A Sweet Mess

A Novel

By: Jayci Lee

Narrated by: Natalie Naudus

Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Jayci Lee delivers “a perfect balance of impeccable wit, laugh out loud hilarity, and off the charts chemistry. A Sweet Mess is a sinfully decadent romantic comedy.” (New York Times best-selling author Helena Hunting)

Aubrey Choi has been content running her highly successful bakery Comfort Zone and with its first expansion taking up all of her time, dating has been the least of her priorities. Then a one night stand with gorgeous Korean hunk Landon Kim makes her want things she didn’t think she had time for. Too bad it turns out he’s a celebrity food critic whose scathing review of Comfort Zone goes viral and nearly destroys Aubrey’s business - and her fond memory of their night together.

Landon tries to clean up the mess he made by offering Aubrey a spot on the new celebrity cooking show he’s producing. She agrees to use this as a way to save her bakery and her reputation - no thanks to him - but vows to guard her heart. Now Aubrey and Landon find themselves sharing a villa in California wine country, which is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. For the next three weeks, baker and critic will tempt each other as they struggle to resist admitting that they have all the necessary ingredients for love.

“A rich, vibrant romance that’s a feast for all the senses.” (Number-one New York Times best-selling author Lauren Blakely)

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin

©2020 Jayci Lee (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Proper pronunciation???

Story plot was enjoyable but I would think the author would have the narrator pronounce Aubrey’s last name correctly. It should me pronounced Chae not Choy. As a Korean, this is so annoying.

You absolutely must listen to this book!

This book had me hooked right from the start - from the "Frankencake"! Landon visits a bakery on his way through a town he gets stuck in (driving through, car issues), and is accidentally served a cake that was meant for a special order for a 6 year old's birthday and is filled with peanut butter, gummy worms, and a whole lot more strange and wonderful additions, instead of the daily bakery special chocolate bundt cake. Being a food critic and supposed to visit a restaurant in another town that he couldn't reach due to the car issues, his magazine tells him to just review any old place he can reach, so he reviews the bakery he came across, Comfort Zone, and based on the terrible baker's special cake they were serving up, he gives them a terrible review, especially for not disclosing all of the odd ingredients included.

Aubrey, owner of the Comfort Zone, freaks out once she discovers the missing special order cake has been accidentally served to a customer, and has to throw together a replacement at the last moment when the birthday girl comes for the pick-up. Having a stressful day, Aubrey goes out to the local bar, and meets an interesting gentleman, who is just driving through town. She enjoys a night with him, never to see him again.

Fast forward a little while and suddenly there is a review for Comfort Zone that blasts the place based on the terrible mix-up and the strange "Frankencake" - and her one-night-stand was the author! Every attempt is made to make amends but the magazine will not allow Landon to retract the review. The lengths he now needs to go to make it up to Aubrey, who he really did like (and who disappeared before he awoke the next morning and he could not stop thinking about her), are amusing and romantic. A great love story!

Loved it!

I went into this read with no expectations. I’ve never read from this author and really never knew about the book until the sexy actor Daniel Dae Kim announced plans to produce and star in a future film adaptation. Diverse leads are legit the only thing that get me to the movie theater so I wanted to read the book well before any release plans get updated.

Well let me just start by saying I really enjoyed this read. I’m not East Asian but as I mentioned before men of color leads are my jam. Especially if they’re love interests and this romcom did not disappoint.

Romcoms are so special when you can imagine heroes and heroines outside the mainstream blonde, blue eyed cast and with the success of blockbuster films like Crazy Rich Asians, I really hope to expect more of this to come.

I think what I liked about this romance was how confident the hero was. No silly, ridiculous, stereotypical Asian man who doesn’t know how to talk to a woman. Landon was amazing and for me as a reader, was the perfect hero! I read a review before starting it that said that the hero and heroine were unlikable, but I did not get that impression AT ALL! I felt that they were so LIKABLE!

In fact, their banter and different personalities were the best part about the book! There were some tropes I loved and some I enjoy but only once in a while but I liked this book so much, I was okay with enduring it for this couple. One of the things that really resonated with me was his need to protect her reputation and assist her when he saw she was down and out. She never had to ask for his help, but a real hero offers it and that’s exactly what he did the entire book!

The ending was everything I wanted!!!! Landon has been my favorite book boyfriend in a while. Looking forward to reading more from this author!

Do you not read while hungry…

A Sweet Mess by Jayci Lee is a sweet rom-com about two Korean’s that meet by accident in a town of no other Korean’s. There is a lot of descriptive cooking and wine drinking so don’t read this book while hungry. It is a fun, quick read. Overall, I liked this book.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Loved it.

I loved the characters, they felt very relatable. The story feels like it should be a Rom-Com; I’m willing to bet it would do quite well as a film. Will definitely read another Jayci Lee book!!

Spoiler for the "big twist"

Unplanned pregnancy as a plot device is an absolute nope for me and I deeply, deeply dislike when there's no mention of it in the description.

Bad language

This book was ruined for me by the use of terrible language
I’ll never take the lords name in vain and I don’t want anyone else to do it around me and it was just no reason to use it over and over. I will never buy from this offer again.