christmas!
Her books are Sign of the Times, The Dating Game, The Christmas Spirit, Return of the Christmas Spirit, A Little Christmas Spirit, A Taste of Christmas Spirit and Just One Day – Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, The Leap Year Proposal, You Can’t Hurry Love and The Boulangerie on the Corner.
As a freelance developmental editor, copyeditor and proofreader, if she’s not reading, editing or writing, she’s thinking about it.
She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors.
She lives near Glasgow with her husband, two children and a crazy Labrador.
When she’s not editing, writing, reading or caring for her two delightful cherubs, she likes going to the theatre, playing board games, watching quiz shows and eating out, and she has a penchant for writing retreats.
Connect with Susan:
Website| Facebook | Instagram | Threads
My Thoughts 
Before there was Captain Jean-Luc Picard, American audiences were once treated to a very different Jean-Luc—one who appeared in aggressively faux-European commercials for powdered cappuccino mix, urging us to believe we were sipping something international. That image lodged itself firmly in my cultural memory. It was the very first thing I thought of when Lia, newly arrived in Toulouse and reeling from three personal upheavals, meets the cheesemaker Jean-Luc in The Boulangerie on the Corner.
Maybe it was the name, but I knew he wasn’t a blink-and-you-miss-him character.
That instinct turned out to be right, and it speaks to one of Susan Buchanan’s real strengths as a writer. Her characters arrive fully formed, warm, and human. Even the so-called villains are likeable and relatable rather than cartoonish. Lia herself is a genuinely strong female protagonist—capable, bruised, and emotionally intelligent. Her friendship with Jules is a particular joy, showcasing the very best aspects of female friendship: loyal, supportive, and quietly sustaining.
Layered on top of that emotional core is a France that feels lived-in rather than staged. There is bread and pastry, cheese and wine, markets and architecture, rain and flowers. The Molins’ family-run boulangerie is not just a setting but a heartbeat, and when it comes under threat of closure, the stakes feel real and personal. Add two handsome French suitors—cheesemaker Jean-Luc and vineyard-owner Théo—each appealing in different ways, and the novel finds its romantic tension without cheap tricks or forced drama.
What makes this book especially satisfying is its sensory richness. The attention to detail is so precise you can practically smell the bread cooling on the racks, the sharpness of cheese, the damp stone after rain. It is comfort reading with substance: sunshine and laughter paired with the everyday complications life throws at us, and the quiet resilience required to meet them.
This is a story about refuge—about returning to the last place you remember being happy, and discovering that happiness can evolve rather than repeat itself. I loved the storyline, the characters, and the care Buchanan brings to every page. I finished the book feeling warm, well-fed, and genuinely hopeful there is more to come.
Goes well with: a café au lait, a still-warm croissant torn by hand, good butter, apricot jam, and the dangerous temptation to book a one-way ticket to Toulouse.
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