Spring Blooms at the Hummingbird Hotel by Daisy James

When Corfu’s newest hotelier Abbie Coleman is asked to host a Bakes & Beaches retreat for a group of Bake Off enthusiasts from a regional TV and radio station, she knows she needs as much help as she can get. Baking is not her forte, and with cupcakes, traybakes, pastries and showstoppers to co-ordinate – along with a whole host of terrifyingly high-octane water sports – she’s worried that her guests’ culinary creations will be more ‘curdled catastrophes’ than ‘tasty triumphs’. For any successful enterprise, preparation is key, so, along with her new assistant manager and all-round astrological guru Felix Morgan, Abbie sets about preparing a long and detailed To Do list.

But this is the Hummingbird Hotel, and the words ‘straightforward’ and ‘drama-free’ do not feature on the menu. So, when the salted caramel cupcakes are heavier on the salt than the caramel, and a guest’s expensive watch takes an unscheduled dip in the pool, Abbie must once again join forces with chef-turned-vineyard owner – and now fiancé – Nikos Angelopoulos, to unravel the mystery and maintain the hotel’s reputation for delivering beautiful bakes instead of mayhem and mistakes.
Can she turn burnt buns into sumptuous soufflés? Or will her future on Corfu be over before it’s begun?