Easy Bake Lovin’ by Maggie Wells
Play Dates #2
Contemporary Romance
March 6, 2018
Lyrical Shine
Reviewed by Kini
Favorite Quote: “Normal is a fantasy,” she said, craning her neck to peer over her shoulder at him. “Reality is messy, but so much better.”
This is the second book in Wells’ series about single dads and the women they fall for. I reviewed the first book, Play Dates, last year. I liked this one about the same. It was okay but wasn’t great.
Georgie is a baker with a free-spirit as evidenced by her non-traditional hair color and slight rebellion against her family. Georgie owns and operates a bakery that specializes in penis cakes and boob donuts. She meets the hero, Mike when she hires his company to do an upgrade on security on her building.
Mike is a single dad to his two small kids because his wife left after almost ten years together. He is buttoned-up kind of fellow and is immediately drawn to Georgie for her beauty and of course her kindness. When they first meet Mike is very embarrassed around the sexy baked goods.
This book is on the shorter side and there is a lot happening that isn’t central to the love story. Mike’s company is also providing security for Gerogie’s brother who is running for mayor. There was a small bit about the brother and my notes I wrote were, “don’t care.” We get some info about James and his potential match. I feel like if the story had been longer, I wouldn’t mind these things, but at 202 pages, I really want to spend all my time reading about the couple.
I really am in to the idea of a group of single dads. They support each other and build a little family for each other. Mike, Colm- hero from book one, and James- hero from book three, all seem like great men. They run a solid business, are good friends and trying to be the best parent they can be. The biggest issue for me is that in order for them to be single dads, they have to be apart from the women that birthed these children. In the case of Mike, he was married for several years and then the wife left. We get info on how she decided she didn’t want to be a mom, but we don’t know where she is now. I am not even sure why that matters to me, but it does. Mike’s sister, Megan, is the mother of James’s kids and Megan is a real piece of work. This is relevant because there is a verbal altercation between Georgie and Megan toward the end of the book, oh hello conflict. Back to the non-existent moms in this series. I spent a lot of time thinking about how else to write a story with single dads and not make the absent mothers the villains, because that is absolutely what happens in this story. Is there a way to present a parent who helped make a child, but later decides they don’t want to raise it without that parent coming off as an asshole? I don’t know, but I would like to read it.
This book wasn’t great for me. It wasn’t horrible, but I just wanted more. I wanted less villianness moms and less outside stuff happening. I would have liked it to be a bit longer so stories could be developed a little better. I did enjoy Mike and Georgie, I just wanted more for them. I will probably read the next book, because I am curious to see how James gets his HEA.
Grade: C-
Goodreads I Author Website I Series List I Kindle I Nook
Leave a Reply