The story was fine, I enjoyed parts of it. Closed door romance set in Tennessee. I thought I'd like the book more than I did.

this book was fun but a little repetitive and naive!

overall, there was nothing I really disliked about the book, but also nothing that really stood out to me that I feel like I’ll remember anything about it a year later?

claire & dom were cute, I loved how it focused on social media & weddings and magazines, but the romance was a bit average and the rest of the plot was just, okay - I feel like I should be feeling more emotions than nothing if I were in claire’s shoes so it’s… idk? claire’s also a bit sheltered (can relate) but also she made some stupid decisions which is absjdjdjd

there’s also a lot A LOT of pop culture & current references (think tiktok, covid, twilight etc etc) so idk how well this book will age, but that’s a future issue so *shrugs*

thank you netgalley for the alc!

I liked the premise for this book and was looking forward to something light and fun to read when I listened to it. The story itself however, didn't end up keeping my attention as I had hoped. I struggled to find Claire likable, though I did like Dom and found him fun. While there wasn't a huge amount of substance to the plot, some of the scenes were entertaining, particularly when Claire and Dom are an undercover couple and dealing with the other couples at events. I appreciate when an author doesn't have the leads fall in love within the first few days of meeting each other, but this was almost too slow of a burn until the ending when things started wrapping up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advanced audiobook copy of this. This review is based on my own opinion.

In theory this should have been a good read for me and a good match.
I love romance shows based in the southern USA, the ambience, the characters, everything should work.

Unfortunately it didn't, the characters instead of charming were unlikable, the story was messy and the pace didn't match the expectancy.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I could not get into this story or connect with the characters and ended up not finishing it.

It took a while to get into this story but in the end it was an interesting read! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Clear audiobook narration and seamless production.

Claire Sommers was a Dallas society girl, forced to flee town after the fallout of a very poor decision that left her with a marred reputation and a frozen trust fund. She tanked her career in wedding planning, but she is starting over in another niche of the wedding industry, the wedding magazine. And when her boss likes her idea for a docu-series on the outlandish Southern weddings they cover, she brings in wedding social media influencer Dominic to be her unwanted partner on the project. And as they cover some extravagant nuptials, they discover that maybe they make a good team after all. And Claire realizes she has to deal with her past to be able to live in the present
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Claire and Dominic have such great chemistry and banter. And even though Claire is a hard to like character at times, her growth throughout this book have you rooting for her to become a person that you will like. And Dominic is perfection in a male lead. He is definite book boyfriend goals. The focus in this book is not the romance, but Claire's career and personal growth, and I enjoy that the plot left space for that.

Thanks to Libro.fm, Harper Audio, and Harper Muse Books for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.

3.5⭐️ rounded up
ARC

Claire Sommers was destined to grow up as a society girl but she has had a really shitty few years. She messed up, seriously, which destroyed her career and resulted in having her trust fund frozen. Now she has had to trade her diamonds in Dallas for a job as a magazine staffer in Nashville. The beloved Southern wedding magazine, Piece of Cake, is going under but Claire has a plan that will not only save the magazine but also her reputation. Claire’s boss though thinks she will need some help from the social media star Dominic Gravino. Claire is hesitant to invite Dominic to her project, but they soon discover they make a great team, however, will they survive the revelation of her past?

You should read Piece of Cake if you like romcoms, clean romance, slowburn, banter and single first person POV’s.

I really enjoyed this book! We were kept on our toes throughout the whole book, guessing about what Claire did to ruin her reputation and the suspense was literally killing me. Parts of this book did feel like a quest, going from one wedding to another, and I found the flow was lacking in certain areas. This is a cute romance book, but it isn’t life changing or something that I will have to pick up again in the future.

I received an audiobook version of the book and Brittany Pressley killed the narration! See my note at 5% of this book “UGH Brittany Pressley is such a great narrator!! Books already off to a great start”.

Thank you Harper Muse and NetGalley for an advanced audio copy for an honest review.

This book was good! I liked the characters and the setting. The author writes good too!!
I hope to read more by this author in the future! Looking forward to it!

Book Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Piece of Cake follows, Claire Sommers, as she tries to rebuild her reputation. Growing up in a prestigious, Texan family, Claire never thought she would find herself cut off from her family or her inheritance. Forced to make a life for herself, she returns to her college town (Nashville) and begins working for the small wedding magazine (Piece of Cake). Things begin to look up for Claire, that is until she discovers the magazine is on the brink of folding. Will Claire be able to help save the magazine, or will she become its ultimate downfall?

I had the pleasure of listening to this book on audio. The narrator, Brittany Pressley, tells the entire story in a thick country accent. While I appreciate the effort, it was at times hard to follow since she often didn’t annunciate. She struggled specifically with pronouns and names, that were key to the storytelling.

Overall, this was a fun listen (gave me an itch to travel to Tennessee). While it didn’t dive super deep, I appreciated the lesson that our mistakes shouldn’t define us. We are merely human, and are bound to mess up from time to time. It is what we do once we make those mistakes that counts.

Special thanks to Netgalley, Asher Fogle Paul, Mary Hollis Huddleston, and Harper Muse for allowing me to listen to this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

It was a fun read but it's just that fun, and nothing else. As much as I love a good wedding themed book, this just didn't hit it. I love the banters between the main lead, but the female main isn't as likeable as I want her to be. Nonetheless, thanks Netgalley for approving. I will discover more amazing works soon.

Rating: 3/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
•
I liked the concept behind this one, a magazines behind the scene docuseries? I’d watch it, just saying. I thought this was a cute little romcom. I found myself laughing especially at Claire’s first date after deciding to give it another shot. I actually was laughing out loud with the accuracy in which she depicted what would happen in that type of situation. Also loved some of the horror behind the scene stories that were talked about!
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I liked Claire’s character, I felt she had good growth throughout the book, but also she could be a bit annoying with her “woe Is me” complex constantly. And I liked Dom enough - I found him to be somewhat swoon worthy. I liked learning about Claire’s family, and what exactly Claire did to get cut off from the family money.
•
I felt that this was meant to be an enemies to lovers romance but to me it was more of a hate at first sight(?) or rather jealousy at first sight (?) but friends to lovers trope? I wanted more hateful banter between the two main characters. This one is also a slow burn romance, I felt like once things started to happen, there was spark but it took a bit too long for that spark to ignite. And the ending was cute, just nothing overly memorable to me.
•
I listened to this via audiobook and Brittany Pressley was the narrator and she knocked this one out of the park! I thought she narrated the role of Claire perfectly. I really enjoyed listening to this one, its super easy to listen to!
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Overall this was enjoyable enough, not overly super memorable though. Romcom fans - go for it, I’m sure you’ll love it alot more than me! Huge thank you to NetGalley and to Harper Muse and the authors for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

2 stars.

"Piece of Cake" by Mary Hollis Huddleston and Asher Fogle Paul is a "romance" that is very, very light on love. Though there amazing voice-over work by the incomparable Brittany Pressley, something was missing to give it that spark, that oomph, that je ne sais quo that I look for in a romance novel. People who are rich, or love hustle culture, or call themselves #BossBabe, or dream of being influencers or socialites will fawn all over this story full of brand names, talks of private jets, comfortable car leather, and weddings that likely cost the equivalent of a down payment on a condo. I never really felt a massive connection between main characters Claire and Dom/Dominic. Their connections felt forced and unearned. I never once got the sense that they would choose each other if they weren't thrown together for work functions. The burn between them is slow and boring. I also didn't like Claire very much as a main character. Hard to relate to a character who acts one step away from homelessness when she has a trust fund coming to her in a few years. Yikes! Her privilege is irksome to say the least. This book is set in Nashville and it never, ever lets up in its Southernness. It reads like a AAA commercial trying to get people on the west coast to come and visit on vacation, but it's obvious they don't want anyone BUT Southerners there so...??? Did I mention this book is SO Southern? Like, to the point where Claire calls Dom a "Northerner" and denigrates anyone from New York or that general area as being "Northern." This irked me a lot. There are chicken and waffles, floating casino boats, honky-tonks, line-dancing, like a half step away from a plantation wedding. Some people will like and identify with this, but I didn't. Claire and Dom attend one too many weddings before getting to Claire's sister Lucy's wedding. It felt very repetitive and annoying. Skip this one.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Muse, Mary Hollis Huddleston, and Asher Fogle Paul for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for my review.

This was a cute story of Claire and Dom going around filming weddings so their company does not go under. Claire was not my favorite character of all time but I can understand where the author was coming from. Dom was a southern gentleman and very easy to like. Thank you netgalley for this arc.

such a fun and sweet book! 3.5 stars rounded up!

brittant presley is always such a delight to listen to and she was great with a little southern accent! it definitely helped me enjoy the book even more.

i love when a story takes place over a longer period of time and the pacing was written for this timeline! i sometimes find the story can be repetitive or dragging but this one was good!

i also liked the complexity of claire’s past and her future. she was an interesting character to follow and to watch fall in love.

it was an overall sweet book and a 4 star rated book with the help of beittany presley. if i were to have read it, i’m not sure i would’ve liked it as much. it another book with a balance of romance and life with more focus on claire’s character but still had the male lead present and interacting enough to be a romance.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

A good fun romance with Claire and Dom who are working together reluctantly on a wedding docuseries.
Some fun,,problems and romance.,A east fun read. Narration good.
Voluntarily reviewed.

Thank you to NetGalley for this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.
Piece of Cake was a treat. It was a fun summer read that kept me entertained and was a quick listen for me. It was a light read, a bit predictable but still entertaining.
3.5 stars for this sweet book.

Parts of this story were cute. I did not like the main character or the narrator of the audiobook.

The main character, Claire, did not have a lot of redeeming qualities. She had made a number of mistakes that reflected this lack of character. Her personality did improve as the book progressed. I did not realize that the relationship that the author builds for the reader with the main character is so important, until this book.

The narrator sounded just like I would have expected Claire to sound. But I did not enjoy listening to the way that she narrated this book. So it was a challenge listening to this book to the end.

Dom, the main male character was really fun. I enjoyed getting know him. I think that this could have been a really good book with some modifications. The wedding descriptions were fun. It was interesting thinking about how magazines seem to be things of the past.

Claire has a plan to save the wedding magazine she works at - a video series about the weddings they cover. Her boss loves it so much, she brings in social media star “The Bride’s Man” Dominic to help.

This was fine. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. It was fine. Meh… I loved the book I read right before this, so that may be the reason for the blah feelings I have about it.

3.5 This was a cute romcom featuring a wedding so I was in from the start. This story follows Claire a wedding journalist who had an idea to make a docuseries about unique weddings. Enter Dom a social media guru and the person taking over Claire docuseries. The two are stuck finding weddings to film and interviewing all the wedding people. This starts of as a cute kind of forced proximity romance but it felt like the conflict over Dom taking over Claire’s project ended way to soon and didn’t even feel like an issue. My main issue with this story was if felt very low stakes and I got kind of bored with it toward the middle of the book. That being said I adored the characters they were fun to read and the beginning and ending of the book had great pacing. I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the narration the narrator was very entertaining and easy to understand. Overall I really had fun with this one and can’t wait to pick up more from this author in the future. I would like to thank net galley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.