The Ingredients of You and Me

By: Nina Bocci

Narrated by: Marietta DePrima

After selling her successful bakery back in New York, Parker Powell decides to visit her best friend, Charlotte, in Hope Lake, Pennsylvania, to figure out her next steps. As she acquaints herself with the people in town, she begins to wonder why she ever loved city life in the first place. Between the Golden Girls (a.k.a. the senior citizen women who hold court), the response from the town to her sweet treats, and Nick Arthur, the ever-charming local owner of a landscaping business she spent time with during her last visit, Parker finds a community of cheerleaders who encourage her to get her baking mojo back.

At first, everything is great - she collaborates with the Golden Girls to put new twists on traditional confections, and thanks to Nick's advice, she quickly learns the stark differences between big city and small-town business practices. Although Nick has become her friend and confidant, Parker's determined to keep things platonic - especially since his girlfriend isn't a fan of their friendship.

But just when things fall into place so they can finally be together, Parker's dream bakery is threatened by a major corporation who wants to take her down using the very bit of advice that Nick gave her. With a recipe for disaster looming, Parker must cook up a new scheme, figuring out how to keep the bakery business - and man - she's come to love before she loses it all.

©2020 Nina Bocci (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Great story, meh narration

The story was good, in line with other books in the series. The change in the narrator was less successful. DePrima isn't horrible, but her narration in this book was far too deliberate and clipped, taking me out of the story at times. A more relaxed conversational style would have been better.

Great series, didn’t love this narrator

I enjoyed the whole series but this narrator just didn’t do it for me. It was so slow and deliberate the only way I made it through was to listen at 1.25. Otherwise a sweet finish to the series.

Good story, Bad narration

I liked all the books in the series but the narrator really brought this story down to 3-stars. I had to speed it up to 1.3 just to make it sound like a regular conversation. She was reading so slowly. I just couldn’t take it and skipped whole chapters. I would’ve read the book if I had known she was going to narrate the book this way. I read faster than she speaks.