 Hello, hello, everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library, and welcome to today's video, which are contemporary romance books themed around baking to read for this Valentine's Day. So before we jump into the video, you can probably tell I am not in my normal area for filming. We are actually house-sitting right now, and so I'm in a new place and I thought, hey, if I don't have books, fireplace is the best way to go, right? Now that that's out of the way, let's jump into the video about all the books that are contemporary romances themed around baking that I would suggest reading for this coming Valentine's Day. I cannot believe it's almost Valentine's Day already. So the first book I have to recommend here is Chef's Kiss by TJ Alexander. I absolutely adored this book. You are following your main character who is bisexual, and she is actually a recipe developer in this huge commercial kitchen. She does mostly pastries and desserts, but it's not necessarily limited to sweets. She also does a little bit of savory, and they get a new kitchen manager, and this kitchen manager is really cute, but also super chaotic and does not run the kitchen how our main character likes it to be run. This new kitchen manager also goes by they then pronouns, and so just a trigger warning that there is some homophobia. It is their romance in a kitchen, and it is the cutest thing, and I love how they handled these topics and how everything was presented in a way and the relationship between the characters. It wasn't like slow burn, and it wasn't quite enemies to lovers, but there was like our main character didn't like them because they were messing up how she likes the kitchen, and there's a lot of stress going on at work. So if you are looking for a good queer baking romance, this would be the way to go. The second recommendation I have here is A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen. This is an adorable YA contemporary romance, and this follows our main character who she loves to bake, and her mom actually has a local bakery restaurant, and every year they host a competition in their local area just to have fun, I guess, and share the love of baking, but this year her mom is like, you know, you really need a boyfriend. You need to find someone to be in a relationship with, and her mom kind of rigs the competition a little bit to be Asian American men in their community who could potentially be the boyfriend of her daughter. The daughter agrees to be a judge on this, but she doesn't realize that her mom has done this, and she is not super happy about it, and so it is an adorable romance there that you wouldn't always expect, that our main character did not expect, and there are lots of adorable bakes in this book. It kind of gives me like great British baking vibes with Asian influence. She is figuring out the recipes that they're gonna make, but then they have to do their own thing, and there are lots of various elements that go into this competition. It isn't just baking one thing and having and judging between those and saying who the winner is, like it's a repeated, people get eliminated type thing, and for the first time this year it's being filmed on TV. So she gets to go through this baking competition that was set up by her mom to find her a boyfriend while also actually going through the competition on television. The next recommendation I have is a Cuban Girls Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, and this is by Laura Taylor Nany. This was so cute. So you follow your main character whose family owns like a bakery restaurant, and she loves to bake in this restaurant, and her grandmother unfortunately passes away, and so she's kind of expecting to take over the family business, but the grief just hits her so hard that her family's like, no you need to go spend some time with your extended family in England, and she is not super happy about that. She just wants to get going in baking on the family treats, but she ends up going to England, and it's not exactly what she was expecting. Obviously she meets a boy. It is YA contemporary romance, but she also does some baking while in England, and it's really funny to see her clash with this old British lady who's very particular about the things they bake in the hotel of the family that she's visiting. They own a hotel, and so she kind of gets herself to work in the kitchen, but she butts heads with the baker there, and so that's really fun to read about the mesh of cultures within the baking, and then also there's tea and a cute boy, so like, where would you go wrong? You don't. Moving on, I have three books to recommend that are books I haven't read, but I am excited to read around Valentine's season for the theme of baking as well. The first one that I have is Fake It Till You Bake It, and this is by Jamie Wesley. This is a fake dating trope book. You have our main character who just turned down a marriage proposal on TV on a reality show actually, and so she heads back home and she gets a job at like this adorable little cupcake shop or something like that. She ends up working alongside this famous football player, which athlete baking cupcakes. I'm all here for. Are you kidding me? I love the fake dating job, and then it's an athlete baking. I am so excited to see where this goes, but a reporter mistakenly reports that they are actually dating, and so they decide that, hey, having a fake relationship might really help boost the sales of the cupcake shop, so they decide to go through with it, and I am so excited to read this. It sounds so cute, plus cupcakes are so fun and adorable. I have been obsessed with decorating cupcakes recently, especially for Valentine's Day. I personally have been so inspired for making all kinds of Valentine's Day themed cupcakes and cakes. Anyway, we are getting sidetracked. I'm talking about books, not cupcakes, although this book has cupcakes. Anyway, so I'm very excited to give that one a try. Next up is When in Rome by Sarah Adams. This follows a main character who is this big celebrity. I believe she does like movies and whatnot, and she ends up going to her hometown, Rome, Kentucky. She goes to Rome, Kentucky, and she runs into this grumpy guy when she has like car problems, and he's all grumpy because he's trying to save his family's pie shop, and so I think it's going to be like a grumpy sunshine at a pie shop, which is amazing. And I mean, I'm not super into like celebrity romances, but grumpy sunshine, definitely. And pie shop, like so many baking is about like pastries and cakes and cupcakes and whatnot. So I'm really excited for a family pie shop for this one. So let's all know about it. That's all I need to know about it. The final book that I have to recommend to you that I'm also very excited to read for a baking themed Valentine's Day this year is Love from Scratch by Caitlin Hill. This is an enemy's two lovers set in a commercial kitchen. So you have your main character who moved from the south all the way up to Seattle in order for this internship at this kitchen that does a lot of TV shows and filming clips and probably YouTube videos, you know, all the modern day social media things. But she ends up getting in this rivalry with another intern who's trying to get the same job that she is. And they end up getting caught on camera doing like this baking battle kind of thing. And it goes viral. So their bosses are like, yes, keep going. We love this. This is wonderful. And to them, it's actually quite personal. So they, I believe it's an enemy's two lovers baking competition on television. So I thought it would be a lot of fun. Plus the cover is really cute. I love that shade of purple, just gonna say. And all the sweet treats on the cover just make me so excited. So yeah, that is Love from Scratch. And those are all the books I have for you today. Let me know in the comments below if you have read any of them or if any of them sound interesting to you. Do you like reading foodie romances? Do you want more recommendations? What are you going to be reading this Valentine's Day? Make sure you subscribe because I am posting videos twice a week, hopefully theoretically I will be getting back into that. But like I said, I am house sitting so life is a little, little crazy at the moment. But I give this video a thumbs up if you liked it. Don't forget to hit the bell so that you are notified when I do post another video. I do have another Valentine's themed video in mind to do soon as well. And I have bookish social media linked down below so you can see what I am reading and what I am thinking about it. And until I see you all in the next video, I wish you a happy reading.