Reviewed by Anabela

TITLE: The Captain and the Baker

SERIES: The Captivating Captains #7

AUTHOR: Catherine Curzon & Eleanor Harkstead

PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing

RELEASE DATE: August 25, 2020

LENGTH: 179 pages

BLURB:

When a hot-tempered TV chef and a mild-mannered baker meet on the rugged Cornish coast, they’ve got the perfect ingredients for a red-hot snack.

Sweary and stressed celebrity chef Jake Brantham is the captain of several floating restaurants. When he’s sent to the idyllic village of Porthavel to turn a pirate ship into the next gastronomic sensation, it’s the last place on earth he wants to be.

Locryn Trevorrow is the bakery king of Cornwall. From the humble pasty to a wedding cake fit for a mermaid queen, there’s nothing he doesn’t know about the art of baking. He lives in a cosy world of gingham and ganache, but at night he goes home to his smugglers’ cottage alone.

When he’s adopted by a lost kitten, Jake soon discovers that there’s more to Portavel than cream teas, lobster pots, and the annoyingly fastidious Locryn. As the village prepares for the wedding of its favourite young couple, Jake and Locryn find themselves as unlikely matchmakers for two locals who’d given up on love.

Torn between the call of Hollywood and the kisses of Locryn, will Jake choose a mansion in Beverly Hills or a cottage on the Cornish coast?

REVIEW:

This book is everything I’ve come to expect from these authors and the Captivating Captains series: pure, witty, lighthearted FUN!

Picture a leather jacket clothed Gordon Ramsay, and you have yourselves the image of Jake. Through the years, he’s built for himself this public persona of a foul mouthed, snappy and cocky chef. At first I’d thought he was a real jacka**, but I loved discovering, further into the story, that there were hidden depths to him and a background that justified his choices.

Locryn was Jake’s opposite in a brilliant way: easygoing, smiling and soft spoken…what you’d call a bright ray of sunshine. A ray that irritated Jake to no limits at first, especially because of how strongly he was drawn to the cute baker.

Locryn and Jake’s relationship started in a very casual way. Forced to work together, then voluntarily partnered to help someone else, they went from barely sharing the same space to friends and then lovers. The whole process was a winning page after another, filled with banter, flirting, laughter, steamy encounters, heart to heart conversations, swooning makeout sessions and wooing. I loved it and read it all with a grin splattered on my face, alternating between giggling, snorting, shaking with laughter or feeling like a aweing puddle of goo.

Their love story, the delicious cooking, the charming description of Cornwall and the colorful people of Porthavel made this book the perfectly written blend of all things happy, romantic, entertaining, sweet, dreamy, melty and tender.

If you want to drool over recipes, swoon, laugh so much your face hurts and escape from your reality to the Cornish coast, this is the book for you.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Pride Publishing

Amazon