Sugar Rush by Donna Kauffman
Contemporary Romance
December 27, 2011
Brava

Reviewed by May

Favorite Quote: I made cinnamon rolls, then needed something to occupy me until Tyler Florence. Ultimate cheesecakes today. Tyler. And cheesecake.” Charlotte took a moment, hand to chest, sighed. “It’s the closest I’ve been to multiple orgasms since February.”

Lani moved away from her career as a head pastry chef in New York to a small island off the coast of Georgia called Sugarberry Island to open her own shop. A cupcake shop called Cakes by the Cup that was all hers, in a small peaceful town where she sets her own pace and creates treats that the locals will love and enjoy. The shop is still new to her, but she’s happy and setting up with a strong business plan and moving on from her unrequited feelings for her former boss Baxter.

No one had been more surprised than Lani when she discovered that, at some point during the crazy intense time it took her to choose the name of the shop, install the kitchen equipment, line the shelves and cabinets with the tools of her trade, and set up her pastry displays… she’d fallen in love. Head over heels, hopelessly, completely, stupidly in love. With her own little shop.

Baxter Dunne, aka Chef Hot Cakes is a UK transplant who worked his way up to being one of the premier pastry chefs in the United States, so much so that not only does he own his own New York shop, but he also has his own television show. He’s decided to take his show and bake on the road, most specifically so he can visit his former employee Lani and sweep her off her feet. Nothing has been quite right since she walked out of his kitchen and life.

The setup is that he wants to shoot his show at her cupcake shop for a week, and she doesn’t want him to. She’s proud, she wants success to be her own, and she doesn’t want him mucking up what is hers. Immediately he puts his cards on the table and lets her know he has missed her and is interested. She lets him know where he can put his interest, and really doesn’t let him just walk in and waltz over her. He can’t believe he sees his former head pastry chef working on (god forbid) cupcakes, she calls him out on his snobbery. The battle to win Lani’s heart, and get to know the real her, is on!

The one thread that continues through the story, is that this relationship can’t work. She’s happy and doesn’t want to go back to NYC or give up her new business. She wants to have her cupcake shop and remain on Sugarberry Island. Baxter has well-established shop in NYC and a hit TV show he films, so he can’t sit around and watch her bake mere cupcakes either. It just won’t work without someone changing their life completely.

This fact is mentioned so many times, so frequently, and all the way until the final pages of the book, that it really affected my feelings on the story.

Baxter is a smug bastard, always calling Lani “luv” and charging ahead without regard for the feelings of others. Determined to get what he wants, however he needs to. Ah, but the author shows us why he is this way, and as the story progresses so does Baxter. I really liked his character development, so the earlier jerk moments are in time forgiven.

I also appreciated that Lani, except for a moment of weakness near the end and her inexplicable need to make only cupcakes for her shop, is a strong and talented woman. She has figured out some happiness in life, and she’s grabbed onto it. I loved watching her stand up to the man she fell so hard for, letting him know that he doesn’t know all aspects of her, and watching her female friendships develop as well.

Though they tape a weeks worth of episodes for a TV show during this book, very little TV production time is focused on or detailed as to what they’re actually making for the show. That’s pretty vague and I would have liked some more about that.

I got bored of the running in circles about how they couldn’t be together because they can’t make it work conversations, and generic dialogue that I would have been happy to cut altogether in favor of more action. With the lead characters walking into this book in love (but ‘can’t make it work’) there was very little relationship to develop. This frustrated me a lot.

For the female friendships, for the food TV references, and for the baking scenes I’d recommend this book to someone who loves sweet treats and food/chef inspired tropes. It’s a cute set up, and if read as more general fiction (vs for the romance) it’s pretty satisfying.

Grade: C+

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