A sweet book that gave an insight into a setting that I love but don’t know very well - the outskirts of Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road.

Lucy and Oliver are an estranged couple who haven’t seen each other for three years. Oliver waltzes back into Lucy’s life as a successful chef whilst she’s down on her luck and serving school lunches.

What follows is a bit of dance round your handbags and will they won’t they get back together, interspersed with insights into running a restaurant and a cake making business.

Whilst it’s not the deepest or most character-driven book I’ll read this year, it’s another perspective on relationships and how to be supportive of each other. Overall, the descriptions of the scenery and the cheffy aspects were better than those of the relationship dynamics .

3.5*

This was a light read that was perfect for a recent vacation I took. I generally liked the characters, but the story itself was just okay. I feel like this needed tighter editing because it dragged once Lucy made a specific decision regarding Oliver. It happens pretty early in the book so the story becomes somewhat moot. Also, this is about Lucy's journey, however, her journey seems to center around her relationship with Oliver so it becomes stagnant mid-way through the book. All in all, this was just an okay read for me.

**Many thanks to the author for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion of this book.**

Rating 3.5 stars

I don't know exactly how I feel about this book, but there is definitely a lot of missed potential. The author handles the ups and downs of life realistically and tries to explore the consequences of that. It's great at times and randomly dropped as sometimes things are wrapped up without being explained or dealt with.

<spoiler> A few things that were point of contention for me: - Oliver (the male lead) abandons Lucy (his wife) for years to become successful then comes back with a pretentious attitude, apologising with words not actions. He gives his wife a job then continues to undermine her or not give her credit. But Lucy is the one apologising at the end.
Also her best friend who has been extremely supportive throughout the whole book suddenly at the end randomly goes on a hate rampage. It didn't make any sense.
Her mother cares more about her son in law than her daughter, even after he left her, which in my opinion, is just wrong. </spoiler>

While I have my issues with the characters, I have to say Belinda Missen, does a great job of world building and the plot concept is interesting. I often found myself wondering about random side characters and their story.

End all, be all, Ms Missen has a lot of potential a. D I'd definitely be interested in reading more of her work in the future.

My review has been posted to Goodreads.

Review has also been tweeted as usual.

Thank you! :c)

Second chance romance.
Lucy and Oliver split up when he went to Paris to set up a restaurant and boost his career. She chose not to go with him. But now he is back in town setting up the business that was always their dream to run together. They are still in love with each other but just need to get past all the issues that led to them splitting up in the first place.

Recipe for disaster is the witty love story of college sweethearts Lucy and Oliver pulled apart by career choices and ambition.

Just like in real life, the characters are making a right mess at things until everything get eventually sorted out.

Clashes of big personalities, misunderstandings and cake mix are at the core of this bittersweet romance who kept me entertained till the very last page.

I think Missen did a great job at showing the chaotic whirlpool that is real life, with characters that are flown, selfish and riddled with doubts just as you would expect them to be.

I really enjoyed this novel, and I wish it came with a slice of Lucy’s fabulous cake, looking forward to read more from this promising author.

The premise of this was ok but the characters were just terrible. Just couldn't get past the immaturity of Lucy, the idiocy of Oliver and the whininess of Zoe.

Lucy basically lets Oliver walk all over her, treat her like crap, and then is happy about it because hey he came back to her so of course he loves her.

This book was just not for me I guess.

Lucy and Oliver are married but have been separated for three years until he suddenly returns to her life in a big way.

Lucy is a baker and Oliver a top chef and he wants her to work with him in his new restaurant - but they haven't exactly seen eye to eye for ages. In fact most of the interactions between the pair are not exactly smooth conversations, and usually ends up with at least one angry person.

What is for certain though is that Lucy is a fabulous baker, and the cakes and desserts she creates are impressive and she is generally quite a fiery character.

However for a book that on paper features everything I love in a story, it just felt like something was missing but I can't put my finger on it that would have taken it from a good book to a fabulous one. I just didn't seem to connect to any of the characters particularly well, which never helps.

It was good to see a book set in a small town in Australia where even the nearest big city was a not that close which just shows how large the country really is.

This is a will they, wont they story about Oliver and Lucy's relationship, and whether they can learn to work together or whether everything will end up in divorce. It keeps you guessing until the end.

This is a lovely debut novel from the author and I would certainly be interested in reading more from her in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and HQ Digital for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

A Recipe for Disaster,  Belinda Missen

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Romance, women's fiction

Well, usual pet hate- Women's fiction – why? Why not general fiction – men read romance too!

I liked the sound of this, light and easy, perfect for a lazy summer day reading. Its a second chance romance too and I'm a sucker for those.
It started well, and I was soon hooked into Lucy's world, enjoying her anger about school meals, irritation with her boyfriend and loved meeting her family and friends. Lucy is like one of us, ordinary person with ordinary troubles. I felt I knew her, there are Lucys on every street.

I felt for her when things went wrong at work, and when she started with The Cakes, I was happy for her but...I didn't really understand why someone so focused on ambition gave up everything. Reading later its as if her and Oliver have plans to conquer the culinary world, and then he's gone and she just gives up. Maybe it was that boring thing that affects many of our choices, money. She certainly struggled with paying bills and keeping her house going.
I think that struggle is one reason I really didn't take to Oliver – he left, became rich and famous and yet didn't think of Lucy, love of his life at one time, struggling financially. Didn't think - “oh, I really ought to keep up my part of the bills” and drop her some cash. Its not like he hasn't got it.
I didn't really warm to him for a long while, didn't really feel the connection between him and Lucy, and as the story went on I even got irritated at Lucy at times. She let the big things go and nit picked at small ones, and her reactions sometimes got a bit annoying.
I did like Oliver more as I got to know him, did see he loved Lucy, and her him, but somehow I wasn't convinced that they could work things out. They were still angry at each other, and they'd said some pretty horrible things. At times too it seemed like Lucy was a convenient wife for Oliver, something to give him a stable background and I kept wondering, did he really want her back or was this another step in his ambition? Lucy was so angry and upset still that I felt there needed to be way more trust, way more talking and understanding if they had a chance of working it out.
Sometimes love isn't enough, and for me I just felt by the end these two were still on a rocky grounding.

Stars: I'm rating this a three star read, it was a decent read but I felt they needed more work for that HEA I want in a romance.

ARC supplied by Netgalley and Publishers