Mike Simmons got his hands full with his kids. Dating was certainly not part of his routine. But when a client who baked naughtily-designed pastries and created Big Kahuna & Va-Va Velma cakes contacted his security agency, he couldn’t say no, could not even tear his eyes away from the creative baker, with rainbow-colored hair, short shorts, facial piercings, curvacious bod and tattooed arms. Getta Piece bakeshop was truly one-of-a-kind bakeshop, and the baker was heavenly.

Georgie Walters opted to build her own business empire, Getta Piece Bakeshop, catering to adult men and women who weren’t easily offended with her intricately designed pastries. To the outside world, she’s full of spunk, she’s naughty and she’s a motor-mouth. And when her eyes landed on the man that made her knees weak, she knew she gotta get a piece of him, one way or another, regardless of what her family would say.

This has been hilariously fun, seriously delectable and amazingly scrumptious! I’m not only talking about the characters, but the whole story as well. Maggie Wells impressed me with her first book in the Play Dates series but I think I love Easy Bake Lovin’ even more! Mike’s uptight bedside manner and Georgie’s tantalizing baked goodies sure made this whole baking adventure a lot of fun and awesomesauce, and Getta Piece sure rises to the occasion.

This isn’t just a romantic tryst involving cakes and whatnots.. I loved that it also featured coping with dysfunctional families, earning one’s trust, dealing with politics, raising kids and kids-at-heart and living your dream by believing in yourself. Georgie is a force, Mike is an enigma, and their love story is appetizingly delightful! This is a must-read, must-eat story you shouldn’t miss!

Easy Bake Lovin’ by Maggie Wells
Play Dates #2
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
Contemporary Romance
Lyrical Shine

Reviewed by Kini

Favorite Quote: “Normal is a fantasy,” she said, craning her neck to peer over her shoulder at him. “Reality is messy, but so much better.”

This is the second book in Wells’ series about single dads and the women they fall for. I reviewed the first book, Play Dates, last year. I liked this one about the same. It was okay, but wasn’t great.

Georgie is a baker with a free-spirit as evidenced by her non-traditional hair color and slight rebellion against her family. Georgie owns and operates a bakery that specializes in penis cakes and boob donuts. She meets the hero, Mike when she hires his company to do an upgrade on security on her building.

Mike, is single dad to his two small kids because he wife left after almost ten years together. He is a buttoned up kind of fellow and is immediately drawn to Georgie for her beauty and of course her kindness. When they first meet MIke is very embarrassed around the sexy baked goods.

This book is on the shorter side and there is a lot happening that isn’t central to the love story. Mike’s company is also providing security for Gerogie’s brother who is running for mayor. There was a small bit about the brother and my notes I wrote were, “don’t care.” We get some info about James and his potential match. I feel like if the story had been longer, I wouldn’t mind these things, but at 202 pages, I really want to spend all my time reading about the couple.

I really am in to the idea of a group of single dads. They support each other and build a little family for each other. Mike, Colm- hero from book one, and James- hero from book three, all seem like great men. They run a solid business, are good friends and trying to be the best parent they can be. The biggest issue for me is that in order for them to be single dads, they have to be apart from the women that birthed these children. In the case of Mike, he was married for several years and then the wife left. We get info on how she decided she didn’t want to be a mom, but we don’t know where she is now. I am not even sure why that matters to me, but it does. Mike’s sister, Megan, is the mother of James’s kids and Megan is a real piece of work. This is relevant because there is a verbal altercation between Georgie and Megan toward the end of the book, oh hello conflict. Back to the non-existent moms in this series. I spent a lot of time thinking about how else to write a story with single dads and not make the absent mothers the villains, because that is absolutely what happens in this story. Is there a way to present a parent who helped make a child, but later decides they don’t want to raise it without that parent coming off as an asshole? I don’t know, but I would like to read it.

This book wasn’t great for me. It wasn’t horrible, but I just wanted more. I wanted less villianness moms and less outside stuff happening. I would have liked it to be a bit longer so stories could be developed a little better. I did enjoy Mike and Georgie, I just wanted more for them. I will probably read the next book, because I am curious to see how James gets his HEA.

Grade: C-

Easy Bake Lovin’ is a fun story with two flawed people. Mike is a former serviceman with two adorable kids and a ton of baggage. Georgie is an erotic baker—yep you heard me—with a trust fund. Or she will have a trust fund in a few more months. For now she had to toe the family line, show up when she was needed to help them look like the political dynasty they wanted the world to see. I loved Georgie with her vibrant colored hair, her funky sense of fashion and her ability to make a big tough security like Mike, blush. She was fantastic.
Together, they were really good. Sure, there were times when I wanted to grab Mike by his solid shoulders and shake the hell out of him, but that’s because he is such a man. Sparing with the words and heavy on the actions.
I didn’t LOVE this story but I did have a good time with it. I’m glad that her family and his, didn’t get a chance to ruin their relationship or the story. I especially liked Georgie’s brother, who wasn’t nearly as awful as her mom, but her mom didn’t hold a candle to Mike’s sister. She was a trainwreck and a bitch.
Overall, Easy Bake Lovin’ was a fun read and I’d really enjoy reading the next story by Maggie Wells.

Review by Amanda for Love Romance Books

I was asked by the author for an honest review.


I would have liked to have give Easy Bake Lovin' 3.5 starts. I liked the characters and was hoping for more to happen with the storyline, though I think it's better to want more than to get bored. This is the first book I've read by Maggie Wells, but I am interested in reading more by this author. I haven't read Play Dates, the first book in this series, but you don't have to read Play Dates to enjoy this one.


I would recommend this book to readers who like bold female characters.


Review by Leah for Love Romance Books

I was asked by the author for an honest review.

3.5 Stars!

This was a cute, feel good book about a single dad of two rambunctious and precocious children, and an independent erotic baker. Yes, you did read that right, an erotic baker. I loved Georgie's character! I loved her free spirit and how she met the world on her own terms, regardless of her family's expectations. And the way she teased Mike and others with her witty repartee...priceless! The connection between them was tangible and well written. Wells did a good job of adding realistic situations between such opposing types. There was some delightfully awkward moments that added nicely to the story.

I mean, it was a fun and breezy romance, with some quirky characters and a mediocre plot. Nothing particularly stands out as incredible, but I enjoyed it while I read it. Georgie's bakery sure does sound like a hoot though!

book two in the play dates series picks up with strait-laced single dad mike simmons. when he first meets georgie walters in easy bake lovin' she's not at all what he expected. that he finds her attractive is a given. that he doesn't know how to act around her is also fairly obvious. he's been out of the dating game for a long time.

but georgie finds him hot and charming and enjoys the fact that he's just a little bit unsure around her. their chemistry is pretty explosive. not one to sit around or waste time with innuendo when being direct garners results, she makes sure that mike knows exactly where she stands.

the main issue they have is that mike knows where he stands, he just fails at communicating himself all the time. you feel pretty bad for the guy. but this delightful awkwardness really does add to his charm, and lends a realistic edge to a pretty frothy story.

**easy bake lovin' will publish on march 6, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/kensington books (lyrical shine) in exchange for my honest review.

Easy Bake Lovin’ by Maggie Wells
Play Dates #2

• Liked the premise for the book
• Enjoyed the baking bits – have baked and taken classes
• Liked parts of the book
• Not sure I felt it was realistic
• Georgie seemed a bit fast out of the gate when approaching Mike for non-security related relationship
• Mike was definitely a bit uptight in comparison to Georgie (but who wouldn’t be?)
• Not sure what I think of Mike’s parenting of his children
• I think…

Well,

I think this is a book that needed more pages. I think it could have been great because the characters had charisma and were interesting BUT thought that there was a bit missing…perhaps it was in the first book of the series or will end up in the third…I just felt…hanging at times and wondering what Mike an Georgie saw in one another and where their future would head. And why they would want to head there together. Almost felt like a cliffhanger but…different…

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Lyrical shine for the ARC – This is my honest review.

2-3 Stars

I really enjoyed this one. I like the humor this author laces throughout her stories and this book definitely has that. The writing and pace of the story are great but what really makes the story is how real and true the main characters feel. Georgie is a free spirit that lives life on her terms. She doesn't let her family run her life so no man will either. Mike is more stoic and lives life facing responsibilities head on. They seem like the least likely couple but somehow they just seem to fit. Their chemistry leaps from the pages and you just can't help but cheer for these two.

I definitely recommend this one.

Fun filled romance

I think Maggie Wells did a really nice job with this story, the second in the Play Dates series.
At first glance Georgie and Mike seem like an unlikely pair but there is an immediate sizzle. I think they were pretty realistic characters with their own strengths and weaknesses. The plot moved well. I enjoyed the appearance of the secondary characters some who were introduced in the first book Play Dates. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley.

3.5☆
Cute and fun
This is my first book by Maggie Wells.

What I liked:
The writing style
The characters
The humor
Part of a series: Play Dates
Standalone
HEA

I look forward to reading more from this author.

Mike Simmons gets by working at his security business during the day and being a single dad to his two children the rest of the time. He’s doing his best to provide the stable, normal environment he never had growing up, but he is distracted by his newest customer, Georgie Walters, who is the complete opposite of normal. Georgie’s colourful hair and personality completely wow him but seem too dangerous to consider for the long term.
Loved this story and really wanted Mike and Georgie to get through the bumps in the road. Looking forward to the next instalment. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I like anything that has to do with baking and romance but this was not it. Both main characters were sooo opposite I really felt no connect. There really was no susstance

A cute feel good single dad read. Love those single dads. And Mike happens to also be in private security too. I love Georgie and her free spirit. She doesn't care what people think about her erotic bakery. The way she kept on pushing Mike's buttons to get him blushing is hilarious. You could feel the pull between Georgie and Mike. Once all walls are down they are so good together. Easy Bake Lovin is an amazing read that makes you swoon just a little. Cute kids, a baker and single dad you can't go wrong with that.

The second book in Maggie Wells' Play Dates series, Easy Bake Lovin' follows Mike and Georgie.

Mike is a friend and colleague of Colm's, the protagonist from the first book in the series. He meets Georgie when his security company is hired to do some work on her bakery. Even though he is more straight laced to her free spirit they are quickly attracted to each other.

Georgie is a fun and independent protagonist and I liked that she didn't want to sacrifice that just because she had feelings for Mike.

While I did enjoy the first book more, I think the author did a great job realistically portraying the relationship difficulties two opposites can have, especially when one is a single parent.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There is both cursing (f-bombs) and explicit sex (including a moment of backdoor play) so if those things don't appeal to you, you should skip this one. This book is the second in a series about single fathers. You do not have to have read the first book to read this one.

I really wanted to like this book because the blurb was really great, but the execution just didn't work for me. There were so many obnoxious sexual innuendos/jokes that they stopped being funny after the first few pages and just became juvenile and eye-roll worthy. That might have been tolerable if this book had focused the one thing that really worked in Play Dates – this author's ability to write an adorable child and sweet child/parent interaction. Instead we got Mike creepily comparing his young daughter's dress/bloomers sets to the sexy dress the woman he wanted to have dirty sex with was wearing, and then making some skeezy-weird comment about how she must have been a “beautiful little girl” during foreplay. Although this DID NOT go down the daddy kink path, those two things were exceptionally cringe-worthy in a book bursting with cringe-worthy moments.

Even the ending wasn't the feel-good moment I was hoping for. It was so abrupt that it left me wondering what had just happened and doubting their happily ever after. I'd be surprised if they lasted a whole month without breaking up again. ***SPOILERS TO END OF PARAGRAPH*** So many threads that the author weaved into the story were left completely unresolved. Examples: the sexual predator political guy and what he did to her and how that affected her relationship with her parents. Did she really want to be every single hipster cliché ever rolled into one human being or was she just afraid to be too 'normal' because her family might expect things of her if she wasn't emotionally stunted? All of Mike's unresolved sister/family issues. All of these things that were a big deal during the book were just left flapping in the wind. If Georgie would have stood up for herself, confronted her parents and said her piece about what happened to her and their treatment of her, this book would have been so much better. But instead of being a strong woman, her solution to all of the things that obviously still hurt her from her past wasn't to be strong or even to get therapy, it was to find herself a hot guy who may or may not actually love her, depending on his mood.

Although I appreciate the publisher giving me a chance to read this book, I am going to respectfully decline to review this anywhere but on NetGalley and will be sure to avoid requesting this author's books from now on as they just aren't my thing.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as an adult bakery. Sounds very niche.

Hmm, seems like this meeting was fated.

He works with his, what, ex-brother-in-law? I'm guessing he didn't set his sister up, though.

She's a bit forward for my taste.

Whoa. Small world.

To be fair, if she doesn't want to be judged, maybe she shouldn't be so outlandish.

What the heck is a naked cake?

He's whipped.