Baking Me Crazy by Karla Sorensen Pages: 252
Published by Smartypants Romance on October 8, 2019
Series: Donner Bakery #1
Genres: adult, Romance, contemporary, New Adult
Source: eARC from Publisher
Also in this series: Stud Muffin, Batter of WitsI'm Levi Buchanan, and until five years ago, I thought the legend of my family's curse was a load of crazy, Southern nonsense.
No curse can make you fall in love at first sight. No curse can force a true, deep, passionate, all-consuming love that will haunt you all the days of your life.
Then I met Jocelyn Abernathy and I realized how completely wrong I was.
The problem is, Jocelyn guards her feelings like well-armed soldier. She's the most beautiful, stubborn, infuriating woman I've ever met. Every time she talks, I want to kiss the living daylights out of her. But I can't.
Because when we met, she didn't need true love. She needed a best friend. And that's what I've been to her... for five years.
But when Jocelyn meets a handsome stranger her first day working at Donner Bakery and she lets him buy her a dill pickle cupcake, I realize with ominous regret that I may have missed my window with my best friend.
If I can't get her to see past our friendship, my new curse may be to watch the love of my life move on with someone else.'Baking Me Crazy' is a full-length contemporary romantic comedy, can be read as a standalone, and is book#1 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Baking me Crazy is the first book in the contemporary romance, Donner Bakery series by author Karla Sorensen. Not only did I really enjoy this book, but I am so completely in love with the idea behind the book’s publisher- Smartypants Romance. Smartypants Romance is one of my favorite author’s new publishing company, and the coolest part of this company is that they are doing something I have never seen done on this large of a scale before. As you know, Penny Reid is one of my favorite romance authors, and a lot of her stories feature characters in and around the town of Green Valley. (The Winston Brothers series) Smartypants romance is bring on several new authors to write their own series, all set in the Penny Reid universe! See the picture below for all of the series that will be coming out set in the Green Valley world. I love this idea so, so much. It is perfect for new fans and old fans because we get all new story lines and characters, but we get to see plenty of character crossover. I imagine that the smarty pants studios has a giant wall chart of Green Valley all laid out with all of the characters, and where they are located in the town. (I’m not sure if they actually have this or not, but wouldn’t it be awesome if they did?)
Baking Me Crazy takes place in Jennifer’s bakery, so we get to see a few Cletus cameos, which you know I loved! I really enjoyed Baking Me Crazy. In this story we meet Joss, our heroine, and her best friend Levi. I fell so hard for Levi. Levi’s family has an interesting curse placed upon the men. Each of the men in his family are cursed with falling in love at first sight with the woman they are meant to be with, and then never loving another woman for the rest of their life. Levi thought he had avoided the curse until the moment he laid eyes on Joss. Then he was a goner. He even asked her out, but she turned him down and friend zoned him. Our story takes place 5 years after their initial meeting.
I loved Levi and Joss’ friendship, and I loved their romance even more. I have no idea how Joss did not fall for him sooner. I would have been trying to woo him since day 2 of our friendship. I love how kind, patient, understanding and supportive Levi is. He always seemed to be going out of his was for Joss and trying to anticipate what she would need before she needed it. He gave me major heart eyes for sure. I can’t wait to read more books from Karla. Her sweet romance really hit the spot for me. I am really hoping that Joy (Joss’ co-worker) gets a story in the Donner Bakery series. I love how much of a romantic she is. Bring on more Smartypants Romance!
The characters sound wonderful and I think this would be something I would enjoy reading.