The Baby Dragon Bakery

3.3 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

She was in love with her best friend. And everyone knew but him.

The Baby Dragon Bakery was an extremely soft and cozy smalltown read with some fantasy elements. I jumped into the series here and had no problems, there is a big supporting cast, with the couple from the first and obvious future couples but they add to the smalltown setting and make you feel at home more than lost. This second in the series stared Lavinia and Theo, two midtwenties who have been friends since childhood. Getting point-of-views from each, readers can see that both have started to develop romantic feelings for the other but are scared to tell in case that ruins their friendship.

And that was how Lavinia found herself enlisting the help of her best friend (who she had feelings for) to help her get with someone else (to get over aforementioned feelings). Which wouldn’t be complicated. Or messy. And that wasn’t a bad idea. Not at all.

Readers get to see them going through those quarter life growing pains, Lavinia is in her second year of veterinary school while working part-time and living at home while Theo is starting to think he wants to use his business degree and make baking his hobby again, instead of his job. They're figuring themselves out while still dealing with some childhood issues. Theo's parents were extremely cold, leading him to never feel good enough and his angst keeping him apart from Lavinia, he thinks she's too good for him and while Lavinia had loving parents that has lead to her putting pressure on herself to copy the formula of their love. Lavinia is the same age her parents were when they fell in love, so she's determined it must happen now. Not knowing Theo's feelings or wanting to ruin their friendship, this causes her to date someone else, which works because it forces Theo to expose his feelings.

He stroked her cheekbone with the curve of his thumb, his pulse quickening.

As I mentioned, this had cozy, soft vibes, Theo's issues with his parents and how it makes him feel is the lowest it gets in the smalltown of Starshine Valley. It started to feel a bit dragged out with Theo not feeling good enough and Lavinia purposefully, what it felt like anyway, not seeing that Theo did in fact have romantic feelings for her. We do get a little flashback to an emotional moment in their childhood friendship for some depth building blocks in their relationship but this was mostly kept in the sweet friendship romance vibe, with a quick dash of spice opendoor scene (bonus Ghost movie like moment!).

If he had her, he didn’t need anything else.

The fantasy elements are almost purely the baby dragons that appear here and there in scenes, not the stars but add a dash if looking for that element. After feeling like they were dragging their feet, their declarations of love felt kind of rushed to lead to a clunky feeling ending where we rehash Theo's not feeling good enough issues once more and then suddenly plop down the happily ever after. This was a cozy and sweet new adult (the characters had big thirties is old vibes) that had a fantasy smalltown setting that was a delight to spend some time in and the little tease between two characters who seem lined up to become enemies-to-lovers will have me checking out the next in the series.