The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café
READER’S GUIDE
1. How does the setting of the book enhance the story? What imagery does “Maine” create in your mind?
2. The author tells us a great deal about the narrator of the book in the very first few pages. What qualities do you see in Ellen that make you like or dislike her? Does she surprise you?
3. Why doesn’t Ellen tell Hayden right away about her mishap at the dock?
4. Both Ellen and Roy jump to conclusions about each other during the first 48 hours of meeting. What are these assumptions? Are they deliberately misleading each other or are these simply current stereotypes?
5. Ellen’s relationship with her grandmother is a true and genuine bond. “There are so many different ways to look at the same thing, Ellen,” her grandmother tells her when she is a girl. What are some of the many legacies that Ruth leaves to Ellen, besides money?
6. In what ways is Ellen like her grandmother? In what ways is she different? How do those similarities and differences affect the decision Ellen makes in the end?
7. How does Ellen change on this journey? What is the actual turning point for her?
8. Do you believe in love at first sight?
9. Ellen’s father died when she was twelve. How might that affect her choice of a suitor?
10. Both grandmother and granddaughter ultimately make a decision between two men, although Ellen’s decision is different from her grandmother’s. Do you think Ellen’s grandmother set Ellen on this path deliberately?
11. Ultimately Ellen brings her grandmother’s journey full circle. Does her relationship with her mother help to explain that?
12. What do you think the author is saying to us through Ellen’s experience?
13. Is it fashionable in our current society for a woman to choose a country life, even though she is well educated? Or to choose parenting over career?
