Review: Fake It Till You Bake It

It appears I’ve become a big fan of the fake dating trope. I don’t know what’s taken me so long to realize that but here we are. I recently read Fake It Till You Bake It by Jamie Wesley and I was tickled with the way the main characters were thrown together and had to pretend to be in a romantic relationship. Add in some cupcakes and I was a happy reader!

Here’s the book’s description:

Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego's newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell.
When a reporter mistakenly believes Jada and Donovan are an item, they realize they can use the misunderstanding to their advantage to help the struggling bakery and rehabilitate Jada's image. Faking a relationship should be simple, but sometimes love is the most unexpected ingredient.

I’ll be honest – this book isn’t exactly what I’d call great BUT I couldn’t stop reading. I was delighted by the chemistry between Jada and Donovan even while I wondered how their romance could ever remotely happen in real life. It’s a far-fetched kind of story so you have to roll with it and accept the ridiculous hijinks and cringeworthy moments. It’s a romance, after all, what did I expect? All that said, I was so pleased to have sweet and sexy moments keeping me entertained throughout the entire novel.

I felt like I got to know Jada far more than I did Donovan, which I don’t think was the author’s intention. She just seemed more…real – even though her penchant for clothes and make-up are the complete opposite of me. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to get behind her as a heroine at the start but, like Donovan, I saw the real person underneath the shiny surface by the end of the novel. It helped that Jada finally saw herself too. She was so lost at the start of the book and so incredibly defeatist. I was honestly super frustrated with her but I can’t know exactly what it would have been like to have scientist parents like hers who always compared me to a book-smart sister while struggling through school because of dyslexia. That has got to damage a girl. I get it. But it was hard to read as she was throwing everything away because of some ridiculous misguided notion that she wasn’t good enough. And she wouldn’t listen to those who really did know her. I’m glad both her grandmother and Donovan got through to her and she realized how much she had to offer the world.

I thought it was too cute that the cupcake shop, Sugar Blitz, was owned by three professional football players. It totally destroys stereotypes and I absolutely loved it. I wasn’t entirely sure of the logistics and I’m not positive the timeline could have worked for the guys being in the off-season. They didn’t seem to ever be even working out or practicing and I don’t think teams get that much time off. That nit-picking aside, seeing a different side of pro athletes was refreshing when it seems like every other day we’re hearing about a dirtbag player doing something atrocious. Even if I didn’t get to know Donovan as much as I’d have liked, I did like him and I definitely hope Wesley has set up a series so we can follow along with his business partners and teammates as they find love, too.

It might not seem like I was super happy with Fake It Till You Bake It but Jamie Wesley’s novel was fun to read. I was really invested and was really satisfied with the Happily Ever After. I’ll for sure check out whatever Wesley writes next.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: 24 Hours in Paris

Full disclosure before we get rolling: I’ve known Romi Moondi/her work for over a decade, having read her indie books and helped plan an event that she was a featured author at back in 2013. I was so thrilled that she was finally being traditionally published because I knew she deserved it. Therefore, I was pretty pumped to read 24 Hours in Paris. I say this to explain there was a bit of bias and a whole lot of really high expectations going into reading this new rom com. While I can’t say that I loooved 24 Hours in Paris, I can say that it was funny, entertaining, and enjoyable.

Here’s the book’s description:

All bets are off in the City of Light . . . where life and love can change in less than a day
After calling off her engagement, Mira escapes on an all-expense paid business trip to Paris. Despite the delicious food and flowing wine, she can’t forget the ache of leaving her fiancé behind or the fact that she’s just blown up her personal life. And messing up simply isn’t Mira.
She’s used to being in control. Meticulously planning. But now she’s at the mercy of the travel gods, and they are not acting in her favor. Subways are missed. Trains don’t run. Flights are overbooked. And by the time she arrives at the airport to go home, there are no new flights to NYC until the next day. The worst part? She’s now stuck in Paris for twenty-four hours with her arrogant and insufferable co-worker Jake whose constant flirting and annoying optimism is more than she can handle.
But as they spend the next twenty-four hours in Paris, exploring the city in all its beauty, Mira realizes that she and Jake have more in common than they thought, and he may turn out to be the best thing she discovers in the City of Love.

One thing you must know about Moondi is that she is funny. I found myself laughing throughout this story and I just love how clever Moondi is and that, by extension, her characters are whip smart too. That was probably my favourite thing about both Mira and this book. Too many rom coms these days are light on the “com” – but not Moondi’s novel. (In fact, you might even argue it’s light on the “rom”.) I wish I had noted some of the particularly humorous quotes but, alas, I was enjoying my reading experience too much to stop and write anything down or take pictures! You’ll just have to read it to see what I mean!

A few other reviewers have noted something that I think bothered me but I wasn’t able to put my finger on exactly what it was. Mira had never been to Paris and yet moved around the city extremely effectively. Would it really have been that easy for her? It’s not a small city but I can’t recall a single moment where she was even remotely lost or struggling with the city. Other than, of course, the initial hullaballoo that led her to being “stuck” in the city for an extra day. And I know a lot of people in Paris speak English but Mira didn’t seem to have many language barrier issues at all either. It just didn’t ring very true to me and must have stuck with me more than I realized.

What 24 Hours in Paris does really well is inspire strong wanderlust. My goodness, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to travel to Paris more than when I was reading Moondi’s novel. There were a few places I recognized as I read the book (recognized based almost entirely on other books and a few movies that I’ve watched based in the city) as well as several new spots that I’d love to visit someday. This part of the story was a balm during a time where travel has been really limited.

24 Hours in Paris isn’t just a romantic comedy. Romi Moondi’s novel is also a love letter to Paris. This is a book to read if you enjoy armchair traveling and characters who are funny and smart and may or may not fall in love by the time you get to the last page.

*An egalley was provided by the publisher, Wattpad, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Murder of Mr. Wickham

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I will read pretty much any Jane Austen related novel. (And, subsequently, will use a bastardized version of the opening line of Pride and Prejudice in my review.) I was delighted by the description of The Murder of Mr. Wickham and was really looking forward to Claudia Gray’s novel. A locked room murder mystery featuring characters from all of Austen’s novels in one book? Count me in! And, happily, I absolutely adored this book. It was too much fun!

Here's the book’s description:

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.
Nearly everyone at the house party is a suspect, so it falls to the party’s two youngest guests to solve the mystery: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry, eager for adventure beyond Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, the Darcys’ eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem almost relaxed. The unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions and uncover the guilty party—before an innocent person is sentenced to hang.

I will say that I think you need to have an understanding of all six of Austen’s major novels to fully enjoy Gray’s novel. I don’t think I would have loved it as much had I not recently reread (or read for the first time) Austen’s books. Of course, I do think you can read it even if, say, you’ve only ever read (or seen) Pride and Prejudice, but there’s an extra layer of enjoyment you can get if you know the full story behind each of the characters.

Related to knowing the characters – I really didn’t know who was going to the be culprit. As Juliet and Jonathan realize, the murderer had to have been one of the members of the house party which meant that one of Austen’s beloved characters had blood on their hands. It was a strange sensation! I had my suspicions of who may have done it, but Gray kept me guessing and I honestly could not have predicted the end. Which I consider a win for a mystery!

I appreciate that Gray used two of her own creations as main characters. Instead of centring the book on the perspective of one of Austen’s well-known characters, Gray chose to use the children of two characters to help propel the storyline. I had a lot of fun following along with Juliet and Jonathan as they pair tried to solve the murder to help their new friends and prevent the police from bungling the case or looking in the wrong direction.

I’ve focused a lot on the characters in this review because to say too much about the mystery itself could inadvertently spoil it for anyone who wishes to read this book. I don’t consider myself a mystery aficionado, but I do enjoy them, as I enjoyed this one. I couldn’t guess who the murderer would be, and I felt that Gray dropped clues in such a way that was smart and not heavy-handed. I’d be interested to know if avid mystery readers could have figured it out before Juliet and Jonathan!

I highly recommend The Murder of Mr. Wickham to anyone who enjoys Jane Austen and mystery novels. Claudia Gray did a wonderful job of respecting Austen’s characters while also putting her own spin on them. it made for a thoroughly enjoyable whodunit that kept me guessing until the very end. And, at the end, left me wanting more from all the characters. A mark of a great novel if you ask me!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: Love on the Lake

I’ve lost count the number of Helena Hunting books I’ve read over the last couple years (after I finally started reading her books). She has so many! I’m always here for supporting Canadian romance authors so I started Hunting’s Lakeside series last year. My full review of book one, Love Next Door, is here), but the short version is: I enjoyed it but didn’t love it. I thought I should give Love on the Lake a chance just in case it hit the spot better than the first. And, well, it didn’t. Not really. It was a fine romance but left me feeling…meh. Which is never a feeling I want to have!

Here's the book’s description:

Teagan Firestone has always been the dutiful daughter, especially since her mom died. But as her father finally begins to move on, it’s her turn to do the same. Her destination: Pearl Lake, a close-knit community with an entrepreneurial spirit and secrets of its own.
One of them is Aaron Saunders, who dropped out of college to work construction for Pearl Lake’s upper class. He’s a mystery and has a playboy reputation—that is, until he meets Teagan. Neither of them is looking for love, but in a town this small, it’s hard not to let your heart get involved.
As their romance heats up, Aaron’s elusive past comes to light and Teagan is there for him, bringing them even closer together. But when Teagan is forced to face her own demons, her inability to accept the support of friends and family threatens the life she’s worked so hard to build.
Can Aaron love her, even when she can’t love herself?

I do love Pearl Lake and the setting Hunting has created for this series. I think that’s what I was originally drawn to and what convinced me to go back to the series again for book two. The small town was incredibly realistic, and I really appreciated that as I was reading the novel. People cared about their neighbours which sometimes bordered on nosiness. There’s both good and bad that comes with living in a small town like Pearl Lake and Hunting does a great job of showing off both, while managing to focus on the good more than the bad!

The rest of the story though? I’ll repeat what I said before: meh. Aaron and Teagan were fine. They were supposed to be multi-layered, complex individuals and I suppose they were but for some reason their complexity just seemed really forced. Aaron had a family secret that he was hiding from everyone which, fine, secrets are allowed but keeping it a secret and the trauma that came from it was just…I don’t know. It didn’t make sense. (Trauma can make people do things that don’t make “sense” to others, I get that, but I wasn’t feeling that in this case.) Then there was Teagan who was on all sorts of medication and did not AT ALL have healthy coping methods, so she started to spiral. I appreciate that mental health and all that goes with it is being explored more and more in contemporary novels, especially romances, but, again, something just didn’t work for me. Is it because I can’t fully understand what Teagan was going through? I don’t know…maybe? Or was it just that the writing was lacking something? It’s hard to say and has been bothering me since I read the book back in April.

I couldn’t remember how much I was supposed to have known about Aaron from the first book. I feel like perhaps I should have had a better idea of him and his backstory, but it definitely didn’t stick – if it was ever there to begin with. Because of that, I could not for the life of me understand the animosity he seemed to feel for Teagan. But even though they didn’t like each other, they were still hot for each other? I have a really hard time with enemies to lovers stories and it was unfortunate that this one included some of the elements from that trope. It didn’t help my initial enjoyment of the story.

All in all, Love on the Lake was not a winner for me. I didn’t love the characters, even though there was nothing really wrong with them. Something about them and the plot of this book just didn’t click and I, personally, need that when it comes to reading romances. I’m not sure if Helena Hunting is writing another in this series but I likely won’t be checking it out.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, Thomas Allen & Son, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*