45 pages • 1 hour read
Laurie GilmoreThe Pumpkin Spice Café
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Annie bursts into the café with a new theory about the ghost, but Jeanie quickly introduces her to the cat she’s named Casper. Though Jeanie quickly bonds with Casper, Norman feels less than enthusiastic about the new cat at the café, one of many problems he’s having with Jeanie’s leadership. Annie explains her theory that her professional nemesis and owner of the pub next to the café, Mac Sullivan, is trying to scare Jeanie off because he wants to expand his own business into the café. Jeanie writes this off immediately, clocking the romantic tension between Annie and Mac. Hazel arrives to warn Jeanie that the rowdy book club will be coming to the café tomorrow and wanting to know every detail about its new owner. Annie tells Jeanie about the farmer’s market in town where Dot always set up a booth on Sundays. Jeanie feels surprised that Norman hasn’t mentioned the market.
Chapter 11 Summary
Logan tries to distract himself from his thoughts of Jeanie as he works on the farm but ultimately decides a cup of coffee might be better. Logan realizes his mistake when he steps inside the café and sees the book club, who collectively start asking him why he is in town in the middle of the day. One book club member immediately brings up Lucy, reminding Logan why he likes to avoid town so often. Jeanie looks concerned when she takes his order, but the last thing Logan wants is pity from her. She tells him it’s nice to see him and as he goes to leave, she adds, “Whoever Lucy was, I think she was a fool to leave” (77).
Chapter 12 Summary
Jeanie feels happy she’s finally had a normal conversation with Logan. The book club summons Jeanie and begins asking her personal questions about her relationships and her interest in staying in Dream Harbor. They all seem happy that she plans to stay and one of them launches into the story of Logan’s proposal to Lucy. The book club insists Jeanie become an official member, though a few of them warn her against breaking Logan’s heart as they leave. One of them leaves her a romance novel about a farmer on the counter.
Chapter 13 Summary
Jeanie calls her brother Ben, the one person she’s felt closest to in the last few years. She tells him her plan to reinvent her personality now that she is starting a new job in a new town. Ben doesn’t understand why Jeanie feels the need to change, knowing she is nothing like Marvin. Jeanie insists she wants to be more like their Aunt Dot and to fit in with the people of Dream Harbor, believing it is as far as she could get from her former corporate life in the big city. They discuss her fear that Norman hates her and how she needs to do a better job of avoiding Logan before Jeanie hangs up and starts her farmer romance novel.
Chapter 14 Summary
Logan tries to switch duties on the farm with his grandfather, knowing he is supposed to go to the farmer’s market where he will inevitably see Jeanie. Jeanie’s words about Lucy have given him hope, yet Logan still feels it’s safer to avoid Jeanie. Logan’s grandfather, who is just as antisocial as Logan, tells him he can’t hide from the town forever because of what happened with Lucy, pointing out that Logan did the same thing when his mother died. When he arrives at the farmer’s market, Logan immediately spots Jeanie struggling to set up her tent on a stormy day. He helps her and Annie set up their tents, but they are quickly blown down by a gust of wind just as it starts to pour rain. Logan and Jeanie go to catch the tent but it gets caught in a tree so they go back to the café to get warm and dry.
Chapter 15 Summary
Jeanie brings Logan up to her apartment, where she immediately pulls him in for a kiss. Suddenly, the power goes out and Jeanie feels she must go downstairs to help Norman, but she suggests they should do this again sometime. When Logan looks a bit nervous, Jeanie says they don’t have to tell anyone and says they can figure things out as they go, but Logan looks skeptical. Even so, Logan agrees to not tell anyone about their involvement and plans to see her again as he leaves to get the tent out of the tree. Norman gets angry when he sees Jeanie, and she stays calm and collected, still trying to get on his good side. Norman asks if Jeanie has spoken to Dot, leading her to wonder if he has feelings for her aunt.
Chapter 16 Summary
Logan’s friend Noah invites him to trivia night at the town pub, and they immediately spot Jeanie and Hazel. Logan sees that Noah is interested in Hazel, but he’s more distracted by his own behavior around Jeanie and if anyone will think he’s acting differently. Logan offers to walk Jeanie home even though it’s just next door. They kiss in the alley between the buildings, and Jeanie invites him to her apartment. As Logan debates the seriousness of this request, they hear a noise from beside the café and the two see that the trash cans have been tipped over. Logan thinks it’s just raccoons, but Jeanie finds it strange that this is the third night in a row that her trash cans have been tipped. Jeanie tries to reassure Logan that she isn’t worried and makes herself believe it was just raccoons before sending him away for the night. Logan insists that Jeanie call him if she needs anything else before he heads home.
Chapters 10-16 Analysis
In these chapters, Gilmore emphasizes Jeanie’s belief that achieving The Feeling of Belonging in Dream Harbor remains contingent on her ability to reinvent herself. The more Jeanie integrates herself into the community, the more she insists she needs to be what she repeatedly calls the “New Jeanie.” She believes she needs to become the image of the typical “friendly neighborhood coffee-shop owner, ready with a smile and your favorite drink” to belong in the town (11), and in these chapters, she tries to change herself more and more to fit that image. As she explains to her brother Ben: “I came here for a new life. One that is slower paced, and you know, quainter … or something […] I will die if I stay in my old life” (85). Even though Ben assures her that she doesn’t need to change everything about herself in order to live a meaningful life, the distress Jeanie experienced over her boss’s heart attack causes her to equate her previous fast-paced life in Boston with death, highlighting the novel’s thematic engagement with The Ongoing Process of Healing After Trauma.
Jeanie’s active pursuit of a new persona defines the trajectory of her character arc from insecurity to self-acceptance. She begins engaging in things that she thinks will make her fit in with the town. She integrates herself into the lives of people who have roots in the town in hopes that it will help her feel like she belongs. She joins the book club thinking it will make her the “New Jeanie,” failing to see that the members of the community like her just the way she is. She goes to great lengths to have a tent at the farmer’s market to try and inhabit Aunt Dot’s place in the community, not wanting to cause ripples in the town that is set in its ways. She continues doing everything that Dot once did with the café to maintain the status quo in town and keep others from viewing her as an outsider.
With the start of Jeanie and Logan’s secret relationship, Gilmore defines the stakes of their romantic arc. In order to be together, Jeanie and Logan must grapple with The Effects of Fear on New Relationships as each learns to see things from the other’s perspective. Through the lovers’ internal thoughts, Gilmore makes their fears of emotional intimacy and connection clear even before their relationship begins. In trying to become the “New Jeanie,” Jeanie forces a more easygoing approach to the relationship, not wanting to be her former intense self. In response to the idea of a casual relationship, she says to herself “Easy breezy, casual. New Jeanie [can] figure things out as she [goes]” (100). In this way, she focuses on the idea of her new self rather than attempting to define what she actually wants and feels in the relationship. Similarly, Logan fears a repeat of what happened with Lucy, allowing his past to determine his approach to this new connection. Each of these fears that Gilmore defines as they begin their secret relationship continues to plague Logan and Jeanie throughout their romantic arc until each achieves the necessary healing and personal growth to embrace the relationship without fear.
The setting of Dream Harbor continues to play a central role, underscoring the novel’s themes and plot points. The lack of privacy in the small town continues to haunt Logan and his new relationship with Jeanie. Logan’s worst fears are realized when he goes to see Jeanie and finds the book club in the café. This gossipy group exacerbates his fears that he cannot have any privacy in town, especially when one of the members brings up his past relationship with Lucy. The romantic paralysis Logan experiences at the thought of the town’s involvement in his private life reflects the heartbreak he experienced when Lucy left him and Dream Harbor for a life in Boston, affecting his relationship with Jeanie even after he acknowledges his attraction to her. In Chapter 14, when his grandfather tries to convince him to go into town to see Jeanie at the farmer’s market, Logan doesn’t know how to act around her knowing the eyes of the town are on them. Logan takes out many of his fears about his romantic failure on Jeanie, signaling the trajectory of his arc that ultimately sees him moving from self-consciousness to self-confidence as he heals from his past heartbreak.
