Baked to perfection.
When a high-strung pastry chef learns that her dream job is at stake, her carefully organized life transforms into a four-course meal without a recipe in this delicious debut.
Simone Larkspur, 28, is nothing if not by the book. After studying her apron off at Le Cordon Bleu, she scored her dream gig as a recipe developer and writer for The Discerning Chef, a cookbook and magazine publisher in Manhattan’s West Village. So when her boss, culinary giant Pim Gladly, lets Simone know that TDC is losing money, her pastry-perfect world is turned upside down. In order to save TDC’s empire, they'll have to pivot to video, which is not in Simone’s comfort zone, to say the least. To Simone’s dismay, Pim hires an entire team of videographers, including “windbag” Chase McDonald, to help her and the other chefs record trendy recipe videos. Also new to the crew is kitchen manager Rachel “Ray” Lyton, whose positive energy and infectious laughter irk Simone most of all. It’s not that Simone is jealous of Ray for being out and proud or that she herself is private about being bisexual; it’s that Ray’s personality is the complete opposite of Simone’s. Ray is open, approachable, and flirtatious, whereas “innuendo and subtle interest bounced off Simone like off a good nonstick pan.” While Simone would like nothing more than to grapple with her feelings for Ray alone, their on-screen chemistry does wonders for TDC’s popularity, and they both become instant online celebrities. But when Ray is discriminated against after coming out to the team as nonbinary, Simone realizes that maybe her perfect job isn’t so perfect after all. Alexander whips up a delectable couple with Ray and Simone; they are each on their own journeys for self-awareness and self-confidence, which they gratifyingly achieve on an individual level. Alexander’s romance confronts workplace discrimination, internal biases, and issues like transphobia and misgendering with ease.
Baked to perfection.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-8908-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.
A Seattle woman meets a Chicago businessman as she flies home from a visit to a friend, and her small act of kindness blossoms into more.
Maisy Gallagher is barely making ends meet. With her father’s unexpected death a few years earlier, she dropped out of nursing school to help out in the family’s jewelry store, working with her uncle. Her older brother, Sean, also moved back home so he and Maisy could help their mother and their 10-year-old brother, Patrick. When Maisy offers a ride to a rude businessman who sat next to her on the plane, she’s just operating on the kindness her grandmother instilled in her. That businessman, Chase Furst, turns out to be an incredibly wealthy banker; he’s flown into Seattle to make funeral arrangements for his mother, to whom he hasn’t spoken in years. Sparks fly in this gentle and predictable romance that leans heavily on long-distance and class-divide tropes. As with many of the author’s books, Christianity and the characters’ reliance on God’s will—as they wait and see what happens next—play a large part, as do traditional gender roles where women cook, clean, and only work in paying jobs until they have children at home to take care of. The author does offer a lighter touch when it comes to the painful ways alcoholism can destroy family relationships, with an understanding of the regret that can weigh on every family member.
Light on plot and heavy on bolstering traditional gender norms as the ultimate goal for both men and women.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091676
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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