Aubrey Choi has been successful staying in her Comfort Zone and baking for her small town in California. Comfort Zone is her bakery, the one she built herself with love and the recipes of her grandmother. And it’s done well. In fact, she’s thinking about finding a bigger space for her pastries. But when a misplaced birthday cake almost turns disastrous, Aubrey has to bake fast to save the day, and save the birthday party from failure.

Later that day, she joins her best friend for a beer at the local brew pub, where a handsome stranger catches her eye. Aubrey enjoys her evening blowing off some steam with the handsome stranger, and ends up staying far longer than she had originally intended. She ends up sneaking out of his room early the next morning, her morning baking calling to her.

Restaurant critic Landon Kim was passing through a small town when the smells of a bakery beckoned to him. His car had broken down on his way to the restaurant he was going to review, and Comfort Zone called to him with the daily special, a chocolate cake. Landon was enjoying the cake until he hit the gummy worm. He was immediately disappointed in the pastry chef who would put such a thing in her cake without warning the customer. Since he couldn’t make it to the restaurant he was supposed to review, he wrote a scathing review of the bakery instead.

And then he found out that the pastry chef he skewered with his review was his one-night stand.

Landon doesn’t review places twice, and he refuses to retract his review. But he feels bad about reviewing the bakery only on the one dish, and after a barrage of emails from Aubrey’s customers, he now understands that what he had been accidentally given was a special order birthday cake, which is why it had gummy worms. He does want to make it up to Aubrey, so he gets her a guest spot on his friend’s cooking show.

Since Landon’s scathing review put Aubrey and Comfort Zone on the brink of bankruptcy, she agrees to doing the show. But when she finds out that it will be several weeks of living in a romantic villa with Landon, memories of their night together turn her thoughts form baking to something else entirely. And the look in Landon’s eyes tells her that he feels the same. They both know need to keep things professional to stay focused on the show and to protect their reputations, but will that be enough for them to keep their hands off each other?

Jayci Lee has written a spicy and sweet romance set in the food world and starring two of the most determined, stubborn characters you can imagine. A Sweet Mess is as comforting as sweet buns right out of the oven and as intense as the darkest of chocolate. This charming story combines a powerful love story with soul-searching personal growth, lubricated liberally with wine, laughter, and moonstones.

I really liked A Sweet Mess. I thought these characters were great together, and I loved following along as they made decisions that had long lasting consequences for their relationship and for their lives. I was expecting a light- to mid-weight rom com, but this had some genuine substance as the story moved along. But I genuinely loved these characters and rooted for them from the first page through to the last. A Sweet Mess is like a great meal where you eat dessert first—it starts off light and sweet and then as you keep eating, you find your bites getting richer and more substantive until you’ve cleaned your plate.

Egalleys for A Sweet Mess were provided by St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley, with many thanks.