Jayci Lee's tale of love, sweets, and one nasty culinary review is both entertaining and full of delicious food porn that won't make you gain weight. One mistake of a cake intended for a little girl's party, leads jet-setting culinary critic Landen to write a scathing review for the bakery of the woman he met and made love with, Aubrey, without knowing her identity as the baker. Landen wants to help her, but fears for his and her reputations if he retracts the review and their fling comes out. But in helping Aubrey, Landen can't keep himself away and fears he may be falling for her, and for a settled life. I can't wait to read other book by Lee, and I appreciated the diversity of the characters.

I love me a good rom com, and A Sweet Mess was such a cute read!

Approximately 5% of the way in to the book, I thought to myself 'oh no it's going to be an insta-love story" but I'm here to say it isn't and I'm so glad it wasn't.

Aubrey runs a bakery and she makes an odd and gross sounding cake for a six year old customer. Her front desk girl accidentally sells it to someone (she doesn't know who) and Aubrey scrambles to make another cake for the birthday child.

Well, it turns out that the cake was sold to a highly regarded food critic, who Aubrey has a one night stand with later that day (they both have no idea who the other person is in regards to the bakery and such).

What follows is some amazing romantic tension that had me clamoring for more while reading this book. I love, love, love a slow burn romance and this totally delivered for me.

Also, I really love foodie books so I felt my tummy rumbling in hunger while reading this. I'm not much of a baker myself, but I'd totally eat at Aubrey's bakery.

If you love rom com reads, definitely check this one out because I loved it!

A perfect book for a foodie. The food descriptions made me drool. The characters are okay but just didn't pull me in. The quick one night stand becoming such a colossal mess seems too improbably for me. I suppose stranger things have happened but not in my world. Cute story tho and a relatively quick read.

I’m teetering around a 3.5? I liked the plot and the characters. The writing was not my favorite, but it wasn’t bad or anything. There were just a lot of wild metaphors and similes. The main characters also read a little bit cheesy at times. There is also a certain trope in this book that is a make or break for some people. I don’t have a big aversion to it, but U*******d P*******y is not really a favorite trope. Overall I had a good time reading this book and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a pretty sweet story and likes food (the descriptions of the food made me so hungry).

This book was a joy to read and I fell in love with this amazing Korean couple, I mean it had romance, comedy, angst , great food, wine tasting and crazy hot chemistry! This is definitely a must read of 2020 ... preorder it now you will not be disappointed.

This begins as the local town baker Aubrey had made a special request birthday cake for a 6 year old girl, that unfortunately got sold to the wrong customer by mistake of her teenage helper. As Aubrey rushes to remake the little girls birthday cake filled will cream cheese, peanut butter and gummy worms , who had the misfortune to get the other one. So after the long and crazy day she finds herself at her best friends brewery and meets one amazing hot guy and has one hell of a one night stand. Low in behold that one night stand happens to be a famous food critic London Kim and who also had the misfortune of being the purchaser of the gummy worm chocolate cake. Landon was on his way to his latest restaurant for reviewing when he had a tire blow out that lend him to the small town. With missing his chance to review the restaurant he went ahead a wrote his last review before heading to month long trip overseas. He chose to review about the crazy cake filled with gummy worms , unknown to him that Aubrey was said baker. Once he comes back and learns it was Aubrey he tries to come up with a plan to fix what he messed up for her and also he couldn't get her out of his mind. Can he find a way to fix this and could they go from one night stand-enemies- coworkers- friends-lovers?

This book is titled perfectly. A light hearted, yummy, feel good Rom-Com that will make for a perfect summer read.

The short of it. Hotshot food critic, Landon, gets stuck in small town due to flat tire, finds a bakery, orders the daily special, gets wrong version that’s meant for a child’s birthday party. Disgusted with his order he heads for a bar where he meets and ends up having an unforgettable one night stand with what he eventually learns is the owner of the bakery, Aubrey. Still decides to publish bad review, later learns in was a mix-up with the order, refuses to change review. Said review cause lots of problems for small town chef and through a series of events it leads to him trying to make amends and the pair falling head over heals for each-other. So the short of it doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. I think it will make it more enjoyable if you discover the story for yourself.

The time frames were a little jarring and hard to follow at points. There are days, weeks and months of time passing in between certain scenes that could have been a little smoother in transition. This made their relationship have feelings of insta-lust to pure budding feelings come across rather stilted. I however loved the dynamic between Aubrey and Landon. The growth of their relationship was really nice if you can get around the time jumping issue I mention earlier. Both had very believable reasons for the issues that came up with them denying their feelings for each other. The side cast of characters add extra dimensions to the plot but I feel their needed to be more of a bridge in the familiarity of their respective friend group. We get to see that they are very close but not have any reason for them to be so close for most of them.
I’ve seen people comment on the POV issue but I didn’t recall too many myself. I am reading an advanced copy so my version may be a later edit.
The food is incredible and left me needing to have a snack at hand while reading. If you’re someone who enjoys food and cooking shows like me this aspect will make readers very happy. There was a wonderful balance between the food and the relationships in this. It really plays out like a favorite chic-flick in your mind and I have a feeling this will be one of the popular reads this year.


E-Arc provided by St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was super cute: a total feel-good romance. Boy meets girl, boy nearly ruins girl’s career, but they can’t help but fall for each other. This was a fun book - Not too steamy, but quite sweet. I loved having diverse characters and reading about culinary work. Nicely done!

I loved the Blurb for the book. It made me want to read it. Unfortunately I was disappointed. I rather liked Aubrey, but found Landon to be a substanceless jerk. I thought that she deserved better. I wanted to like it, but just couldn't.
Thank you Jayci Lee, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for allowing me an advance copy for my honest feedback.

A one night stand leads to an unfortunate decision with consequence, which in turn leads to a grand apology, and then a drama llama decision...

I loved Aubrey and her feisty spirit, but somewhere in the middle, she had a personality switch, and yes, I became frustrated. Business wise, she was decisive as ever, which led to good things, yet personally, she spent more time being afraid of making any kind of real decision. If there was a segue in between the personality swap, I missed it, because I was left wondering where the passionate, grab life by the horns character went.

Landon was the opposite. At first, I didn’t like him. However, as I learned more about him, I grasped why he did what he did. (Granted, I didn’t necessarily agree with it all, but eh, you need some friction). However, he went above and beyond to fix his mistake, then he had to go and have a ‘duh’ moment-seriously, what was he thinking?! He wasn’t- and voila. Drama llama scene follows. Although, the resulting groveling moment was impressive...I’d reconsider taking him back too.

I had mixed feels about this story. I loved Aubrey and Landon. They were a spicy mix of heat and complexity, with shades of vulnerabilities that sucked me in. Somewhere in the middle of things I fell out of the story, but everything picked back up near the end. The loose logic of the plot threw me some-yes I could see how a bad review can hurt, but one review breaking an entire business seemed far-fetched and then there’s the contrived trope pieced in....

At any rate, I’m still going with four stars. The more I sat on my thoughts, I realized Aubrey and Landon made a lasting impression beyond the loose plot and at the end of the day, I was a satisfied, happy reader with their relationship.

I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley/St. Martins and this is my honest review.

It was my first read of this author and I enjoyed the peeks into the culture of the protagonists as well as the portrayals of successful Asian Americans. The romance was a bit of meet-cute thrown in with a misunderstanding driving a wedge between the 'star-crossed'. It was fairly standard as far as the evolution of the romance went, though some of the circumstances like having to share a villa pretty forced with relatively easy solutions. Similarly a food critic from a single magazine being influential enough to shut down a business is also a bit of a stretch. There are some writing issues especially in transitions between scenes and between character POVs as other reviewers have mentioned - I hope the editors can fix these before release. The climax is predictable - I have certain issues with Landon making life decisions as grand gestures instead of being collaborative, and daddy issues driving every action of the characters, but thankfully it promotes (hopefully) open discussion of mental health. A light romance read if you're not trying to go too deep.

This book was pretty light and cute BUT ultimately, I had some issues with it.
Firstly, the chemistry between the characters...it was kind of there, but at times it was lacking?
Secondly, I was expecting the cooking show part of the plot to be more present. I feel like it was mentioned to structure the main part of the plot ( Aubrey and Landon sharing living spaces), but its hardly a part of the story until about 70% of the way through, and even then.
Lastly, I didn't really like how Aubrey and the Comfort Zone's struggles seemed entirely dependent on Aria and Landon. I get that they were there to assist, but the resolution was so instant, there was no time for the issues to really take flight/promote character development.

As this is an ARC, I do believe many of the editing issues (i.e. choppy transitions) will be taken care of so I won't comment too much on that.

All in all this was OK.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the eARC.

Aubrey owns her own bakery, Comfort Zone. She receives a bad review from food critic Landon after her teenage employee accidentally sells a special order birthday cake (filled with peanut butter, cream cheese, and gummy worms) to him. Unbeknownst to either of them, Landon also happens to be the man she had a one night stand with when he was in town. Landon refuses to write a new review, but agrees to help fix her now ruined reputation. He asks her to create two new desserts for a new cooking show he is putting together. Aubrey agrees to Landon’s plan and the two agree they need to maintain a professional relationship through the filming process.

I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. There were times when I felt like I was watching a ping pong match. Landon would want to be with Aubrey, but Aubrey didn’t want to be with him. Then the roles would reverse. Both characters had some past family history influencing how they handle personal relationships, but even at the end, I felt they were allowing that history to control them. That was frustrating to me personally as I would have liked to see the characters recognize this sooner. I really enjoyed the food aspect of the entire book. They eat and create fantastic food and I love reading about cooking as an artistic process! While I didn’t love this book, I feel like Lee is an author to watch out for! (I’m checking into her Harlequin Desire book Temporary Wife Temptation.)

3.5 stars

One night stand to enemies to reluctant partners to friends to lovers. Two foodies that find love in book that will make you crave food.Well developed setting, besides main characters I really like Tara, I just was not a fan of insta-love.

A Sweet Mess is fun, light-hearted and likable romance.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯’𝘴 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘈𝘙𝘊.

Thank you @netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. A Sweet Mess comes out July 2020.
_____
If you love quirky, relatable characters, a handsome irresistible man, and a delightful love story, then this book is for you.
______
Aubrey Choi is an amazing baker in a small town in California. Her world gets turned upside down when a steamy one night stand leads her to almost losing her bakery, her dreams into finding lasting friendships and love.
_____
Aubrey Choi and Landon Kim, both of Korean backgrounds, have had to deal with challenging relationships with their parents. This sets the tone for their relationships and their outlook on love and life. They each had to get past their insecurities, their perceptions in order to be honest with themselves before they could open their hearts to the possibility of love.
_____

As much as I enjoyed this book, I struggled with getting through some parts of the story. At times they're so conflicted with their internal dialogue that it causes mistrust in their relationship. This leads to them being unable to communicate with each other.
______
I loved Aubrey's passion for baking and creating delicious recipes in the kitchen. I'm not at all creative in the kitchen. I'm one of those people that needs a recipe to follow. 😂

It was really nice reading about the beauty of California. 🚙 We took a trip up the coast a couple of years ago from LA to San Francisco. Going up highway 1 was just spectacular. There are so many wonderful places to visit along the coast. Have you been? What was your favorite place to visit?

This was a sweet story about two foodies who find love. I really enjoyed the writing style of this author. The characters seemed realistic and even when their decisions infuriated me, I understood them.

I thought that the actual food show and public fallout would play a bigger part in the story line, so that was a surprise, but the direction the story went in worked.

The descriptions of food were so vivid and it sounded delicious!

I absolutely love novels where one of the main characters is a chef, so this sweet romance was right up my alley. I immediately liked both Aubrey and Landon and was rooting for them to finally get together! Although I got right into the novel (and generally found it hard to put down, staying up far too late to finish it!), I found the middle flagged a little bit - the plot seemed to artificially drag out the reasons they couldn't be together, particularly when we saw from both characters' perspective how much they wanted each other. The ending for me fell a little bit flat with how it tied everything up neatly with a bow, but I still really enjoyed this and would recommend it for a light read when you just want to be happy :)

*This book does not yet appear on Goodreads, but when it is added, I will be reposting my review there.*

Ugh! I hope the final version of the book is better than the ARC.

Very predictable romance novel. Aubrey is a very likeable character, but Landon is a good-looking prick. Where is the chemistry between them? Why the "I just can't be with you" plot device?

The book is hopefully edited again before publishing. The point of view changes within chapters were strange. Also, the dumping of information (background, past) that was "kind of relevant" but didn't come up again for several chapters was strange.

I LOVED this book! Aubrey and Landon were a fabulous match. I loved how they connected and the steamy looks when they couldn’t quite have each other. I am excited that they were not the too often seen white bread characters either! Please bring on more beautiful Korean people or any person of color in mainstream fiction!! I could so easily picture them both in a hot K-drama. My one detractor was the completely random and off the wall camping scene. It had absolutely no point in the story whatsoever and was so bizarre that I could not go to 5 stars.

I was provided with an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It’s a quick read with some humor thrown in which got me laughing out loud. Here’s the negative part book felt there were parts that dragged. I would rate this book a 3.5. The theme is baking with a dash of miscommunication, throughout the book. You get to see how one person can destroy another person‘s reputation within a matter of minutes. ***** I received an ARC in return for my honest review****

“A Sweet Mess” by Jayci Lee takes us into the foodie world with bakery owner, Aubrey Choi, and food critic, Landon Kim.

I really wanted to like this book since this is Ms. Lee’s debut rom-com. Unfortunately, when I started reading, I felt like I was in the middle of the story instead of the beginning. I felt like I was missing something between Aubrey and her friendship with Tara, and even between Landon and his boss, Craig. There was so much familiarity between each of them, I felt like I stepped into the middle of their conversations.
Then, having the hero and heroine have a sexual encounter before chapter two? Definitely not my favorite way for an author to start a book. I prefer there to be more sexual tension between the characters that will make me wonder when they will give in to their attraction.

I’ve heard that not every book an author writes will resonate favorably with every reader and “A Sweet Mess” is one of those books for me.