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Just Bake It Off: A Grumpy x Sunshine Forced-Proximity Romance
Emma Reilly has three months to save her grandmother's bakery and her only hope is a baking competition partnered with the man who makes Gordon Ramsay look cuddly.
When Emma's beloved grandmother passes away, she doesn't just inherit the small-town bakery that's been her whole world, she inherits a mountain of debt and an impossible deadline. Enter the Greatest American Bake-Off, a televised competition offering exactly enough prize money to save everything she's about to lose.
There's just one contestants compete in pairs.
And Emma's partner is James Morrison.
Once a celebrity chef with his own TV empire, James is now best known for that viral meltdown where he threw a chair at a fellow judge. Hiding out in his hometown and drowning in cynicism, he's the last person Emma would choose to trust with her family's legacy. He thinks her "rustic charm" is code for sloppy technique. She thinks his perfectionism is just fear wearing a chef's coat.
The network paired them for the drama. What they didn't count on was the chemistry.
Long nights in the test kitchen turn flour fights into something dangerously close to foreplay. Stolen moments in the pantry reveal the grief both of them are trying to outrun. And somewhere between the technical challenges and the pressure-cooker eliminations, Emma realizes the scariest risk isn't losing the competition—it's falling for a man who's convinced he destroys everything he touches.
But as the finale looms and the stakes skyrocket, they'll both have to Are they baking for redemption, or for something neither of them saw coming?
A swoony, high-stakes romance about second chances, found family, and learning that the best recipes require a little chaos and a lot of heart.
Perfect for fans who crave small-town warmth, forced-proximity tension, and banter that's almost as delicious as the pastries.
When Emma's beloved grandmother passes away, she doesn't just inherit the small-town bakery that's been her whole world, she inherits a mountain of debt and an impossible deadline. Enter the Greatest American Bake-Off, a televised competition offering exactly enough prize money to save everything she's about to lose.
There's just one contestants compete in pairs.
And Emma's partner is James Morrison.
Once a celebrity chef with his own TV empire, James is now best known for that viral meltdown where he threw a chair at a fellow judge. Hiding out in his hometown and drowning in cynicism, he's the last person Emma would choose to trust with her family's legacy. He thinks her "rustic charm" is code for sloppy technique. She thinks his perfectionism is just fear wearing a chef's coat.
The network paired them for the drama. What they didn't count on was the chemistry.
Long nights in the test kitchen turn flour fights into something dangerously close to foreplay. Stolen moments in the pantry reveal the grief both of them are trying to outrun. And somewhere between the technical challenges and the pressure-cooker eliminations, Emma realizes the scariest risk isn't losing the competition—it's falling for a man who's convinced he destroys everything he touches.
But as the finale looms and the stakes skyrocket, they'll both have to Are they baking for redemption, or for something neither of them saw coming?
A swoony, high-stakes romance about second chances, found family, and learning that the best recipes require a little chaos and a lot of heart.
Perfect for fans who crave small-town warmth, forced-proximity tension, and banter that's almost as delicious as the pastries.
424 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 3, 2025
10 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 24, 2025
I was talking to my husband about this book and mentioning all of the mistakes that continually occur and he thinks this was written by AI. I want to believe that AI isn’t breaking into the author field, but it does explain a lot about why this book was clearly not even close to being polished as it should be.
That being said, if it isn’t AI, someone should be editing the book. There were multiple date changes/timing issues that didn’t make sense (the balloon payment is due in 17 days and the next round of the competition, not even the finale, was in 3 weeks - no way to make the payment in time if she did win), names were changed and then completely dropped (I think there were three different names for one of her ex boyfriends, and he was literally never mentioned again), relationships were changed (still don’t understand if Olivia is her sister or cousin - also with this, she mentioned her cousin owned 50% before Olivia called her and told her she owned half of it. So did you forget you said something previously or should that have been after the call?), paragraphs were duplicated almost word for word (her submitted application was very similar to one she had deleted before, there’s another point later on that the paragraph is just copied and pasted right after each other), something would be brought up and there would be no conclusion (she received three phone calls at the end and we never find out who was calling or what they were calling about), I guess they had sex? Couldn’t fully tell what was happening at that point. She mentioned what James smelt like almost every time he was in a scene. She started the book resenting the bakery and just going through the motions, but by the end seems to be devastated she’s not going to be able to save it. It is way longer than necessary because so many things are repeated. If they wanted the same length, they could have done a better job of clearing up some of the previous issues (what happened with her ex, did Mei convince her to stay in the competition more, how did James and Emma fall for each other, did her mom reach out after Emma won?)
I am a very forgiving reader. I can catch grammar errors and still give the author the benefit of the doubt and not knock my rating of the book. I rarely dnf and I rarely give less than 2 stars. I liked the concept of this story but it really needed at least one other person to read through it and give these comments. I hope that it’s AI only because it would be really sad that a human could actually publish this with so many fixable errors.
That being said, if it isn’t AI, someone should be editing the book. There were multiple date changes/timing issues that didn’t make sense (the balloon payment is due in 17 days and the next round of the competition, not even the finale, was in 3 weeks - no way to make the payment in time if she did win), names were changed and then completely dropped (I think there were three different names for one of her ex boyfriends, and he was literally never mentioned again), relationships were changed (still don’t understand if Olivia is her sister or cousin - also with this, she mentioned her cousin owned 50% before Olivia called her and told her she owned half of it. So did you forget you said something previously or should that have been after the call?), paragraphs were duplicated almost word for word (her submitted application was very similar to one she had deleted before, there’s another point later on that the paragraph is just copied and pasted right after each other), something would be brought up and there would be no conclusion (she received three phone calls at the end and we never find out who was calling or what they were calling about), I guess they had sex? Couldn’t fully tell what was happening at that point. She mentioned what James smelt like almost every time he was in a scene. She started the book resenting the bakery and just going through the motions, but by the end seems to be devastated she’s not going to be able to save it. It is way longer than necessary because so many things are repeated. If they wanted the same length, they could have done a better job of clearing up some of the previous issues (what happened with her ex, did Mei convince her to stay in the competition more, how did James and Emma fall for each other, did her mom reach out after Emma won?)
I am a very forgiving reader. I can catch grammar errors and still give the author the benefit of the doubt and not knock my rating of the book. I rarely dnf and I rarely give less than 2 stars. I liked the concept of this story but it really needed at least one other person to read through it and give these comments. I hope that it’s AI only because it would be really sad that a human could actually publish this with so many fixable errors.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 23, 2025
I really wanted to like this book however the clear misses in editing made me DNF this at page 150. Lack of punctuation I can bypass…however when main character names are swapped…it’s a no for me. If this book was properly cleaned up, I would reconsider reading it!
December 9, 2025
I loved the concept of the story but there were so many inconsistencies it kept taking me out of it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews