Book Review: Don’t Go Baking My Heart by N.G. Peltier

Don’t Go Baking My Heart (Island Bites #2)
Publisher: Piatkus
Pub Date: 21 June 2022
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

(4 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

Devon King has a plan. An actual with bullet points and everything plan for his life. When he’s called out at work for never participating in any of the office activities he feels compelled to take part in the upcoming office bake off competition to prove he’s a team player, as making partner at his architectural design firm is top on his list of career goals. Only problem, he doesn’t know anything about baking. Failure is not an option so when his first choice for help is unavailable, desperate times lead him to ask Reba Johnson, assistant pastry chef to his brother’s girlfriend.

Reba’s been having fun texting the super serious Devon ridiculous cat pictures, for an entire month, but she’s surprised when he asks for her help with a potential baking crisis, since their conversations have been one sided until now. When her friends make a bet that even she can’t get the stoic Devon to fall for her charms, Reba sets out to prove them wrong and get Devon to have some fun.

As the competition draws closer, their sessions get hotter with a one night stand turning into two nights then three…Reba doesn’t fit into Devon’s carefully crafted life and as he tries to focus on winning the company contest, he discovers that sweet treats aren’t the only thing baking in the kitchen, and all his perfect plans are crumbling.

TL;DR: Don’t Go Baking My Heart took a minute for me to get into but I ended up really enjoying it. This was in large part due to Reba and her amazingness—talk about girl crush material because her fun-shine personality, wit and sass were literally *everything!* I can’t lie and say that I wasn’t worried Devon wouldn’t grow because that stick was shoved so far up his behind that I didn’t think anyone could pull it out but I shouldn’t have underestimated Reba! Her charm chipped away at his cold and stiff demeanour and brought out a surprisingly charming, funny, and flirty guy. They’re the definition of opposites attract and I loved their slow-burn romance!

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Did I Pass My Classes? The Magical Readathon: Orilium Spring Equinox 2023 Wrap-Up

Evening, fellow book lovers! Somehow April has come and gone and even now, we’re starting our second week of May (hello?)! As you know, I don’t participate in many readathons but The Magical Readathon is one that I happily and very excitedly participate in every year.

As always, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, our lovely host G @Book Roast created this Beginners Guide to the Magical Readathon, just in case you’re interested in starting your own journey to Orilium!

April marked the first semester back at school and now that the month is over, it’s time to take a look at how I did for ✨ The Magical Readathon: Orilium Spring Equinox 2023! ✨ How well did the first semester of my second year at Orilium go? Read on to find out!

Check out how I did in my first year at Orilium in 2022!

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [188]

We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent your time curled up reading in bed with or which book you wish you had time to read today!

This Sunday I’m in bed with two books…

Don’t Go Baking My Heart → 45%
I actually haven’t made any progress with this cos I haven’t picked it up since last week. I’m reading it right now though!

Castles in Their Bones → 35%
I’m buddy-reading this with Leslie and I’m loving it! I already can’t wait to pick it back up again—it was so hard to put down!

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the folklore book tag

Happy Saturday, friends! I was wondering what to post today because as usual I’m preparing things at the last minute and when I decided to do an ‘easy’ tag, I remembered that I still haven’t done The Folklore Book Tag. Folklore is top-tier TS for me and one of my all-time favourite albums. I wasn’t tagged to do this but I saw it on Elli’s blog *ages* ago and since I’ve seen mentions of TS on the bird app’s feed quite a bit today I thought why not?

So I’m turning up the track and diving straight into this!

This tag and the awesome graphics you see are originally created by Ilsa @ Whisper of Ink.

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#FirstLinesFriday: 5 May 2023

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“It is said that the stars shine brighter on the princesses’ birthday, but the princesses themselves think that is balderdash. The stars look the same as they always do, and this year, on the night before the three of them leave their home and one another for the first time in their lives, everything—the stars included—seems far darker.”

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Monthly Wrap-Up: April 2023

April was the quietest month so far this year. It almost felt like the calm before the storm because things are picking back up again and I’m starting to get a little nervous but we got this, right?! I indulged in a good bit of retail therapy in April and got myself new headphones, new glasses (boo, poorer eyesight but yay for snap-on sunnies), and books—lots and lots of books. Other than that, my days continued to be a monotonous cycle of work, eat, sleep(ish) and repeat. With my sister gone to Japan for uni and my parents continuously travelling, this big house has been pretty quiet with just me and the doggos! Looking forward to when my parents get back in the first week of May so the house will be livelier, at least for a little bit.

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#TopTenTuesday: First 10 Books I Grabbed Off My Shelf

We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf (close your eyes and touch/grab/point to 10 random titles and tell us what they are! And tell us what you thought if you’ve read them!)

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