Miracle At The Higher Grounds Café by Max Lucado: A Well Read Woman Blog ☕ Book Review

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“What if you could ask God anything? What would you ask? And how would He answer?”

Synopsis:

Chelsea Chambers is on her own. After a public split from her NFL superstar husband, Chelsea takes a bold step out of the limelight and behind the counter of the Higher Grounds Café, an old-fashioned coffee shop in dire need of reinvention. But when her courage, expert planning, and out-of-this-world cupcakes fail to pay the bills, this newly single mom finds herself desperate for help. Better yet, a miracle.

Then a curious stranger lands on Chelsea’s doorstep, and with him, an even more curious string of events. Soon, customers are flocking to the Higher Grounds Café, and not just for the cupcakes and cappuccino. They’ve come for the internet connection to the divine. Now the café has become the go-to place for people in search of answers to life’s biggest questions.

When a catastrophe strikes and her ex comes calling, Chelsea begins to wonder if the whole universe is conspiring against her quest to make it on her own. After a shocking discovery opens her eyes to the unseen world around her, Chelsea finds the courage to ask God a question of her own–and heaven answers in a most unexpected way.

☕ ~ ☕ ~ ☕

Add to your Goodreads TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22503252-miracle-at-the-higher-grounds-cafe

Genre:

• Romance > Second Chance > subplot
• Spirituality > Faith
• Contemporary Fiction

Tropes & Themes:

• Single Mom of Two
• Trial Separation
• NFL All-Star ex
• “Women are Fragile”
• Non-Believer / Skeptic
• Coffeehouse > Three Generations Family Business > Victorian Home lower level converted into a Coffeehouse
• Spirituality > Angels > Guardian Angels
• Community & Neighborhood

@aprillwoodauthor

“With one cup of coffee, Chelsea Chambers could rule the world. And by six a.m. she’d had several. Four, to be precise… Today was the grand reopening of her family’s café.”

Rating:

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Miracle at the Higher Grounds Café by Credobaptist Pastor and Storyteller, Max Lucado, was a fun, faith-based book, and while not my typical read, there were enough elements that piqued my interest, and the pages were flippin’!

The FMC, Chelsea Chambers is a non-believer/skeptic and it’s her perspective the reader mainly follows with a batch of other POVs between. So if faith-based books turn you off, don’t worry, this story doesn’t have a stifling religious overtone at all.

I loved the concept of the Higher Grounds Café and how it was a third generation coffeehouse, starting with her Grandmother, then her mother, and now it’s Chelsea’s turn. I could see the old picturesque Victorian, turned coffeehouse, with it’s 60’s vintage charm and modern appliances, and felt like I was right there with Chelsea.

In addition to being willed the family coffeehouse, Chelsea also inherits the nearly 90K in debt that came with it. (Gee, thanks.) She’s newly separated from her NFL All-Star Husband, Sawyer, after a marriage of thirteen years and two children because he cheated on her, spent all their money, and other transgressions she can’t forgive. But he’s not letting her go that easy… Sawyer realizes he fumbled 🏈 this one and he wants his family back.

The grand reopening is off to a rough start: she gives away more than she sells, she’s juggling the needs of her young children who miss their father, and her first employee quits on her, to work for the competition, Café Cosmos — an extremely trendy local coffeehouse. Just as she thinks all is doomed, a customer, Manny, comes flying through her door, with a knack for fixing complicated espresso machines and a serious lack of fashion-sense…. She hires him on the spot, grateful for his ✨ divine ✨ intervention.

Chelsea’s confidence waxes and wanes like the moon between the lows of struggling with her decision to separate their family (even though it was Sawyer’s fault and she was drawing a line to protect herself by having a Trial Separation), and the highs of her coffeehouse giving Café Cosmos a run for their money, ever since her new hire and his marketing idea: The God Blog.

Thanks to Manny, she’s able to hire Katrina, a talented barista with a practical PH.D in latte foam art, and Chelsea can make more time for her children. Unfortunately, Sawyer is present for most of these family fun nights in an effort to win back the affections of his wife, further complicating her feelings and confusing her children.

I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the introduction of The God Blog, which featured a website to ask God a question. My question was: why on earth do people have to visit the Café in order to visit a website? And how did they access the network, by using the Café’s WIFI? How come nobody came in with laptops? The answer is revealed much later and I’m not sure why it was withheld.

Mid-book it becomes more clear that God is representative of the Christian Faith and not asking of ✨ The Universe ✨ or otherwise. Interestingly enough, an elderly Japanese businessman visits (from Japan) The Higher Grounds Cafe, just for the God Blog — except less than 1% of Japan practices Christianity, so I feel like that visit should have mattered more, or the country of origin of the visitor omitted for readers like me who will take the time to investigate, 😁 or, of course more thorough research of Japanese culture.

In addition, Chelsea’s sister Sara is a Minister’s wife of a Christian church. Pastor Tony’s sermon on coffee was cute and I liked how he delivered it, but was disappointed in the priorities of he and Sara. (Spoiler warning) Fortunately, their characters are redeemed in the end and their focus turns to the importance of community, the neighborhood, and sticking to your roots by remaining where you’re planted. I loved this change in them and was happy to see it. (End of Spoiler Warning)

I wasn’t as charmed by neighbor and regular customer, Bo, and that he babysat her kids was insane to me. (Spoiler Warning) On what planet would a twelve-year-old boy go to a random elder stranger to talk when he had a father who was active and present in his life? And Bo’s pushy, overbearing nature crossed the line when he talked to young Hancock about scripture and handed him a Bible, without his mother’s say-so, just like it would be inappropriate for me to hand one of my neighborhood kids the Quran, Wicca 101, or a Buddhism book on how to reach Nirvana. Worse, Bo practiced a ritualistic religious act with Hancock. I found the crossing of that boundary to be too much in contemporary society. (End of Spoiler Warning)

There are some Bookish Tropes that applied to Chelsea, including “women are delicate,” which isn’t a favorite of mine. It is mentioned that her happiness is tied to Sawyer and that didn’t make sense at all to me. She “didn’t know what she would have done without Sawyer,” (when he literally does the bare minimum by calling emergency services, whoopity whoop…. Chelsea, you are a successful business woman, surely you are capable of dialing a phone).

Instead, I saw happiness in the love she put into her baking and her coffee, her devoted customers, and her children were the absolute caramel-apple Frappuccinos of her eye. Why even give your decision a second, third, or even millionth thought? In the end, I was utterly relieved that it was about something much bigger than Sawyer. (Spoiler Warning) Just like the sticky latte foam on the rim of a cup that just came out of the dishwasher, he does, of course, stick around for the second act. (End of Spoiler Warning)

The issues I had with this story paled in comparison to the enjoyment I felt reading and vicariously living through Lucado’s whimsically crafted world, filled with richly entertaining and complex characters, a multi-generational women-owned coffee business… — (ahem, didn’t realize women in Texas USA owned businesses in the 1960’s, but okay I’ll put that and the Japanese man aside momentarily,) and the big reveal was nothing short of ✨ Divine ✨. It just might have even brought a little tear to my eye. 😭

I’d recommend this fun read to believers and non-believers alike. A solid 5 stars.

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