Marshmellows for Breakfast

Marshmallows for Breakfast, written by Dorothy Koomson, centers around the life of Kendra Tamale, a young woman who is trying to escape her difficult past in Australia by secretly returning to her native England to make a fresh start in her life. She rents an apartment from Kyle Gadsborough, the floundering father of beautiful six year old twins, Summer and Jaxon. While Kendra hopes for peace and solitude to sort through her difficult emotional issues and move ahead with her life, the twins, and eventually Kyle, have other ideas. The twins “adopt” Kendra in their mother’s drunken absence, and Kyle soon realizes that he needs Kendra’s help in coping with single fatherhood. Each of the characters is dealing with a secret in their life, from an assault in Kendra’s past, to Kyle’s impending divorce and the twin’s mother’s alcoholism, each is afraid to confront their secret because of the devastating consequences that will likely result. With every crisis faced by Kyle and the twins, Kendra is pulled deeper into the Gadsborough family and forced to confront issues from her past that she has tried desperately to forget. The book, while dealing with fairly serious issues, was never heavy and depressing reading. The emotional issues dealt with throughout the book caused alternating tears of sadness and joy, and left me constantly caring about what happened to each character. Dorothy Koomson does an incredible job of bringing the characters to life, whether their nature is good or evil. The twins are adorable and crave the love and attention of a “surrogate” mother which eventually makes them blossom. Kyle is frustrated and floundering, looking for someone he can depend on that will love his children and that can possibly love him as well. The twin’s mother and Kyle’s wife Ashlyn tries to drink privately but ultimately always gets discovered because of her negligence and inconsideration towards everybody in her life. Kendra, dealing with deep emotional scars, believes that solitude is what she needs to heal, but quickly learns that her constant involvement with Kyle, the twins, her best friend Gabrielle, and even Ashlyn, is what finally brings healing to her wounded soul and spirit.

Marshmallows for Breakfast is a touching story of what can happen when love demands that we confront the past and embrace the future. It also provides a deep look at relationship failure and how little it takes to bring a glimmer of hope where there appears to be none. It truly is a story of hope, redemption, and finding love in the most unexpected places.
After finishing the book, I found myself still wondering about the characters and imagining how their lives would ultimately turn out. An interesting observation I made about the story was that each character was afraid to share their secret with another person to whom they were otherwise very close, leading me to wonder further what that tells us about the role of secrets in relationships.
I would definitely recommend this book to other readers.