Self-Isolation Read - Baked Fresh

• Title And Author: Baked Fresh by Annabeth Albert
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted
• Length: 131 Pages

So, history time! Back in March 2020, when Corona was making everyone very scared (as UK Government was giving us little/no information), a bunch of book bloggers/vloggers/instgrammers started doing threads on Twitter going “Share your Amazon Wishlist and buy something for a stranger if you can afford it”. Now, this is lovely idea and I bought a few people one/two things from their lists and, probably against my better judgement, put mine public and shared it. 

So imagine my surprise when Kate (aka @Mummy2aRockStar on Twitter) kindly messaged me and went “Can I buy you this?” and we spend a good half an hour trying to figure out how to gift something onto my kindle. It’s so strange! 

So, Baked Fresh is the second novella in the Portland Heat series and we follow baker on the rise, Vic Degrassi, who is a rare ability to make and keep New Year’s resolution. Whether it’s quitting smoking, graduating culinary school or losing weight, he keeps them. This year, he wants to meet someone and have a relationship. Not a fling. 

So, when he discovers that a sweet-hearted Robin who volunteers at the local homeless shelter has been unceremoniously dumped, Vic is more than happy to be his shoulder to cry on. Vic has been harbouring a crush on Robin, so he’s delighted when they going a date and their flirting turns to a steamy night together. But Robin isn’t ready for a relationship and with both having issues to deal with, can they just be friends with benefits or something more?

I needed something short, light and fluffy and I binged this over a weekend. It was exactly what I needed. Both characters are sweet with their issues. Vic has self-esteem issues and sees himself as fat, though he spends hours at the gym and he’s actual quite muscular. Robin struggles with his past and when a tragedy strikes the homeless shelter, we see him fall apart. 

This is a sweet, tender novella. And I think the fact this is the novella works both for and against this story. Both characters have issues and it would have been interesting to dig a little deeper, even if it was only for a few more pages within the novella. I wanted a tad more weight to these issues and how they were tackled. 

Plus, there is one moment in the book where the troupe of miscommunication creeps in and this author uses this troupe often. I’m not a fan of this troupe and, luckily, this is only used for a few chapters so I didn’t hate it as much as I could have. There are other things going on that I was far more that I thought that needed a closer look and the troupe wasn’t exactly needed. 

But this was fun, light and what I needed one weekend when I felt like I hit a reading wall.