First thing: I have and will read anything Alexis Hall writes. And I loved Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake.
Second: I’ve watched every season of GBBO and love it, but I think I love incisive facsimiles of it even more. And this is certainly one. Even more than Rosaline Palmer, you really get a sense of the show producers and judges and hosts here. It’s Series Two after all.
Three: writing an accurate depiction of anxiety is extremely hard. Too many writers treat it as a punchline or give a couple examples of someone worrying about something excessively to make their point. . But untreated Generalized Anxiety Disorder is all-consuming.
Four: which is why what Alexis Hall did here is so impressive. He shows—really shows—the reader the depths of Paris’s anxiety. You really get the sense of how exhausting it must be to be Paris AND to be around him. But Hall doesn’t just carefully depict a character with anxiety; he makes him the main character in a romance. And Paris doesn’t even know he’s anxious for much of the book, so it’s even more full-on. And this romance about someone debilitated by anxiety is not only excellent, it’s frequently hilarious. But also full of all the feelings: I cried nonstop through the last 30% of the book. What Hall did is the authorial equivalent of balancing on a razor blade, and not only does no one get knicked but you find yourself at the end wanting more of the danger.

This is definitely a book I’ll reread soon to catch the parts I missed (and to spend more time with Tariq, who is lovely and imperfect). But I still feel safe giving this five stars. Alexis Hall does it again. Thank heavens.

I received an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. But I’ll totally still buy a copy to support the author as well.