Blog Tour: Baking Me Crazy by Karla Sorensen: Donner Bakery Book 1

"Friends to lovers at its best-- a sweet indulgence I couldn’t put down!” - R.S. Grey, USA Today Bestselling Author

Baking Me Crazy, the first in the romantic comedy Donner Bakery Series of standalones, from Karla Sorensen is available now!

RATING/REVIEW:  ☕☕☕☕☕ (5 cups for this adorable, poignant, marvelous and humorous story about first love, best friends and a forever kind of romance!)

Whenever I start a new series or a new author, I usually approach it with some trepidation.  If a favorite author recommends it, that hesitation decreases just  a little bit.  So when Penny Reid announced that she was going to open the Pennyverse to other authors, I was both excited and scared. Because I adore the world that Ms. Reid has created and the characters that she has peppered within it has become truly memorable and adored by many readers.  The real test is whether other authors who include some of my favorites and most who are new to me, can tap into the spirit and essence of these world to make it more diverse and encompassing.  I was gifted with one of the precious ARCs, and it was Baking Me Crazy by Karla Sorensen.  It's set in Green Valley, home of the Winston Brothers, specifically in the Donner Bakery world.  Those who are new to Pennyverse but are fans of Ms. Sorensen can actually just read Beard Science as a back drop, to introduce us to the Donner Bakery saga and of course the oh so romantic story of Cletus Winston and Jennifer Sylvester.

Ms. Sorensen has done a fantastic job in keeping the Green Valley spirit in Baking Me Crazy but still able to create her own story and what a wonderful romance it turned out to be. Love at first sight/ unrequited love/BFFs to lovers plus diverse characters in the form of Joss and Levi just makes Baking Me Crazy a marvelous introduction to the Smartypants Romance series. This book made me laugh, cry, go "aww" in the right places and made me extremely excited when the Buchanans of Green Valley are once again featured in future Pennyverse romances.
Levi and Joss's story, and Joss' own personal journey with her own growth and realization that yes, she can really have it all was just emotionally satisfying. I actually want their story to continue, maybe cameos and guest appearances in future books. They are that wonderful! 

Now on to the next book!

I'm Levi Buchanan, and until five years ago, I thought the legend of my family's curse was a load of crazy, Southern nonsense.

No curse can make you fall in love at first sight. No curse can force a true, deep, passionate, all-consuming love that will haunt you all the days of your life.

Then I met Jocelyn Abernathy and I realized how completely wrong I was.

The problem is, Jocelyn guards her feelings like well-armed soldier. She's the most beautiful, stubborn, infuriating woman I've ever met. Every time she talks, I want to kiss the living daylights out of her. But I can't.

Because when we met, she didn't need true love. She needed a best friend. And that's what I've been to her... for five years.

But when Jocelyn meets a handsome stranger her first day working at Donner Bakery and she lets him buy her a dill pickle cupcake, I realize with ominous regret that I may have missed my window with my best friend.

If I can't get her to see past our friendship, my new curse may be to watch the love of my life move on with someone else.

'Baking Me Crazy' is a full-length contemporary romantic comedy, can be read as a standalone, and is book#1 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Download your copy today!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2kwvT7z

AppleBooks: https://apple.co/2ku8Pq7

Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/BakingMeCrazy

Nook: http://bit.ly/2lEMEh0

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2lU7066

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2klKiUj

Amazon Print: https://amzn.to/2k0ZaqL

Add to GoodReads: http://bit.ly/2ku91Wg

Excerpt:

"Besides, this is my best friend perk. Shouldn't I get perks in baked goods?"

She cut me a look. "You've been getting those perks for two years, Buchanan. Don't even pretend you didn't put on a solid ten pounds that first year I started baking." Quite pointedly, she looked at my stomach, which we both knew was covered in muscle.

“That's rude," I mumbled under my breath. I flexed my bicep. Nero licked my elbow since it was right in front of him. "Yeah, ten pounds in my left arm maybe."

The noise she made roughly translated to you are ridiculous. She made that sound at me a lot. Of course, the sad truth of the matter was that I was ridiculous.

Not once in the past five years had my feelings lessened for her. I had just learned to live with them. In my junior year of undergrad, I was taking a class on brain pathology in injuries, and a man came to talk to us about how he learned to live without his right arm after it was amputated.

He told us about how, even years after he lost his arm, his brain still triggered sensations to the limb that was no longer there. The adult brain, in particular, struggled to reorganize after the loss of a limb, and given that four out of five amputees suffer from phantom pain symptoms, some of which were incredibly debilitating, it was a lesson that stuck with me.

I wasn't fool enough to think that me loving Jocelyn was on par with a man who’d lost his arm, but something about the way he talked plucked at a chord inside me. Sometimes my brain struggled to remember that we were just friends.

She'd never dated, never even hinted that she wanted to. She'd never given me a longing glance. Never stared at my mouth like she wondered what it tasted like.

But my hands never, not once, stopped wanting to reach for hers. My fingers always, always itched to dig into her crazy hair and see what the curve of her scalp felt like.

My brain knew what this relationship was, but sometimes, the signals it sent to the rest of my body didn't always match up with the truth of our situation. We worked out together a lot, Joss and I, and when she got frustrated with the limitations of her body, I always wanted to wrap my arms around her.

I wanted to pull her into the curve of my body, absorb her dissatisfaction into my skin, and carry it for her. That was the irony when she made noises like that.

She had absolutely no clue how ridiculous I really was.

About Karla Sorensen

Karla Sorensen has been an avid reader her entire life, preferring stories with a happily-ever-after over just about any other kind. And considering she has an entire line item in her budget for books, she realized it might just be cheaper to write her own stories. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy…a book, a really big glass of wine, and at least thirty minutes of complete silence every day. She still keeps her toes in the world of health care marketing, where she made her living pre-babies. Now she stays home, writing and mommy-ing full time (this translates to almost every day being a ‘pajama day’ at the Sorensen household…don’t judge). She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two exceptionally adorable sons and big, shaggy rescue dog.

Connect with Karla

Facebook: http://bit.ly/2lU6xAS

Twitter: http://bit.ly/2khRSPL

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2k0Yp0T

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2lBNuez

Website: http://www.karlasorensen.com/

Connect with Smartypants Romance

Facebook: http://bit.ly/2kvDnb4

Twitter: http://bit.ly/2lzyduO

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2lGdIMQ

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2kwKsYK

Website: https://smartypantsromance.com/