Audio Blast Review: Dough You Love Me (Donner Bakery #2) by Stacy Travis

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Dough You Love Me? by Stacy Travis
Series: Donner Bakery #2
Narrator: Ryan Lee Dunlap, Stefanie Kay
Published by Smartypants Romance on April 23, 2023
Genres: Adult Contemporary Romance
Length: 07:25
Source: the publisher
Format: Audiobook
My Rating:
Goodreads
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Audible

Blurb:

First rule when returning to your hometown after storming out of sight: Don’t fall for the guy who broke your heart.

Julia Browne should know better than to kiss where she bakes. She’s built a bread empire in California and only plans to stay in Green Valley long enough to sell the family house.

She certainly won’t spend any more time with Shane Meadows than she has to…and she will not let him draw her in with his soft blue eyes or level her with his handsome smirk of a grin. The last thing she wants is a temporary gig at Donner Bakery, baking sourdough side by side with Shane and clashing with his ego. And he thinks the sassy baker should take her fancy bread and go back where she came from.

But that’s before they take a series of wrong turns on a road trip to look at wheat, leaving them stranded for the night. Out on the open road, neither of them can escape the sizzling attraction and old feelings that feel a lot more real this time around.

But life is complicated, and Julia’s life in California might derail their second chance at love. Will they wake up and smell the sourdough?

They say you should leave the past in the past, but what if it’s the winning recipe for love?

Dough You Love Me? is a full-length contemporary romance, can be listened to as a stand-alone, and is book two in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Reserve your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3YP7sQU

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3YXzIRu

Amazon CA: https://bit.ly/3YSKJmR

Amazon AU: https://bit.ly/3IsOGrE

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3mhkcRO

Nook: http://bit.ly/3IK3sLO

Kobo: https://bit.ly/41h93QP

Google Play: https://bit.ly/41ftGwO

Audible: Coming Soon!

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3KFvj0Z

My Review

I was excited to return to the world of the Donner Bakery since some of the other original books in the series had migrated into new offshoot series in the SmartyPants Romance Green Valley world. This author was new to me, although I do have one of her books as a freebie ebook. I was lucky enough to get the audiobook to listen to this one. Both narrators had good voices. However the way the female narrator said Green Valley sounded like “Grain Valley” a lot of the time, which kind of messed with me as I was listening since Grain Valley is a suburb of Kansas City where I live. Also occasionally the male narrator would emphasize certain phrases or words that seemed a little off or over the top at times.

The story itself was pretty good. I liked the way Julia would just run away from situations she didn’t like, I mean literally run away, lol. And there was a really good representation of a person with a genetic issue that caused a lifelong disability, one that I hadn’t really heard about before, with Julia’s love interest Shane. Shane’s musical ability was a neat one, and I enjoyed how both of them had their interest in baking. I would love to try some of the bread they talked about!

I did have some issues with what seemed to be a lot of use of cliches, some awkward dialogue at times, as well as occasionally too much unnecessary descriptions of things. I also didn’t feel the first sex scene fit perfectly. While I’m normally all about getting to the steamy scenes as soon as possible, something about the way this happened, or the way they reacted to each other during that scene was a bit wrong for me.

In the end however, the story was good, and makes a fair addition to the Donner Bakery series.