Welcome to Autumn Fest…sweet treats, entertaining company, and a tender romance.
Can be read as a standalone!Piper Noble feels like she’s going places. Her business, the Poppin’ Fresh Bakery, is a culinary success story. Next on her to-do list is expanding the bakery into the vacant shop next door…and starting a new diet, like her mom keeps nagging her to. But when Joe Montoya steps into … her to. But when Joe Montoya steps into her life, her grand plans grind to a sudden halt.
Joe’s taken a big risk returning to Whistle Stop. But with his disastrous marriage over, it’s time for a fresh start, including opening a coffee shop…and coming to terms with his troubled past. Though his neighbor Piper looks like she’ll be a big distraction in getting Fill-It-Up Joe off the ground–with her honeyed smile, curvy goodness, and her unflagging determination to grab his storefront.
However, when Piper and Joe are elected as co-chairs of a fundraising committee to help the town’s revitalization project, the hostilities must cease. Joe’s not sure about spending time with a woman who, one moment, reminds him of all the good things he’s been missing, and the next minute drives him up a wall with her stubbornness. Meanwhile, Piper’s looking for the way to this gorgeous but grouchy guy’s heart–maybe serving him one of her fresh-from-the-oven pastries could be just the right start…
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I love small town romances. There’s just something about everyone knowing each other and the support the community has and as a reader, getting to know everyone. This is the third book in Jennifer Faye’s Whistle Stop series. I have not read the prior two books and while it was obvious I was missing some backstory on a couple secondary characters, it didn’t distract from this tale.
Piper is my kind of girl. She owns a successful bakery, is relatively secure with her curves, has an overbearing mother and supportive friends. She’s attracted to the guy next door, even though his business will be in competition with hers. Then they have to work together on a fund raising project and they grow closer… Joe is back in town after his marriage fails. He’s opening a new business and isn’t sure about his neighbor. He thinks he’s cute, but he’s really not interested in a relationship. But as they spend time together, friendship starts to grow into something more.
The romance in this story is well developed. Both characters are wary of falling in love and are really taking pains to not take the leap, but obviously they don’t succeed. But the trip to their happily ever after is fun. There are fights and miscommunication and making up… all those things that most relationships go through. Add in well meaning friends and family and these two didn’t have a chance.
In the end, I felt I could relate to Piper and was rooting for her and Joe. I enjoyed this story and now need to go back and read the prior books before book four is released.
My review originally posted at Romancing the Book.
Piper Noble owns Poppin Fresh Bakery in the little town of Whistle Stop. She lived in this town most of her life but moved to the city when she got older, where she got engaged. When she broke her engagement she moved back to Whistle Stop to start her business. The business was doing so well she planned on buying the shop next door and expanding. Her plans fell through when Joe Montoya came back to town after his marriage ended and bought the store to open a coffee shop. Piper wants to buy the shop from Joe but he won’t sell because he wants to start his business. He needs it to be a success after losing everything in his divorce. Their relationship is not the easiest and gets harder when they are elected co-chairmen of a fundraising committee. Even though neither of them wants a relationship, they are very attracted to each other.
I liked this story with the love/hate relationship between Piper and Joe. Being set in a small town where everybody knows everybody else and what they are doing was comforting. I really liked this small community and their caring ways. I did find the refusal to consider any romantic involvement by both the hero and heroine a bit extreme but completely understandable given their histories. What I didn’t understand was how they fell in love with each other since they weren’t very open or giving. I didn’t like how Piper was so worried about what others thought of her that she often held back.
Please note that I received a complimentary copy of this book from Inspired Kathy in exchange for an honest review.
What a wonderful addition to the series. Piper owns and runs the local bakery and was engaged to get married but her finance was cheating on her and so they called off the wedding. She decided that she would concentrate on her business and when she finally got the financial stability to expand into the next building who is too late because Joe Montoya has come back to town and bought the building next door to open a coffee shop. They have a lot of rough times, both as next door neighbors and also family and then they get thrown together to do the Autumn Fest and they come at from different ways and have to work everything out. The are good time, bad times and a lot of support from friends. I can’t wait for the 4th book to come out in the Spring and she has lots more characters to write about. So I look forward to see how things go.