3.75 ⭐

I have a feeling this book will be released at the perfect time, because it will be the best autumnal read many booklovers could wish for, I just know 👀

I admit I haven't caught up with the first book of the series yet, but I couldn't resist the temptation to request The baby dragon bakery nonetheless: I'm a sucker for a good friends to lovers book, so I'm always ready to dive into stories with similar vibes.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a strong connections with the main characters, but it was still a cute and fun read.

If you're a fan of cozy fantasy, don't miss out on this one!

The Baby Dragon Bakery by A.T. Qureshi is an utterly delightful blend of fantasy, friendship, and slow-burn romance that left me smiling long after the final page. Set in a world where magical vet school and baby dragons are just part of daily life, this book is brimming with heart—and sugar-dusted with charm.

Lavinia is a wonderfully relatable heroine: ambitious, a little awkward, and hopelessly in love with her best friend Theo, the cinnamon roll of local bakers. Their friendship is beautifully written—playful, supportive, and just aching to become something more.

Add in the cozy café setting, a cast of lovable side characters, and, of course, the adorable pet baby dragon, and you’ve got a book that’s pure comfort. It’s the literary equivalent of a pumpkin spice latte on a crisp autumn day.

Perfect for curling up under a blanket with a hot drink, The Baby Dragon Bakery is a feel-good fantasy romance that will warm your heart and leave you craving cinnamon buns—and maybe a dragon of your own.

It’s just kind of a boring book. I found myself skimming almost as soon as I’d pick it up. The characters are fine. The dragons are cute. I’m not a romance reader, but I typically enjoy cozy fantasy. This was more romance than anything. For me, that’s a boring book. I also didn’t vibe with the writing style. I can see other people liking this though for the novelty of a romance with cute dragons.

Reading The Baby Dragon Bakery felt like curling up with a warm pastry and a fuzzy blanket. A.T. Qureshi delivers the ultimate comfort read—a cozy, dual POV friends-to-lovers romance set in a world where baby dragons nap on countertops and baked goods are infused with magic. Lavinia and Theo’s story is full of heart, humor, and the kind of yearning that makes you want to reach through the pages and shake them both (lovingly).

I adored the whimsical setting of the Baby Dragon Café and all of Theo’s imaginative confections. Every chapter felt like it was dusted with cinnamon and just a little bit of heartbreak. Lavinia’s vulnerability, paired with Theo’s quiet devotion, made their bond feel so genuine and deeply rooted. If you’re in the mood for a low-stakes fantasy with swoony tension, magical creatures, and the softest slow-burn, this one is an absolute treat.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for the arc of this book. The Baby Dragon Bakery is the second book in The Baby Dragon series. I absolutely loved this book. I devoured it in two sittings. This book is from Lavinia's perspective. This book also brings back characters from the first book. It is possible to read this book as a stand alone but I highly recommend reading The Baby Dragon Cafe first. This book does focus less on dragons than the first book, I would have liked more of Biter in this book. This book is a cozy read.

This was a very cozy read. Lavinia and her child hood best friend Theo have feelings for each other, but seem to lack the communication skills to express that. It was a bit frustrating watching them pine for each other at times. I hated watching Lavinia go on dates with Callahan, and I wish Theo would have spoken up sooner. I felt bad for Theo having to watch Lavinia enjoy her dates with Callahan and I wish she would have picked up on Theo's feelings and confronted him about them. I was not expecting Lavinia's relationship with him to end how it did, but I am glad that it ended.

As a veterinarian technician, I loved the vet medicine part of this book! I loved that Lavinia was working on becoming a doctor and I thought it was so fun to read about her doing exams on dragons. In this setting I think I would choose the same career path. Who doesn't love baby animals?

Overall I really enjoyed this book! I loved the bakery and all of the fun desserts that Theo would invent for the Baby Dragon Bakery. I definitely wish I could have tried some of these bakery items myself! Thank you to Netgalley, Avon Books UK, and Aamna Qureshi for an ARC of this book. This is my honest opinion of the book.

In this charming follow up to the Baby Dragon Cafe book, we encounter two of the characters we met earlier, in an enjoyable examination of the friends to lovers trope.

Lavinia and Theo seem to be a good match - they have been friends for quite sometime and their chemistry is evident everyone. Except Theo! But then, the path of true love is known to be legendary in its lack of smoothness...

A cosy and deeply satisfying romance, that also features baby dragons and baked goods. What more could you want?! It easily gets 3.5 stars.

Reviews

First of all I just want to say a huge thank you to AvonBooks UK for providing me with the opportunity to read this ARC through NetGalley. I am eternally grateful! 🥰

The Baby Dragon Bakery is an amazing prequel to The Baby Dragon Cafe and if you’re looking for a cosy, autumnal and romantic read full of yearning, then definitely add this book to your TBR! ✨

I love how we get to experience the friends to lovers trope as it dives into the worries and concerns that our characters have and how they move through these challenging times together.

The amount of yearning in the book was so incredibly heartwarming, and you can tell just how much our characters have experienced together throughout their lives 🤎

One of my favourite things about this book is how the author also reflects on a lot of things about our lives as adults; the struggles we face, job challenges and romantic experiences we may encounter, and the way our characters handle these situations are very eye opening and are very inspiring.

It was also so much fun diving into Lavinia’s character more and learning so much about her; her passions, hobbies and challenges she faces not only as a student trying to find her way through life but also the romantic challenges she faces along the way as well as our other character Theo, who you can tell has gone through a lot in his life and we see his struggles and how this has shaped him, but more importantly how he uses his experiences to adapt to his life.

This book was written so well. It’s such a cosy read, and I also loved the autumnal vibes and festivities in the book, but as always, I loved the cultural representations in these books especially when it comes to all the amazing food and recipes.

If you are looking for a cosy, fun and romantic read then The Baby Dragon Bakery will be releasing in August!

Once again a huge thank you to AvonBooks UK and NetGalley for this opportunity! 🤎

The Baby Dragon Bakery 🥹

First of all.. what a cute title! And cute cover!!

I honestly loved this as much as The Baby Dragon Cafe. Two places that I wish were real!

I love Lavinia and Theo and the friendship they have! But when Lavinia makes a move and Theo pulls away, things become weird. I was rooting for them the whole time!! Did Theo make a mistake pulling away? Does he want more than a friendship with Lavinia?

A cute cozy read that you won’t want to put down! I read through this book pretty quickly and I’m really looking forward to the next one!!

If you like
🫶🏼bakery romance
💘 friends to lovers
🌶️low spice
✨cozy small town
🐉 dragons

Then this book is for you!! I can’t wait to but a psychical copy of this book!

Thank you so much NetGalley, A.T. Qureshi and Avon Books UK for the eARC!

Rating: ✨✨✨✨✨
Publication Date: August 28 2025

I really enjoyed this romance. I will always be a sucker for a best friends to lovers romance, and it was so well done here. The character dynamics, setting and world building made for such a fluffy romance. I will say though that I would have liked for the fantasy element to play a larger role. I already said in my review of the first book that this is more romance than fantasy heavy, and that's even more true here. The baby animals are all very adorable, but they could have been a larger element of the story. I did like seeing so much of Saphira again in this book!

The Baby Dragon Bakery is a nice sequel to the Baby Dragon Cafe. It has aspects of the Dragon Cafe like the relationships, and building of a business and a bit about dragons. As opposed to the Baby Dragon Cafe which had a large focus on the welfare and care and training of baby dragons, this book is truly more of a relationship story and the dragons and cooking are something that unites the characters. I really like stories that merge dragons with real life and I enjoyed this book and I’m intrigued to see what comes next.

Thank you so much to Avon Books for providing me with an early earc for this wonderful book.
I absolutely loved The Baby Dragon Cafe so when I saw that this one was available for request I just could not help myself. Oh my goodness this one did not disappoint. I absolutely loved Lavinia and Theo’s relationship, both friends and lovers. I just could not get enough of them and I was routing for them from the start. I also enjoyed being back with previous characters Aidan and Saphira and seeing how their relationship and personal lives were developing.
I love the cosy atmosphere that the author creates and I always feel right at home and at peace in between these pages.
The only criticism I have is that there were a lot less dragons than in the first and i would love to see them have a larger role in the next book. THE NEXT BOOK ABOUT A BOOKSHOP. I squealed when I got to the end of this arc to see this announcement I’m already so excited and this one hasn’t been released yet.
I cannot wait for people to start reading this book so that I can share my excitement and love of this book and the characters with other people.

I wanted to love this one but had a hard time getting into it. The idea was fun and seemed like it would be an enjoyable read. For others, but not for me.

Thank you netgalley for this arc.
This was such a cute cozy book!!! Oh, and the yearning, the Yearning!!. I really liked the story between these two and the chemistry. I did like this one more than the first one, i feel like even though there tropes in here I usually dislike in a book. I believe they were written really well and in a tasteful manner. Honestly the descriptions of the food were making me hungry haha.
So yeah a solid 3.75 ⭐️

"The Baby Dragon Bakery", book 2 in the Baby Dragon series, follows Lavinia and Theo, best friends for life, who suddenly find themselves having feelings for each other. But when Lavinia gets rejected by Theo and starts dating someone new, will they be able to repair their friendship and find love along the way?

If you've read the first book, you basically know what you're getting into. Some things to be wary of before you pick up this series:
-It reads like teenage fanfic. This will not win awards for how it's written
-It features the miscommunication trope
-Lavinia is supposed to be such a smart character by has really one dimensional thinking. She's training to be a vet, but has this stupid idea that she absolutely has to be with her true love at age 24 because that's the age her parents met, and she makes a ridiculous deadline to have this happen
-The 3rd act breakup in this one was so dumb

That being said, I still really enjoyed this!
-It's a light, cozy read
-Features cute baby dragons (though not enough in my opinion! More dragons please!)
-Features a mmc who loves to bake and I think that's just the sweetest
-Perfect, fast paced romance
-Loved getting to see what the characters from book 1 were up to a few months later.

I can't wait for the next installment! I really think romance readers who want to delve into a light fantasy world will love this one.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I loved the baby dragon cafe, but this one was a huge miss for me. It felt like the romance was the entire plot, dragons played a much more important role in the other book. The romance was also just frustrating for me, felt very childish and too much miscommunication.

I love the concept of this book and the fantasy elements. Looking forward to other people getting a chance to read this and more from this author at a later date. Thank you to the author in the publisher for making this available.

A wonderful read!
This novel drew me in from the very first page and kept me hooked until the end. The characters were vibrant and relatable, the writing was engaging, and the story had just the right balance of heart and humor. Highly recommend!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

Utterly enchanting! The Baby Dragon Bakery, the second book in A. T. Qureshi’s The Baby Dragon Series, is a whimsical and cozy delight that had me smiling from start to finish. I haven’t read the first book yet, but that didn’t stop me from falling head-over-heels for this magical world filled with warmth, wonder, and the irresistible charm of a dragon-powered bakery. Qureshi has a gift for creating stories that feel like a soft blanket, comforting, gentle, and full of heart. The bakery setting is pure magic, and the characters (especially the adorable baby dragon!) are impossible not to love. The mix of fantastical elements with everyday kindness and community spirit makes this book a perfect feel-good escape.
Whether you’re a longtime fan or just discovering the series, The Baby Dragon Bakery is a treat, sweet, cozy, and brimming with magic. I’ll definitely be going back to read the first one! Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publishing house for this book.

This story was much more focused on the main couple. The story focuses on how Lavinia and Theo's relationship is evolving from friends to love interests and during this transition there's a lot of miscommunication that brings challenges along the way. That awkward transition from friends to love interests is funny, and the authors builds a good tension.