Overall I enjoyed this book. There were aspects I didn’t love such as Rosaline’s attitude and her dismissal of Harry early on.

I appreciate that this book tackled biphobia and stereotypes, but it did take a bit of an unexpected dark turn that made me uncomfortable.

I’m glad Rosaline stood up for herself in the end but I was mostly beyond frustrated with her at that point.

I love cakes and baking and a certain popular baking show so I was quite interested in the premise of this. I really liked the author’s writing style. Lots of good dialogue between characters and some really funny banter as well. Character wise Harry and Anvita were my favourites, respectively endearing and hilarious random but fun. I struggled a bit with Rosaline, who came across initially as judgey and snobby and a tad hypocritical when it came to her Harry. This was in large part was tied up with her parents and her issues surrounding them and I did like the eventual growth she went through and acceptance of what she wanted from her life. As for the romance I wish we’d spent more of the book building and developing the connection between Rosaline and her endgame instead of with he who turned out to be a gaslighting, skeevy, jerk face. Overall a few hit and miss aspects but still definitely worth a read (3 ⭐️).

As an expert baker, Rosaline Palmer is a big believer in always following the recipe. She's lived her life by that rule - well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, with a paycheck as useful as greaseproof paper and a house crumbling faster than biscuits in tea, she's teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there's a whisk there's a way . . . and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation's most beloved baking show.
Winning the prize money would give her daughter the life she deserves, but more than collapsing trifles stand between Rosaline and sweet, sweet victory. Suave, well-educated, and parent-approved Alain Pope knows all the right moves to sweep her off her feet, but it's shy electrician Harry Dobson who makes Rosaline question her long-held beliefs - about herself, her family, and her desires.
Rosaline fears falling for Harry is a recipe for disaster. Yet as the competition - and the ovens - heat up, Rosaline starts to realize the best quality bakes come from the heart . . .
Thank you to Netgally and the publishers for allowing me to read this. I love GBBO, i love romance and i love cake (Obviously!) but i didnt love this. I should have, it has everything i am looking for in escapism from the humdrum of every day life but i just didnt sadly. Its worth a read, its funny in places, emotive in others but i wouldnt say (for me) its one of those books that you cant wait to continue

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 💫 for Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake. After the success of Boyfriend materials really wanted to love Alexis Hall’s latest novel, and I was obsessed with the premise of a love triangle on a British Baking Show. Sady, at the end of the day, the story fell short for me. Alain was so grimy and villainous he felt like a caricature; there were so many red flags from Day 1, but Rosaline’s insecurities kept her striving for the life her parents wanted for her. Honestly, the fact that her father approved should have killed that relationship from the outset.

I also struggled to like Rosaline for a while, and I'm glad she eventually found her backbone, but it was rough going for a time.

I did enjoy Harry and his cinnamon roll personality and Anvita and Amelie.

Overall, I really enjoyed the premise of the book, but the characters fell short. I will not likely give the next book in the series a read.

BOOK REVIEW: Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

2.5 Stars

This is a tough book for me to review because although I did enjoy it, there are many aspects I didn't like.

This book is based around a TV show that is nearly identical to the Great British Bake Off. The structure of the book is split up into the 8 weeks of the competition. It was a fun idea to follow a character through the journey of the show and I really enjoyed all the baking!

Rosaline, our lead female sadly wasn't for me. I found her to be judgemental and hypocritical. I liked her character when she was around her daughter and best friend but found she changed with other people which I didn't like.
The story has a love triangle in it although the "romances" didn't make sense to me. I think more time was needed to show the characters together. The romances were a little too instant for my liking. I was also a little surprised by the fact the sex scenes were fade to black for all the book until the end when we suddenly got some smut?! I also didn't understand having a bi lead but then none of the love interests were female.
There are quite a few times in the book when the messages the author wants to relay get a little too full on and preachy. To begin with I thought the inclusion of certain issues was well done but it got a little too much.
What I really liked were the side characters. In particular I loved Rosaline's best friend and daughter. They added some quirkiness and fun to the book which was otherwise lacking.
The book was also too long and needed some serious editing. There were too many storylines which meant that not enough time was spent on each one which is why the romance failed for me.

Overall it was the main characters and the romance that let down a decent storyline for me. I liked the quirky humour but there just wasn't enough of the good to outweigh the bad or boring. Sadly I won't be continuing this series.

Please note that I was #gifted this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read boyfriend material last year and I loved it so I high hopes for this one. Unfortunately this one didn't hit the mark for me.

What did work:
* The humour, I really like this authors sense of humour, the one lines are some of the best I have read in a rom-com.
* The bake off theme

What didn't work:
* The main character. I just really didn't like her, she was constantly trying to pick a fight and also a massive hypocrite.
* The romance, I didn't feel any chemistry between any of the characters

I loved the concept, structure and setting of this book....it's Bake Off!

It's cute, slightly ridiculously British, completely full of innuendos and a general inability to be particularly competitive- Alexis Hall has nailed it!

I wasn't a fan of Rosaline at the start -she has a lot of preconceived opinions she is old enough and has enough experience to have fully challenged. They get her into a ridiculous and worrying relationship with a man everyone bar her parents can see is...horrendous.

She learns from it though. You see her grow throughout the competition and really come into her own - at which point she's able to see the guy she should have had her eyes on the whole time. I won't lie, I'm a little invested with Harry myself.

The book deals well with depiction of sexual assault, Anxiety conditions and class prejudice. At times it was Rosaline herself I wanted to shake as she was judgemental in a "I assume you're judging me, so I'm doing it back" way - Harry calls her on it. It was great.

Major shout outs to Amelie and Anvita, both of whom deserve to be the star of any show they want to be in.

Brilliant, I'll be back for another series of Bake Expectations!

I really loved this. The main character was really likeable and relatable. The romance was sexy and sweet. I loved the secondary characters and loved following the story line. I can’t wait for the next one in the series

I'm starting this review by stating that an entire one of these stars is just because of Harry, otherwise, this would have just been a solid three-star book for me, but his character was so good that I had to rate it higher.

Rosaline Palmer is a single mum who enters a national baking show in an effort to improve the circumstances for her and her absolutely adorable daughter Amelie. Whilst on this show she meets two very different men whose interest she catches. This is a light, humorous book that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Rosaline was alright as a character but I didn't adore her and she frustrated me so much sometimes. Alain irritated me right out the gate, I found him stuffy and boring and a little off even before the novel gets properly underway. Like I mentioned before, I adored Harry, I found him hilarious and ridiculously sweet, and I'm still raging that he's not in the first part of the book more, total waste.

Rosaline is bisexual and whilst her past romantic entanglements with women are mentioned and showcased, both of her love interests in this book are male, which I think is pretty cool. I'm all for normalizing bisexuality in books with it sometimes being just men at a certain point or just women at another, just how it can work out IRL, and Rosaline's bisexuality is never sidelined or used as a gimmick.

Alexis Hall is absolutely excellent at humourous, tongue-in-cheek writing and that was evident in this book, there were several scenes where I had to pause to laugh which is always a good sign. However, there were other scenes that really dragged for me and some of the dialogue between certain characters felt clunky and disjointed which was odd because in other places the dialogue (even the uncomfortable stuff) was incredible.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and will probably check out the other two that are meant to be part of this series once they come out.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

Headlines:
Brit Bake Off vibes
Banter for days
Charmed to the hilt

If I could describe my reading experience of Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake in one word, I would say charming. The characters were just simply a delight to sink into. They were messy, flawed but they were also incredibly endearing and a bucket load of funny.

I'm 100% a 'Bake Off' fan so this reimagining of a British TV Show in a similar vein was always going to speak to my fandom and it delivered completely. I loved the baking scenes in the competition alongside the behind-the-scenes elements. I grew to love Rosaline as a character, to cheer for her crawl out from the weighty expectations of her parents and she was doing a great job of the mother-juggle. Her bi-sexuality was such an issue for some people and this book really explored other people's perceptions, expectations and some rather hideous elements to that.

The two guys of the piece, Alain and Harry really altered my allegiances and expectations along the way. A lot of what happened with them was unexpected in the main and I loved how that story played out. Amelie, Rosaline's daughter was a super-intelligent and outspoken eight year old but I did enjoy her character.

This book bantered me from front to back, I highlighted so much that it would take an essay to share them all but you won't be disappointed at the dialogue and Rosaline's inner monologue. As with all Alexis Hall's offerings, everything about this book was quintessentially British and I love his style of bringing different British types of characters, accents and speech to the page.

"And Rosaline tried very hard to keep her face ungifable."

I'm pretty enamoured with this book and I can see myself returning for a re-read. This story is definitely on my contemporary 2021 favourites line-up.

Thank you to Piatkus Books for the early review copy.

With thanks to #Netgalley and #LittleBrownBookCompanyUk for an ARC of #RosalinePalmerTakesTheCake by #AlexisHall, in return for an honest review.

Rosaline is a single mother, who works in a stationary shop. She is 27 and bisexual. I wouldn’t normally point out a characters sexuality, but it is relevant to Rosaline’s story.
Struggling to make ends meet, Rosaline is a single parent with a young daughter to support.
Rosaline’s true talent is baking, and she secretly enters TV baking show, Bake Expectations.
The competition takes Rosaline on a secret journey, that will build her confidence and change her life.
Add in a very funny, loyal best friend, a set of super straight laced parents and a love triangle then you will have the recipe for an engaging, uplifting story.
I didn’t always like the characters in this story, but really did love reading Rosaline’s journey.
A very enjoyable read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Really sweet book. I enjoyed the red herring love interest plot, made a bit of a change. The baking made me really hungry. Full review to come

This is the second book I’ve read by Alexis Hall, and it’s safe to say that I was very excited about it. There was part of me that was a little nervous. I loved Boyfriend Material because it read like lad-lit. And this book definitely has chick-lit vibes about it. But I was unsure that it was going to work this time.

I wasn’t disappointed. I read this book in a single night. It wasn’t as much of a favourite as Boyfriend Material. But I still adored it.

Rosaline Palmer is a single mum, who deciding she needed to do something with her life. Entered a baking competition. There she meets two attractive guys, deals with her own family and has to work hard to win it all.

This book was very funny. That should come as no one’s surprise. I know that bits and pieces will have been changed in the American version, and I’m curious about that. But this was a very British baking show book.

I did really like the characters. Rosaline was sweet, if a little bit of a pushover at first. And Amelie was the cutest kid. She was weird, and fun and she clearly loves her mum a lot. I did love that there was plenty of commentary on Rosaline’s sexuality. It seems that a lot of the time, bi people get the sharp end of the stick. Which isn’t fair. And it was good to see some of those issues popping up in a book like this.

The love interests and romance were a little bit predictable. I had issues with one of the guys from the start, and seconds before a certain scene happened, I said it would. But these kinds of novels can be very formulaic, so I can’t hold that against it. Not when I had such a good time reading it. But the other love interest was a proper sweetie, and I think I’d probably fancy him myself.

It being a baking show book, there was obviously a lot of talk about cakes. It made me hungry, even if some of the cakes weren’t to my taste. So, I do recommend reading this with some snacks. And not at like 2AM when you shouldn’t be eating… Ahem

This book did have a lot of skips during the week. Which is fine. The competition was only at the weekend, and you’d skip a lot of her day to day life anyway. But I would have liked to see a little more of it. Maybe a little bit more contact between her and the contestants other than love interests throughout the week. Some of them are clearly good friends of hers by the end of the book. So that made it seem a little huh.

As that was kind of my issue. There were a couple of really good friendship scenes. But there weren’t many. I’d liked to have seen the friendships that were built up, built up a little more than they were.

Overall, this was a solid book. Very fun and I look forward to seeing what the next competition holds.

All I needed to know about this book for it to grab my interest was the fact the main character is a bisexual and enters a TV baking competition.

What I didn’t expect was to be literally laughing out loud, which isn’t a regular occurrence for me personally, but some of the lines were hilarious.

There was a lot LGBT+ representation in this book with a handful of characters on the spectrum, but their sexuality wasn’t the main thing about their character which was refreshing to read.

The two love interests were somewhat polar opposites and I had an idea of who I’d be rooting for when they’d both been introduced. I wasn’t exactly shocked when I did a complete 180 when the plot took an unexpected turn!

I also appreciated the references to Les Miserables, Hamilton, Poirot & Mary Poppins/Dick Van Dyke!

Overall it was a well written book with well developed characters, and comedic moments scattered throughout. I really enjoyed reading it!

TW // sexual harassment

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is really quick and easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable!
You will have a lump in your throat and you will laugh out loud. And you will root for Rosaline all the way through. A throughly enjoyable read from start to finish!

Rosaline Palmer is a bisexual, single-mum and former medical student and now a contestant on BBC's Bake Expectations. She hopes that she might make life both more comfortable by winning and give her more independence — especially from her overbearing and high achiever parents. But when she misses her train, she finds things do not go to plan.

The cast of characters is varied and well-developed. Rosaline's two potential love interests, landscape architect Alain and electrician Harry, are believable three dimensional and well-rounded. As the relationships and contest progress, you get to see characters grow and become invested in them. Harry is brilliant. Alain is well-handled. It would have been quite easy to turn him into a pantomime caricature.

Alexis Hall is one of my favourite authors. At first, Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake appears as a light, fluffy LGBTQ comedy. And there is comedy — I laughed all through it. However, it touches on several serious issues: casual biphobia, heteronormative privilege, gender identity, classism and sexual assault. Hall's skill is that these topics are handled in such a subtle manner the reader is challenged, educated but never preached to. For example, Rosaline's classism is established but not glossed over and challenged.

I loved this story and would highly recommend it. I am grateful to Little, Brown Book Club and Net Galley for the eARC.

I really thought especially with the cover that this would be a fluffy rom com. It was not. It really tackles some pretty heavy subjects (please check TW) and as much as I wnjoyed the writing and the setting, I just didnt really and truly connect with the characters.

This was a fun read, I loved the definitely-not-Bakeoff setting, the cast of charming supporting characters and of course, the bisexual representation. The romance plotline was a little predictable, but you'll enjoy the journey even knowing what the end game will be! I also appreciated the book's discourse about the prevalence of classism and societal expectations and their effects on the protagonist, which elevated the story above that of a typical romcom.

(Many thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.)

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake is a romantic comedy about a bisexual single mum who goes on a TV baking competition for the money, and meets two men who seem interested in her—but they're fellow competitors. Rosaline Palmer can never live up to her parents' standards, having dropped out of university to raise her daughter, Amelie, and now working in a high street stationery shop. When her baking skills get her onto 'Bake Expectations', a beloved TV baking show, she's desperate for the prize money, but didn't expect to also meet new people and explore what she really wants in her future.

Romance isn't really a genre I read much of, but I read Hall's earlier Boyfriend Material, which I enjoyed, so I thought I'd give this one a go. Actually I enjoyed how much of this book was focused around Rosaline's journey, and the romance part is only one element of that, though I can imagine some readers might've wanted more dramatic romance. Without spoiling anything about the plot, I will say that I very quickly hated a character who later turned out to be awful, making me vindicated but also relieved, and also meaning that I did find some of the earlier part of the book quite frustrating. However, I loved Rosaline's interactions with her daughter, and also I liked a lot of the other members of the supporting cast (though, as with real Bake Off, I did forget who the early on contestants were completely).

One thing I particularly liked about this book was the bisexual protagonist, who has on-page relationships with men and mentions past relationships with women, and also the importance to Rosaline of ensuring her daughter knows about who she might love. Misconceptions (or, at least, bad assumptions) about bisexuality do come back later on for a more serious bit of the narrative, but in general, it's something about Rosaline that is important, but not her only character trait. She's a flawed protagonist, with a privileged upbringing that does make her a snob (at best) at times, but also a real sense of love for her daughter and banter with her ex-turned-best-friend Lauren.

I found Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake an engaging and funny read, though as can often be true with romcoms, the character revealed later on to be less than nice was obnoxious to me from the start, which did make it harder to enjoy it at times. The level of detail and structure of the baking show worked nicely for me as someone who does watch Bake Off, but I also liked that it did question some of the stereotypes and classism that can be found in the whole baking show brand, as well. I know I laughed out loud at some of the jokes, though the one that really sticks with me is the fact that cookery shows have to call Bailey's 'irish cream' and undoubtedly that's hard to remember when you're a contestant on something—that's the kind of detail I enjoyed.

Four and a half stars.

Rosaline Palmer is a bisexual single mother to a precocious daughter. She gave up her career ambitions to be a doctor when she got pregnant and now she has a part-time job at WH Smith (a large chain of stationery shops in the UK) and specialises in disappointing her extremely successful parents, one of whom is a cardiologist and the other is an oncologist.

In desperation to pay off her parents' loans, Rosaline enters a national TV baking show called, punningly enough, Bake Expectations. On her way to the first weekend of shooting, Rosaline misses her train and gets left in the middle of the country with a handsome, charming, witty, erudite landscape architect called Alain who is also a contestant on the show. As with the real-life baking show that this novel is based on, the contestants are both a series of cliches and also an eclectic mix of modern British society. Although as the contest progresses Rosaline is forced to reassess some of her preconceptions about the other contestants.

I'll be honest, Alexis Hall, romance and baking - it doesn't get much better than this. The dialogue is witty and the characters are engaging, the trials and tribulations of the contestants and Rosaline's amazing daughter Amelie just swept me away like a self-saucing pudding.

My only minor criticism is that I could see the 'twist' coming almost right from the start, but it was lovely to see Rosaline's journey.

Overall, I love, love, loved it and I only wish I could read it again for the first time.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.