Just when it seems Bri's bakery is poised for unprecedented success, a series of events threaten not just her business but the pedestal she's kept her parents on all these years. Maybe Gerard is right about romance. Or maybe Bri's recipe just needs to be tweaked.
Novelist Betsy St. Amant invites you to experience this sweet story of how love doesn't always look the way we expect--and maybe that's a good thing."
Author: Betsy St. Amant
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Genre: Contemporary Romance
***
I was prepared for a story to woo me this Valentine’s Day! In the season of love I thought this would be the best time to read this book. You can’t go wrong with a baker & a travel writer right??
The setting and plot intrigued me! It pulled me in, but the characters didn’t keep me.
Bri was not my favorite…
She was so incredibly immature & naïve. She had on rose colored glasses about love and life and she held her mom (and love) on this pedestal. She was also unnecessarily rude to Gerard from the moment he stepped into the bakery. It wasn’t even like a cute, flirty sassiness. It was just snarky with no reasoning. She didn’t even know anything about him before spouting off. Her character didn’t start to change or mature until the last 20 or so pages…
Gerard actually felt like he grew THROUGHOUT the story. He came into town guarded and wanting to be anywhere but there but he did his job. (And fell in love in the process *wags eyebrows*) As he got to know Bri, and see how she interacted with the townspeople, showing what real love, God’s love, looked like he started to soften.
As a reader it was hard for me to read this book because while I knew what was going on since I had a bird eye view, and was in both of their heads. They didn’t ever really have a full meaningful conversation with each other until 2/3 of the way into the story. Everything felt slightly unfinished. And after a while the story just felt long and drawn out, bits of it unnecessary and other pieces felt missing.
I’m glad the characters worked it out because they were good for each other. Bri kept Gerard rooted and Gerard reminded Bri to fly. They were COMPLETE opposites, but in a way that did attract.
The romance and chemistry was definitely there! And I didn’t feel like that was overrunning the pages. It did feel like they were getting to know each other and not just focused on physical attraction (though it was definitely there which I didn’t mind at all)
I’m stuck on my rating honestly. Because I did enjoy aspects of the story! Enough to give the author another try. But not enough to swoon and giggle over it. There were things that really made me want to just set the book down at some points.
*I received this book from the publisher**All opinions are my own*
The setting and plot intrigued me! It pulled me in, but the characters didn’t keep me.
Bri was not my favorite…
She was so incredibly immature & naïve. She had on rose colored glasses about love and life and she held her mom (and love) on this pedestal. She was also unnecessarily rude to Gerard from the moment he stepped into the bakery. It wasn’t even like a cute, flirty sassiness. It was just snarky with no reasoning. She didn’t even know anything about him before spouting off. Her character didn’t start to change or mature until the last 20 or so pages…
Gerard actually felt like he grew THROUGHOUT the story. He came into town guarded and wanting to be anywhere but there but he did his job. (And fell in love in the process *wags eyebrows*) As he got to know Bri, and see how she interacted with the townspeople, showing what real love, God’s love, looked like he started to soften.
As a reader it was hard for me to read this book because while I knew what was going on since I had a bird eye view, and was in both of their heads. They didn’t ever really have a full meaningful conversation with each other until 2/3 of the way into the story. Everything felt slightly unfinished. And after a while the story just felt long and drawn out, bits of it unnecessary and other pieces felt missing.
I’m glad the characters worked it out because they were good for each other. Bri kept Gerard rooted and Gerard reminded Bri to fly. They were COMPLETE opposites, but in a way that did attract.
The romance and chemistry was definitely there! And I didn’t feel like that was overrunning the pages. It did feel like they were getting to know each other and not just focused on physical attraction (though it was definitely there which I didn’t mind at all)
I’m stuck on my rating honestly. Because I did enjoy aspects of the story! Enough to give the author another try. But not enough to swoon and giggle over it. There were things that really made me want to just set the book down at some points.
*I received this book from the publisher**All opinions are my own*
Nice review. I like your honesty. I've been looking for a way to contact you and don't see an email address in you profile, so I'll ask here: Would you be interested in reviewing AARON AFTER SCHOOL by Marlisa Kriscott (my new pen name for clean Christian romance, I usually write clean young adult novels)? My email is bigpinelodge at gmail.com Thanks.
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