Baking Love

by Lauren Boyd

[kimbacaffeinate]

What happens when you fall in love with your best friend and before you can tell him, he ends your friendship? You get over it, suck it up and move on. What if he shows up at your bakery years later to order his wedding cake? Baking Love shares the tale, and despite a few issues, I rather enjoyed this sweet romance. Three word review: sweet, predictable and clean.

Kate Sullivan has inherited her grandmother’s bakery and bakes with a passion. Things are going well, and she a prominent new client coming in to order her wedding cake and it has her excited. When Eric walks in, the man she fell in love with and never confessed her feelings to she is shocked to learn that he is the groom. She is dreading making his wedding cake, especially when she would rather be kissing him. His fiance is all wrong for him. As they reconnect their friendship, Kate does the right thing and wishes him happy. Spending the weekend at a resort in the mountains and seeing him say, “I, do” might just kill her, but if Eric wants one of her famous cakes, she will make it perfect for him. The tale that unfolds is deliciously sweet, as I prayed Kate would find her happily ever after.

Kate is sweet, likable and honorable. Sometimes though, I wanted her to take a risk especially when opportunity presented itself. She has a successful business and takes pride in her work, and has surrounded herself with good friends. Eric, ooh I struggled with Eric, in part because I never got to know him. For being the love interest, we learn only small details about the man. He was wishy-washy. The type of man who lets woman order him about. As the two reconnect he shares why he ended their friendship, and dude I wanted to slap him. While, he does redeem himself, it took me a while to buy into the relationship. His fiancé, took on the cliché of mean, two-faced girlfriend. She treated Kate like a bug stuck to her shoe and was all sweet when Eric was present. Kate’s friend and co-worker at the bakery added to the tale and was all sunshine.

Baking Love follows the friends to lovers’ trope which is one of my favorite story-lines. While I enjoyed the story, I did struggle with a few things. There is a lot of telling in this tale and the characters particularly Eric are simply not fleshed out enough. Kate’s emotions are all delivered in italics following her actions. At first it was enlightening and even humorous as it allowed me to be privy to her inner most thoughts. However, I do think it was overdone, and would have been more effective if it wasn’t utilized as much. We get very little description of the bakery and the characters. I love details and feel this would have added more depth. There was nothing new here, no clever twists or heart racing moments. I will say that I loved the romantic rain scene, but even that was downplayed. So you are probably wondering why this still earned a three from me? I wanted Kate get her HEA and I got caught up in the tale! Despite the issues I mentioned it was well paced tale with some fun moments and a few tender ones. I easily consumed it. Sometimes predictable is a good thing and to me this was a perfect Sunday afternoon escape.

If you are looking for a light, fast, clean romance you might try Baking Love. Predictable and sweet it offers an afternoon escape. While this one didn’t wow me, I will certainly try this author again.

Copy received in exchange for unbiased review and originally published @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer