This was a fun read with a little magical baking thrown in. The fantasy element gave a nice little twist and made for some good laughs. 

Emma's been hosting Batter Up night for a couple years now, continuing her grandmother's tradition of nudging bachelors toward their true love with a little magic cake batter. Too bad the magic only gives the names of men's sweethearts and not women. Emma's cousin Abby keeps trying though, and she pulls a "J" out of the batter for Emma.

Jason is a journalists who's spent too much time on the down and dirty crime beat of Miami. A detour to Buttermilk Falls to expose a con-artist in a bakeshop sounds like a great diversion. Little does he know how this trip will change his life and his heart.

I really enjoyed the chemistry and the snarkiness between these two as they fought it out and gave in to their attraction. 

Rating--PG-13. All sex is closed door, but there is quite a bit of talk about it. 

Disappointed in this one.  I thought the first book was a strong contender, but this felt like a weak follow up.

Alexander writes a beautiful Oregon setting, and creates a strong, likeable MC (Jules), but follows up with some stilted, awkward dialogue between characters.  A scene where Jules' mother and her old high school sweetheart treat her like she's 8 just made me cringe.  Most of the dialogue between Jules and her mother actually read like a middle-school after school special.  A brewing love triangle on the horizon also contributes to my growing unease with this series.

The plotting was... not strong.  I didn't guess the murderer, but I'm not sure anyone really could by using clues because there weren't any.  Jules berates herself at the end for not figuring it out but I don't see how she could have, information was never given to make this character a suspicious one.  

I suspect bad editing needs to be blamed for some of the books weaknesses; it felt like there were chunks missing from the plot and at least once Jules mentioned a character telling her something relevant that she was never actually told.

I think I already own the third book, so I'll read it but unless the quality changes dramatically, this one's going in the box.

Katie Batter Up, is a cool book for cupcake lovers, also you can read the other books in the series. Katie is left alone after school, except for her Cupcake Club with her friends. Her friends, Emma, Alexis and Mia all play sport. Katie doesn't do anything though. She searches out to find a sport. Find out what happened next in Katie Batter Up highly recommended for 9-13 year old girls. 

In the last 12 months I've been incredibly lucky that I've been able to travel overseas twice for extended holidays, both of which were so fun I read little to none each day, which is rather a new experience for me.  

I mention this because I have to confess: my TBR pile is starting to freak me out just a little bit.

The first trip, taken last July, I read only 2-3 books but came home with over 40 new ones (Friends of the Library sales, how I love thee).  The trip I just returned from, I read one book and came home with/to 19.  And of course, there's been loads of acquisitions in the intervening months; months where I bought more than I've read.

I'm not only failing to maintain, but I'm rapidly losing ground in a way that is making my TBR piles resemble kudzu.

This week, the 5 listed above arrived and I've read 2.  A Study in Death arrived today and I'm so excited about that one I'll knock it off easily in the next day or so, but still... kudzu.

Not, admittedly, so freaked out that I'm going to do anything crazy, like buy fewer books. Let's not be rash.