Book Review: Always the Baker and Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker (Five Stars)

Book Review: Always the Baker and Never the Bride (Emma Rae Creations #1) by Sandra D. Bricker (Five Stars)

He’d gained at least five pounds since Emma Rae Travis had come into his life, but his taste buds blocked all paths to caring.

Thoroughly enjoyable story about food and people in contemporary Atlanta. Christian fiction, but good fiction. Comfort fiction. The come-to-Jesus moment is subtle and cast/situation appropriate. Well done.

“My grandparents are both from England.” (A southern wedding.)

Recipes and wedding tips intersperse the chapters, but this is not a cookbook or even a cooking book. Emma’s mission seems to be to draw everyone into diabetes, though of the second type. Bricker shuns the obvious ploy of a diabetic crisis, though … .

“Her smile caused the deep dimples on either side of his mouth to cave like bread dough pressed with two large thumbs.” Excellent word picture; too many words.

Quibbles: Too many adjectives. Only two characters of color. The cast focuses on two families, but … . Except for the need for her to be Italian, Fee would have been better cast as black. Is anyone Goth anymore? Jackson is almost superfluous to the plot. Do southern dinners really start with the entrée? (p. 139)

“I love Fee!” “She’s not nearly as frightening as she looks.” Emma grinned, deciding not to tell her that it depended on the day whether Fee was frightening or not.

If Bricker didn’t invent After Care, she uses it to good effect. Though Dickens brings this series opener to a satisfying conclusion, she leaves the reader hungry for more. Perhaps not five stars on an absolute scale, but relative to other Christian fiction.

“You just bring out the worst in her. With everyone else, she’s—” “Mother Teresa, I know.” “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” “Nice to know you haven’t lost all perspective.”