Romance Book Review: Always the Baker Never the Bride

Author: Sandra D. Bricker
ISBN: 9781426707629
Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance
Publisher: Abingdon Press/ United Methodist Publishing House

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Always the Baker Never the Bride offers a wonderful plot mixed in with a lot of humor, some great recipes, romance and some sage advice. Between each chapter author Sandra D. Bricker has filled pages with recipes from the story, tidbits of information about wedding planning and additional story placements.

Emma Rae is a baker who is moving up in her career. One of her wedding cakes has just won a prestigious award and the new wedding destination hotel in town has asked her to come work for them. Bringing her best friend and assistant Fee along for the ride, Emma is ready to make her mark.

Jackson is renovated a hotel to make it a wedding destination. It was his dead wife's dream and he is making it happen with the help of his three older sisters he call "The Hens". When he first meets Emma it is a small bakery where she works. The two don't hit it off so well. The second time is when his secretary arranges for her to come in for an interview. Emma is really excited and brings a try of samples, only to fall on her face and into the confections when she trips over a pile of linens.

Add to the story a whole host full of family members, a picky Italian chef, some strange themes for upcoming weddings and a whole lot of talk about sweets and you have a wonderful story. I will say that the religious aspect of this story may not be for everyone.

Description: 
Thirty-six-year-old Emma Rae Travis has been baking specialty cakes and melt-in-your-mouth pastries at The Backstreet Bakery in historic Roswell, just outside of Atlanta, for the last six years. But here's the rub about her job as a baker ... Emma is diabetic. When she tastes her creations, it can only be in the most minute portions. Emma is considered an artisan for the stunning crème brulee wedding cake that won her the Passionate Palette Award last year, but she's never even had one full slice of it.

When Jackson Drake hears about this local baker who has won a prestigious award for her wedding cake artistry, he tells his assistant to be sure and include her in the pastry tastings scheduled at his new wedding destination hotel the following week. And for Jackson, that particular day has started out badly with two workmen trapped in a broken elevator and a delivery of several dozen 300-thread-count bed linens in the wrong size abandoned in the lobby. But when the arrogant baker he met a week prior in Roswell stumbles into the dining room with a platter of pastries and a bucketful of orders, he knows for certain: It's going to be a really rotten day.

Can these two ill-suited players master the high-wire act and make a go of their new business venture? Or will they take each other crashing downward, without a net? And will the surprise wedding at The Tanglewood be theirs?