Donut Fall in Love (Donut Fall in Love #1) by Jackie Lau – celebrity falling for normal person romance

Donut Fall in Love is heartwarming, entertaining, delectable and swoon-worthy, celebrity falling for normal person romance.

Disclaimer – Many thanks to @PRHinternational for eARC via NetGalley.

Synopsis

A baker provides the sweetest escape for an actor in this charming romantic comedy.

Actor Ryan Kwok is back in Toronto after the promotional tour for his latest film, a rom-com that is getting less-than-stellar reviews. After the sudden death of his mother and years of constant work, Ryan is taking some much-needed time off. But as he tries to be supportive to his family, he struggles with his loss and doesn’t know how to talk to his dad—who now trolls him on Twitter instead of meeting him for dim sum.

Innovative baker Lindsay McLeod meets Ryan when he knocks over two dozen specialty donuts at her bakery. Their relationship is off to a messy start, but there’s no denying their immediate attraction. When Ryan signs up for a celebrity episode of Baking Fail, he asks Lindsay to teach him how to bake and she agrees.

As Lindsay and Ryan spend time together, bonding over grief and bubble tea, it starts to feel like they’re cooking up something sweeter than cupcakes in the kitchen.

Review

romance with celebrity falling for normal person romance

Donut Fall in Love is fluffy, swoony, and heartwarming romance focusing on Lindsay, the baker, and Ryan, the famous actor, connecting through their grief and baking lessons. The story is about loss, grief, insecurity, East Asian culture in entertainment industry, family, friendship, and love.

Writing is entertaining and fast paced with third person narrative from Lindsay and Ryan’s alternative perspective. Both have refreshing voice. The story is set in Toronto, Canada. I haven’t come across many books set in Toronto much so it added its own charm to story.

Lindsay is co-owner of Kensington Bake shop. She is compassionate and lovely, loves baking and is very creative and innovative with donuts and cupcakes. Her life is good but she couldn’t have serious relationship after her father’s death seven years ago and now that her best friend and co-owner of bakery, Noreen is married she is feeling stuck and lonely but that is changed when famous movie star, Ryan enters her shops and knocks over her matcha tiramisu donuts.

Ryan is in Toronto to help and support his family after losing his mother four months ago. He is feeling lost with nothing to do because of break in between movies, not knowing how to care for disgruntled father who is anti-whatever-Ryan-does ever since he dropped his engineering degree and her sister delivering baby. He has no idea how to help his family and keep them together which was his mom’s job. To have something to do he signs up for Baking Fail TV show in honor of his mother who loved the show. But for that he has to have some idea how to bake and after that disastrous meet cute and he asks Lindsay to give him private lessons.

It was lovely to see both Linday and Ryan connect with each lesson. They understand each other well and grief of losing their parent cement their connection even more. I enjoyed knowing them more through their relationship with their family.

Ryan’s father is a typical East Asian father who didn’t take it well when his son chose a different profession. He even created Twitter account and tweeted about his disappointment publically. As story progress, we see Ryan’s father is grieving but doesn’t know how to show it or care for his children after losing wife but his distant disconnected behavior made father-son relationship even more complex. We see how this affected Ryan and shaped his personality and also his decision regarding his relationship with Lindsay. I like it author kept this serious and complex relationship light and fun with Ryan’s easy-going and stubborn nature who wouldn’t give up on his father and kept egging him until he elicited more response from his father than just grunts. His constant efforts made him even more lovable. It was cute how he helped his sister by regular visits and taking care of his nephew.

Lindsay is somewhat similar when it comes to making efforts. In her case it’s not her family but her new roommate, Vivian, who is aloof, serious and keeps herself to herself. She wishes to be friends with her but is clueless how initially and she kept trying to be friends with her. It’s great how Ryan and his shows gave their friendship green light and how they bonded over it.

Romance is swoon-worthy, hot and sexy with many bedroom scenes. They found each other attractive and close proximity of private lessons made it inevitable for them not to end up together hard and fast but their different lifestyle, lack of experience with relationships, and recent loss added a bit of complexity and drama in their romance. When their relationship was tested by twitter troll it wasn’t just one person’s fault or because of a communication gap like usual romance, they both were idiots and they both realized their mistake soon after.

What I loved most is Asian representation in the story, how the entertainment industry treated them and how hard it is to succeed in this industry. There is layer of twitter drama and also a perspective on how maintaining perfect-looking abs affects health and how it might cause eating disorder. There is banter, many lovely and sweet moments, also reality baking show to make it even more entertaining.

I loved father-son conversation after climax. The gesture in the end wasn’t big but it was very realistic and lovely. End is heartwarming, feel good and fun.

Overall, Donut Fall in Love is heartwarming, entertaining, delectable and swoon-worthy romance with celebrity falling for normal person trope and amazing East Asian representation.

I highly recommend this if you like,
Fast pace
Glimpse of entertainment industry
East Asian culture and representation
Celebrity falling for normal person trope
Set in Toronto, Canada
Swoon-worthy Romance
Many bedroom scenes
Close proximity
Baking lessons and show

Book Links

Goodreads | Storygraph | Amazon.in | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Thank you for reading! Let’s chat..,

What do you this about this book and review?
Which is your favorite celebrity falling for normal person romance?
Do you loved Donuts or cupcakes or cakes and pastries?

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#DonutFallinLove is heartwarming, entertaining, delectable and #swoonworthy #romance with celebrity falling for normal person trope and amazing #EastAsianrepresentation. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Many thanks to @BerkleyRomance @PRHGlobal

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