This was a cute, cozy rom com and the two main characters were great. This was much better than I thought it was going to be and there are many good rom coms coming out in 2020. This was a quick, easy and enjoyable read and more light-hearted with a few laughs.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and Jayci Lee for ARC in exchange for an honest review. I hope everyone likes this as much as I do.

This is a fun romance that follows two Korean MC's. One is a pastry chef and the other is a food critic. It is engaging and there is enough depth with the main plot and the side characters to keep things interesting. It did take me forever to read because of my reading mood, but I wish I could have sit and binged it.

The books would switch POVs without warning, but that could be due to the fact that I read an eARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

Aubrey is a baker with a strict Korean family. The traditions are present throughout the book, which I thought was cool. Meanwhile, Landon lacked development and depth.
While it's a cute book, it was pretty slow, and starts to fall in the realm of unbelievable a lot. At face value, it's an enjoyable rom-com.

Loved this sweet little book! It was cute and romantic in all the best ways. Plus the food descriptions will definitely make you hungry!

This is a fairly generic rom com with generic, flat main characters. It took me about 25% of the book to actually care a little about what happened to Aubrey or Landon. The dialogue seemed forced and almost like a middle aged person trying to sound like they were just out of college. Other parts sounded like they were forcing characters to say the cheesiest lines just to move the plot. The ending had a trope that I hated and wrapped up too nicely to be realistic. Maybe that's what they were going for but it didn't seem natural. I liked the food aspect of the story. Even though I'm giving this 2 stars, I made it to the end. There were scenes that I really liked that made me want to keep reading.

So much delicious food, wine tastings, mouth-watering pastries, chemistry that can put an entire skyscraper into flames, an amazing Korean couple, one night stand-enemies- coworkers- friends-lovers story! Yes, it seems like the best combination to jump in! My fingers already started to get twitchy to give full five stars, as soon as I read the blurb and intrigued by this plot which is so much better than the last ultra-cheesy- Royale with cheese kind of Christmas movies hit the Netflix.

But I have to admit this book gave me complex feelings from the beginning to the end. At first: Pastry-chief Aubrey Choi saves the day and clears the mess her teenage assistant accidentally created by mixing the orders and serving a peanut butter, bubble gummed cake to a food blogger which was cooked for a sweet little girl’s birthday. She cooks another cake for the girl and she meets a charming guy at her best friend’s bar, having a one night stand! And surprise, surprise she finds out the guy she had pant melting, incredible sex was the same guy, the evil, cocky food-blogger who wrote a shitty review and ruins her business.

Well, I found this part a little problematic because how only one review destroys a local business forever and Landon Kim (douchebag who is responsible to ruin sweet Aubrey’s business reputation.) thinks the Aubrey had sex with her because she wanted a good review. Yes…. The book started solid three stars for me…

But then Landon understands his mistake and offers her a Godfather-ish offer she cannot refuse (Nope, he didn’t send her horse head to show his determination) and asks her to be guest star of a famous TV show and share some her recipes for damage control. This means a trip to wine country for three weeks, tasting gallons of wines ( YES I ACCEPT! I ACCEPT! I ACCEPT! Oh sorry, nobody asked my opinion, hero just asked it to heroine, dammit! Anyways I cannot cook and if I became a guest star of cooking show, it turned into forensics crime scene with my culinary skills.)

So thankfully Aubrey also says yes and throughout their three weeks agreement, we see how their chemistry grows and how they feel for each other. Those parts changed my mind and I decided to give 5 stars! Because it was hot, sexy, romantic, sweet, swoony, tasty and of course a little bit nasty!

And then as every rom-coms THE ANGST PARTS knocked the door. I wished the author never opens that door to that frustrating angst parts because the reason this lovely couple’s breakup didn’t work for me. I found those parts as soap opera meets daytime TV melodramas kind of unnecessarily exaggerated and dramatic. And my stars start to move between two to three.

At least ending gave me too many: awwwww, ohhhhh moments and sighs.

So I summed stars and averaged them which resulted as 3.6666666 (Oh yes, I’m obsessed with numbers) and I thought there so many things I liked about this book. The characters’ back stories, romanticism, witty dialogues, daddy issues, lovely mothers, great wines, greet foods, yummy pastries so I decided to round up my stars to shiny four.

I love Korean culture, including TV series (Good Doctor is also Korean show adapted to US TV), BBQ restaurants (once a week I found myself to eat meat till I pass out), traditions, family values, movies (If you don’t watch “Parasites”, probable best foreign movie Oscar winner, go and see it) so it’s impossible for me not to easily connect with characters and resonate with their family stories, their different perspective, importance of traditional values.

Overall: I enjoyed it. Period.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin to share this enjoyable ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review.

Aubrey is an excellent baker with a huge problem, her part-timer just sold an unusual cake to a food blogger and reviewer who can ruin her business. Meanwhile Landon is more than a little intrigued by the small time baker who may cook as well as she looks.

The book was a cute romance with the added layer of strict Asian parents and lots of sugar. I found Aubrey to be a strong character and I enjoyed her plot line with her traditional family very much.

Overall, while entertaining, the book fell a little flat with the hero Landon. I wanted more dimension from his character.

I think most romance readers will enjoy this entertaining, witty story.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and www.NetGalley.com for my ARC.

I’ve been attempting to read this for a week. I can’t get past the first few chapters. The whole thing is ridiculous. There seems to be a push for “meet cute” books, but this is beyond belief. Two characters have a one night stand with very little character development. A bakery has a special order cake not stored in a special spot, but in the sale case where it accidentally gets sold... the entire cake... to a good critic who then writes a scathing review and ruins the baker’s business. Here’s the real problem — there is nothing to make me like either of the characters. You need some character development if you want to make me believe all of this ridiculousness. I can not devote any more time to a book so slow paced and with a lack of engaging characters. An editor needs to go over this book now.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. I really enjoyed A Sweet Mess and haven't read anything by Jayci Lee before and would again.

First off, Landon and Aubrey’s romance was steamy!!! Wow! Also, I want to eat all of the recipes described in this book, kudos to the author for describing them in such a mouth-watering way. Overall, this was a great romance novel that I would recommend to others, 4 stars!

This book is the sweetest concoction of lust, love and all things food!

I absolutely loved every second of this book and I didn’t want it to end! Every word, every chapter just had me falling more and more in love with Landon and Aubrey! From the first time they met till the last word I loved their dynamic and how their relationship grew!

I love a story that has my heart clutching in pain as the characters grow and face challenges because it had me feeling just how real the emotions are between the characters! It puts me front and center and I love when you feel a part of the book! Nothing makes me happier than reading a story that allows you to feel every emotion the characters are!

This is definitely the beginning of my love for this authors writing!

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This author has written a beautifully descriptive romance between a sweet Korean baker and a Korean food critic. Things get hairy when they have a one night stand and Landon writes a scathing review without knowing it had been Aubrey's bakery. I enjoyed the narrative as it was well written and compelling. But while I admired the stylistic approach I felt it made the story lag a bit. It got lost in all the details and did not leave room for character building. The dialogue didn't feel natural and I didn't get a real feel for the characters.
Overall, it was enjoyable just not the most engrossing romance.