Books & Spoons review: Bachelor at her Bidding by Kate Hardy

Your date with Parisian-trained chef Ryan Henderson promises you’ll get the best meal of your life cooked especially for you. His Red Velvet cheesecake is to die for – but we know he has even better desserts up his sleeve…

How to win a girl in ten cakes…

When Dr. Rachel Cassidy comes back to Marietta with a broken heart and a divorce under her belt, going to a Bachelor Auction fund-raiser doesn’t sound like her idea of a good time – and when her sister and friends “buy” her a dinner date with sexy Parisian-trained pastry chef Ryan Henderson, that sounds even worse.

Ryan doesn’t have time for dating – he’s put his dreams to one side and come back to Marietta to look after his sick grandmother. But when he agrees to help a charity fundraiser by offering to cook a special meal to one lucky bidder, he gets more than he bargains for and discovers a woman he might just dare to let himself fall in love with.

Then tragedy strikes, just when Rachel and Ryan think they might have a future, opening up old scars and pushing them apart.

And if they’re to stand a chance of getting back together, then Ryan’s going to have to be seriously inventive. Can he win the love of his life with ten cakes?

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Review:

I like this Bachelor Auction series, it has been a lovely surprise for me.
First, let me just get this out there, the desserts and cakes Ryan is making are a delight, and brought back a lot of great memories to me. Made me want to go to the kitchen and create a cake again. Ah, the pastry chef in me was getting a treat indeed. Okay, back to the book review...
Ryan and Rachel have both been hurt by the people they loved. Their trust is hard to come by, and they are vulnerable, fragile, stubborn and a bit ornery when it comes to issues they were let down and hurt before.
Nothing happens fast, they have weeks of getting to know each other, they pretend to have just a fling, but feelings do get involved, things get complicated, and feelings get hurt.
But it took ten days with glorious cakes, and true graveling from Ryan, for Rachel to give up her stubborn streak, and to be able to vulnerable, to trust again.
The story is well written, with a lovely flow in it, that took me right into it, and I read it in one sitting. Yes, it is a novella, but it is an interesting story, and the issues are real, how the dementia of Ryan's grandmother was dealt with was actual and authentic, and heartwarming. The problems in the past, and current, relationships were true and raw, and how they were dealt was satisfying. The tale is easy to relate to on many levels, and great addition to the stories from Marietta, Montana
~ Four Spoons