Great book - really enjoyed it. Jenny is 77 years old and has baked all her life - she lives for it! She dreams of entering Britain Bakes, a TV cooking programme but feels she is too old to take part. However, at the last minute, she pushes the ‘submit’ button on the application form - and she gets through to the final 8 and onto the telly!

She bakes recipes that really mean something to her, obtained either from relatives or experiences - I loved the way that the chapters started with a passage from earlier in her life, where the story grew to show what she had gone through. Each of these passages included a recipe and explained why she baked that on the episode of the show. The passages also revealed the secret that Jenny had kept to herself all her life, even from her beloved husband of almost 60 years, Bernard. However, secrets can rarely be kept as that forever and that was the case for Jenny. Will her relationship with Bernard survive, even after all these years of happiness, when such a big thing is revealed? And will the story come full circle and have a happy ending? You’ll have to read the book for yourself to find out - I’m sure you won’t be disappointed if you do!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review, which is what I have given.

What a perfectly charming book. Beautiful written story of Jenny and Bernard. She loves baking and enters a competition. It brings lots of emotions and secrets to the surface , unexpectedly.
A truly enjoyable read.

77 year old avid baker Jenny, married to Bernard for 59 years, makes a big decision - to secretly apply for baking TV show Britain Bakes. When she is accepted to the show, her family are right behind her. However, another very long held secret is brought to Jenny's kind during filming. Will she keep quiet, or eventually reveal all to Bernard?

Delicious descriptions, wonderful characters, and a heart breaking revelation. A tad predictable, yes, but a sweet read nonetheless.

I really enjoyed this book. As a fan of The Great British Bake Off I was intrigued to find out what would happen as Jenny submitted her application to appear on a similar baking programme. This was so much more than the tale of the baking competition though, and through a series of flashbacks, we learn of a painfully sad past and a secret Jenny has kept from her husband Bernie for their entire married life. Some joyous, fun parts, as well as sad and poignant moments and beautiful writing with fantastic descriptions. Would recommend!

If you are a fan of The Great British Bake Off, or any baking show for that matter, then you will love this book.

I love the descriptions of Jenny’s baking techniques and end results. It constantly made me hungry for baked goods. I liked the flashbacks to Jenny’s childhood - how a certain recipe was linked with a memory. It really helped to build character background.

However, I find it hard to read when we started to learn what Jenny’s secret was. I really struggled with the content and couldn’t bring myself to continue with the story sadly.

I couldn’t put this down, it was delicious and delightful. The mixture of past times, present day and baking as a love language was a recipe for perfection.
The relationship between Jenny and Bernard was the perfect pairing, even with that one secret. Great characters, a compelling and heartwarming story and cake! What more do you need?
I would definitely watch Bake Off with this lineup, I might even be tempted to try baking.

A great read with delicious recipes.
Jenny is 77 and has been married to her husband Bernard for 59yrs and apart from her baking everyday she is bored and applies to the TV show Britain Bakes without telling anyone even her husband..
Jenny gets through to the final and loves the daily bakes and thrives as the competition gets to the end.
Memories are unearthed of the secret she kept as a teenager, not even her husband knew.
I loved all the characters and the recipes made your mouth water.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC and I give my honest review.

Oh my days how I just adored Jenny….and also the book and her story and just everything about it, a beautifully written novel that wraps you up warm and pulls you in tight, I honestly can’t think of a better book to read in front of the fire with my feet up! More please!!!

A really lovely, touching book that goes a long way to restoring one's faith in human nature. I'm not really a fan of baking or cooking shows on TV but I don't think that really matters for this book. Britain Bakes is a tool for 77 year old Jenny Quinn to do something for herself. Along the way we discover Jenny has a decades old secret she has shared with no-one. Will her newly gained confidence encourage her to address this as well? I absolutely adored this book and definitely got involved with the characters. I was cheering along for Jenny in the heats of the competition and dreading anything happening to Bernard that would stop her continuing to the final or to their Diamond wedding anniversary. An easy 5* recommendation from me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

Combining a book with a baking show is just a fabulous combination to me. I've heard a lot of positive things about this book, but I had been putting off reading it as I had other books to read beforehand, but it kept looking at me so I had to give in, and I'm glad I did.

It all sounds very real, very familiar, I wonder if Olivia has had anything to do with the likes of The Great British Bake Off beforehand, because it all sounds meticulously researched.

For some bizarre reason, I had it in my head that this was going to be a whodunnit. Like, someone dies on a cooking show and Mrs Quinn has to solve it. Don't ask me why I thought that as it says nothing of it in the synopsis, and so I was surprised when I actually started reading it, but that's okay, as it's just splendid as it is.

It isn't easy to portray the emotions that baking brings on a page, as it's something you feel, and if you're not overly experienced with baking it can be hard to understand what the fuss is about. But Olivia's found that description and perfected it. You can feel the equipment, smell the cooking, taste the cake. It's all very good without being over the top and straying into cookbook territory. Whilst it's not a cookbook and therefore does not have recipes, various bakes are mentioned - cakes, biscuits, pies, bread etc. She's created this real sense of nostalgia through food which is cosy and warming.

I don't believe Kittlesham is a real village, but it should be as it sounds lovely and I want to visit!

I adored Jenny Quinn, she is absolutely gorgeous. And her husband Bernard, his heard is in the right place, he's caring, and he dotes on Jenny. But Bernard is quite happy to accept his retirement and plod on, but Jenny isn't. She wants a bit more out of life. There is this concern in the book that you've got two elderly people in their last phase of life, who have been together for decades...this idea that one of them may lose the other sooner rather than later. It's sad but not over the top. It feels very real. There are a lot of other characters and whilst they're all well written and great in their own way, for me, this was all about Jenny and Bernard. This was their story and it was beautiful.

It is such a cute book. That might make it sound a bit sappy, but I don't mean it in a negative way, it is a really lovely cute story. But it's never too twee. There is a lot of depth to it, a lot of heart and soul that made it more of a 3-dimensional story.

It's mostly set in the present, but there's several flashbacks to when Jenny was younger, and it is in those scenes where we begin to understand her relationship with baking and it really helped enhance the present scenes.

It was so addictive and easy to read that I read it in just am atter of hours. I just couldn't bear to be away from it for long. It is very much a feel-good novel.

Even though I keep saying how uplifting and joyous it is, it doesn't hided away frrom some very real topics, including aging, loneliness, marriage, relationships, family, mortality, illness, secrets, identity. Things everyone has, or known someone has, experienced at one point in their life.

For a book "just" about an elderly lady who bakes, it is very moving. I found myself welling up on numerous occasions, and not just at the sad points. There is a whole lot of depth here that is very emotional and beautiful.

A sweet tale of being never too old to fulfill your dreams and make peace with your past. Delicious sounding recipes for cakes and pastries and a nod to the Great British Bake off, what’s not to like.

Okay, I’ll start at the end this is a delicious, five star Read. I gorged myself on this wonderful Book over a weekend, thinking about it when I wasn’t able to actually be reading it.
77-year-old Jenny, decides to take life by the horns and apply for a bake off show. She keeps this application secret from her husband because she feels partly that it’s ridiculous and partly that there’s no chance that she would actually get onto the programme.
Of course she does! And of course, it’s a fantastic read, and a fantastic cooking experience, it is life affirming for Jenny, and she discovers part of herself that she had buried for many years. This means she has to come to terms with her past.
I really really love this book. Thank you to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this fantastic book ahead of publication and exchange for an honest review. I will be recommending this book too many!

Pensioner Jenny Quinn has a comfortable life and a loving husband, who she enjoys baking for.

However, lately she has felt something is missing so she decides to apply for a place on her favourite tv baking competition. Worried that she is not good enough and will be laughed at she keeps the application a secret, even from her husband. However, this secrecy reminds her of something in her past that she has kept from him...

I really liked the characters in the story, especiallymfellow baking competition contrstant Azeez. I'm not sure why she felt that she had to keep the application a secret from her husband though, he he is clearly her biggest advocate! A fun read especially for fans of Bake-Off and baking in general!

An uplifting book that shows that you are never to old to be able to fulfill your dreams. For Mrs Quinn that is to be a baker and at the age of 79 she goes around making that dream a reality.

A tale of never being too old to fulfil your dreams. Jenny in her 70’s decides to enter a baking competition ( a nod to GBBO) and through her recipes we learn of her experience as a young girl that affected her future. Her recipes are linked to aspects of her earlier life
A gentle tale

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book with no obligation to review.

This is what you call a feel good story but I am afraid it was all just too much like a fairy tale for me. The characters are familiar types, all lovely people, doing familiar things and there is no real tension or surprises. Having said that, it is a well written book and would make a very easy and undemanding bedtime or holiday read.

On the plus side, Jenny and Bernard are likeable characters and you hope things will work out well for them. Jenny takes part in Britain Bakes (any resemblance to a current (currant!) or past BBC and CH4 baking programme is entirely intentional because the author worked on the Great British Bake Off programme.) and, as you might expect is an excellent but not showy baker. She brings her years of solid baking experience together with her old style kitchen scales and her granny's recipes etc., etc. I did quite enjoy reading the bits about her being on the programme, it was just like watching an episode.

On the minus side there is, for me, far too much detail about how to actually bake things and eventually I just skimmed those parts. Also, the reader will have met many of the characters before if they have read others in this genre of fiction - the lovely gay man with the high powered job and husband who bakes to relax; the sharp tongued nosy neighbour who is always boasting about her grandchildren; the hen pecked husband; the busy and dynamic TV producer with a heart of gold. You get the idea.

The is a fairly easily guessed mystery in Jenny's past and some sadness and sorrow in the book but it is all done very lightly, There is a promising cheating baker called Sorcha but we don't hear much about her. The ending ties up with very few surprises.

If you don't have a towering To Be Read pile, and time to spare the this book would make a nice read with tea (Earl Grey) and some bakery.
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So sweet it makes your teeth hurt.

I'm afraid I wasn't able to finish this book in the time frame I'd set - this is no reflection of the book or its quality. Apologies.

Mrs Quinn's Rise to Fame was a delicious treat easily devoured! A heartwarming tale of 77 year old Jenny contemplating leaving her comfort zone and applying to Britain Bakes. There are flashbacks of Jenny's life alongside the main story and these work well.

It felt like being behind the scenes at The Great British Bake Off and I loved the descriptions of the recipes - it brought back lovely memories of my Mum's baking and inspired me to look out some of her old recipe books and do some baking myself!

The characters developed well and I certainly cared about them, particularly Jenny and her lovely Bernard.

There is much more to this book than just baking though and while this book made me smile a lot, there was also times when I had a lump in my throat which is testament to the beautiful writing by the author.

What a lovely, lovely read all the excitement of a baking show combined with a secret that has been kept for sixty years. Jenny and Bernard Quinn live a comfortable life in their home in Kittlesham probably like most elderly couples Jenny looks after Bernard and they are a team in everything they do so when Jenny applies to Britain Bakes their world is about to be turned upside down. You will love Jenny from the first chapter. A heartwarming read

What a superb read this was, it made me laugh and cry throughout reading but most of all it me realise why I love reading so much it’s because one in a while a special book comes along and this was one of those.
What first drew me into requesting to read the book was the fact it was about a 77 year old lady applying to be a contestant on a amateur baking show but this wonderful book is about so much more than that and if you like me love these kind of shows you are really going to love this story.
The characters are all amazing and so believable, I fell in love with Jenny and Bernard but also loved the rapport between Azeez and Jenny but to be honest I just fell in love with all the characters and the story …. which by the way broke my heart at the ending.
I don’t want to say more but please don’t overlook this read it really is a super special one and my heartfelt thanks goes to Olivia Ford for giving me so much pleasure in reading this wonderful 5 star and more story.
My thanks also to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.