The only thing Bri Duval loves more than baking petit fours is romance. So much so, she's created her own version of the famous Parisian lovelock wall at her bakery in Story, Kansas. She never expects it to go viral--or for Trek Magazine to send travel writer Gerard Fortier to feature the bakery. He's definitely handsome, but Bri has been holding out for a love story like the one her parents had, and that certainly will not include the love-scorned-and-therefore-love-scorning Gerard. 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.
★★★☆☆
Baker Bri Duvall has a job she loves, working at The Pastry Puff, a small town bakery in Story, Kansas owned by elderly sisters Mabel and Agnes, who also fancy themselves part-time matchmakers. It's here at the Pastry Puff that Bri has recreated (albeit not to scale) the famous love lock wall that was once a major tourist attraction of Paris, France (before being taken down for architectural safety concerns). As the story of Bri's wall starts to gain media buzz, travel writer Gerard Fortier of Trek Magazine is sent out to develop a piece on the wall and the bakery.
Bri and the sisters are excited for the chance at a magazine feature. Of late, the bakery has only been having sporadic bursts of booming business, so everyone is hoping an enticing write-up in a nationally read travel magazine will be just the thing to keep Pastry Puff's doors open. But Gerard will have his work cut out for him. The stories behind the popularity of the love lock wall are naturally seeped in romance, a topic Bri can't help but be obsessed with ever since hearing the tale of her own parents' whirlwind courtship in Paris. Meanwhile, Gerard has his flag firmly planted in the land of the love-burned, and he's quite annoyed that his boss chose to send him on this assignment, when he'd really rather focus his writing on meatier work... something like global politics or economics. It also doesn't help that nearly everything in Story looks like the set of a Hallmark movie.
Speaking of this bakery struggling to keep its doors open, I had to wonder about Bri sometimes. I get that the sisters left her in charge of the place a lot because honestly, who wants to work full days at a bakery every day in their 80s...but some of that accounting trouble maybe leads back to Bri. She gives away a heck of a lot more stuff than she's ringing up. And I have to say, for a baker not to be able to identify coffee as an ingredient / flavor in a recipe... c'mon, on the scale of flavors, that's a pretty potent, recognizable one.... so, either she's not a coffee drinker or her actual baking abilities are highly overrated.
The writing style here is similar to that of any standard Harlequin mass market you might pick up, stopping short at sex scenes, as this book is released under a Christian publishing house.
She studied him, the macaron crumbs on his shirt and the corded muscle in his forearm as he raised his coffee mug. Gerard Fortier might be more bark than bite, after all. Who would have thought the leather jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding guy with a chip on his shoulder had a sensitive side? And who would've ever thought she'd find it attractive?
Oh, I dunno. Maybe anyone who has picked up any kind of romance novel. Like, ever.
There's more bickering and grumbling between the main couple than any real romance, but I'm sure you can guess at the ending you get anyway. I also didn't care for Gerard constantly calling Bri "Cupcake". Sure, he was trying to be cute because she was a baker and all that, but as the reader it came off as a little patronizing to me. Even Bri mentions to him that she doesn't enjoy when he does that and he continues to do it anyway, so no, he didn't sell me on being a romantic lead here, even with having the motorcycle, tattoos, and every other romance novel cliche thrown into his "rebel with a heart of gold" look.
There are virtually no plot surprises here, and the plot devices the story relies on have been served up by writers 1000x over. That said, that's not always a bad thing. Even if I wasn't fully sold on our romantic leads, I can't knock a cute bakery setting / charming small town appeal, so that right there --- sweet townsfolk who gather at the locally owned bakery and share their stories --- gets points enough for being solid distraction fluff reading, which is certainly something that has a market these days! But this reader personally? I was here for the love story of elderly Marine vet Mr. Mac pining for his late wife, Betty more than anything... but you only get a few pages of him here and there.
FTC Disclaimer: Revell Books kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.
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