Baked Inn Love

Freedom Valley, Book 2

By: Erin Branscom

Narrated by: Keira Stevens, Thomas Locklear

Friends to lovers, fake marriage, epic road trip, millionaire, single parent, different worlds.

Single mom Allie’s only bright light is her son, four-year-old Caleb. When Allie is fired from her job and Caleb’s previously absent father returns to fight for custody, she knows it’s time to leave San Diego. To get closer to her support systems, she needs to move across the country to her family inn in Freedom Valley, New Hampshire. Enter Logan Nolan, a handsome Canadian literary agent. When a good friend begs him to help bring Allie and Caleb home, he can’t say no. During the road trip, Allie and Logan realize they have something to offer each other: a marriage of convenience.

Before they know it, Allie and Logan live as a family in Freedom Valley. Allie, a passionate baker, starts her own business, and Logan learns how to balance his career with his new pretend family. Logan never saw himself as a family man, but as he spends more time with Allie and Caleb, he begins to rethink his views. Allie has always gotten by on her own, but with Logan around, she’s starting to wish her marriage was real, especially as Caleb’s father’s efforts to take his son intensify. Can Allie and Logan give in to their true feelings and turn make-believe into something real?

Baked Inn Love is a complete stand-alone and can be listened to without listening to any of the other books, but if you prefer to listen in order, start with Falling Inn Love as the characters and families are connected.

©2022 Erin Branscom (P)2023 Erin Branscom

Great story with wonderful narration

I adored the first book and this is a great addition to this series. So many amazing tropes wrapped into this one beautiful love story - cross country road trip, opposites attract, single mom, fake marriage and instant attraction. Erin gives us amazing characters who are a bit down on their luck and throws in an amazing hero to help them work through their troubles. Allie is a struggling single mom who is doing her best - she is strong, determined and creative in order to support her and her son. Logan is the ideal man who has a big heart, work focused and is very accommodating. During their unexpected trip they find fun and exciting g adventure and help one another become better people. They face some challenges along the way but are determined to see them through…together. Towards the end you wanted to shake both of them and say get your $&@t together, open your eyes and realize what’s in front of you! Lol Thomas Locklear and Keira Stevens did a great job on the narration - they are new to me narrators but would definitely listen to them again. They did a great job of bringing out all the emotions for all the characters. I enjoy audiobooks because they bring a different dimension to the story.

What a good story!

What a good story. I was excited to dive into this one as its the second in the series and I enjoyed the first. I enjoy the Inn where these are staged and all the characters that reside there to make this another wonderful book.

I enjoyed Logan and Allie who we briefly met in the first book but they did not know each other. I liked the get to know you road trip as it sounds like they had fun. Each one of these characters has a past that they are unhappy with and they each learn to deal with it through the story.

I did listen to this on audio. Kiera Stevens and Thomas Locklear are the narrators. I loved Ms Stevens as Allie. She throughly encompassed her and I could picture her in my head. Mr Locklear, while was outstanding as Logan, I did not like his female voice. It just sounded too high pitched and falsetto and threw me off for a second when he was being Allie.

If you thought the first book was good....

I received this audio book 🔈📕as an ALC to listen to.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️out of 5️⃣ for Story
🌶️ out of 5️⃣ for spice
🔈🔈🔈🔈 out of 5️⃣ for narration

Tropes:
🥐 Single mom
🥐 Friends to lovers
🥐 Fake marriage
🥐 Millionaire
🥐 Found family

Falling Inn Love was such a good read and I knew that Baked Inn Love would be just as great. What I was not prepared for was for it to be such a good audio book! The audio book is narrated by Thomas Locklear and Keira Stevens. And holy smokes, the chemistry they have in this book is gooood!

Keira did such a great job with showing us all the emotions that Ally is going through. You can really feel her self doubt, her worries and her love when listening to her chapters. And then you have Thomas… oh Thomas. He was amazing as our Logan. His voice had just right amount of emotion in it to make us fall in love with Logan but also feel the possessiveness and love he has for Ally. I enjoyed the narration for the book.

Now the story, holy smokes the story. Ally is a single mom dealing with her baby boy revering from surgery and dealing with a dead beat dad who is trying to take over custody for her son. All the while, the dad has no idea who his son is and hasn’t even met him! Such a rollercoaster of emotions right off the bat.

The story takes us on an across the country journey with Logan and Ally. While they get to know each other, they completely fall head over heels and Logan will do anything to help Ally keep her family together. This is where all the drama comes in and I was soooo here for it. Erin Branscom is an amazing writer that really knows how to pull at our heart strings. I absolutely devoured this audiobook and I’m excited to see if the third one in the series gets an audiobook as well!

Cute Rom-Com!

This was so lovely. Such a cute Rom-Com. I love how the author gave the single mom a way to have fun and fall in love without neglecting her kid. The cross-country trip was so cute, and I loved all the little things they did together, like picking out shirt souvenirs. That ending! Oh goodness, I was in happy tears. It was so sweet and perfect.

I look forward to book three (All Inn Thyme) in this series that comes out March 2nd!

I enjoyed the female narrator and felt she did an excellent job on different depths for different characters and inflection for emotions.

A great single mom, road trip story!

I enjoyed this storyline so much! I picked it up knowing that it was a single mom road trip romance where the male main character was bribed into driving the female character across the country to help move her home as a favor to a friend, and that I really should have read book 1 first… but what this truly is, is a completely complicated and twisted road trip followed by a fake marriage, terrible ex, custody issue, a ton of heart, and found family that was just absolutely brilliant!!

And - I absolutely have to go back to the first book to get the full story of Evan and Beth! They both had huge roles in this story and now I have their future, so I need to get their background.

Allie and Caleb are a great team - until she loses her job, needs to bake up a storm to pay to move them across the country, back to her family Inn (still not sure exactly how she’ll do it), when her brother and his new wife send her literary agent Logan as a favor to help drive, while her mom flies little Caleb (with his health so poor, the long drive won’t be good for him).

They bond along the way, stop to meet his sisters, and make a plan to get fake married when Caleb’s father, for the first time, decides he’s not just ready to meet his son (for the first time), but just out-right take him. Everyone rallies and the troops come together and plans are formed to keep Allie and Caleb together, and perpetual bachelor Logan realizes that just maybe having this fake little life isn’t so bad…

Audio - both narrators were brand new voices to me. I quite liked Keira Stevens. Very good job! Thomas Locklear had a very strong male voice… such a shame about when he tried to voice the female characters… he would do well on duet style narration (when the female narrators do all the female lines)! Ouch. Otherwise, his voice was good when not trying to imitate a woman (should really, really work on that, bud).

I definitely recommend this one! I’m going back to book one now, and looking forward to book 3 coming end of March, and 4 end of June!!

I received an advance listen copy from the author and Home Cooked Books PR, and this is my honest review and feedback.

Sweet, heartfelt and fun romance!

“Baked Inn Love” is a sweet, heartfelt and fun romance that leaves you with all the good feelings of a happy romance.

Allie is a single mom who has been living on the east coast with her son, Caleb. After a very scary health scare, she’s finally able to move back home to be with her family and back at the Inn. Needing help, her brother’s girlfriend volunteers her best friend, Logan. Logan is always willinging to help his found family and agrees to help. The two quickly form a friendship and a spark between them starts. But when her son’s father tries to take her son, Logan quickly steps in and offers to help.

I loved Logan and Allie together. They are so cute and I could feel their instant connection as I listened. Logan is such a genuine guy and I loved how he immediately stood up for Allie and did whatever he could to help and protect her. Allie is so sweet and the struggles she went through a single mom broke my heart but she’s so strong as well. Their friendship was so sweet and I loved how naturally it progressed into more. It never felt rushed or forced. This series has been a joy to listen to and I can’t wait for the next book.

Keira Stevens and Thomas Locklear narrated this audiobook and they did a great job bringing this story to life. Thomas brought all of Logan’s passion and protectiveness. Kiera was great as Allie bringing her independence and genuine personality to life. I loved listening to these two and will be looking for more books narrated by them.

Logan is an absolute total catch

Logan is Beth’s best friend, & he’ll do anything for her. So when she asks him to travel from California to Freedom Valley, New Hampshire with her soon to be sister-in-law to help her move, he agrees…not without a little incentive though.

Allie has been handed a tough hand in her adult life, but she seems to be able to survive at every turn. She followed her brother to California, but stayed because of a decent job & because of her son, Caleb. When she loses her job, she now has no reason to stay away from where she always considered home…the family inn in Freedom Valley.

Logan is a godsend for Allie as she uproots her life in California. Not only is he along for the ride, but he helps her pack up & helps her say one final farewell to Cali. Their cross-country road trip is full of quirky moments & it seems like they had a lot of fun. Some work was thrown in for Logan, but Allie just rolled with the punches. I loved the way that they just clicked & seemed to fit so well.

There were a few hurdles from several different directions that they had to jump, but for the most part, they took them in stride. One of the biggest hurdles broke me right along with Logan though. Allie making decisions for him made me angry. But in the end, they were able to work through it.

The way Logan just took to Caleb and vice versa was adorable & should’ve been Allie’s first indication that Logan was something special.

Audiobook Review:
Keira Stevens & Thomas Locklear’s narration was audibly pleasing. Their portrayal of these characters were perfect & well done.

Road Trip Love!

Logan agrees to help Allie move across the country, back to her hometown, because he owed his best friend a favor. With the trip being so long, they have many stops along the way and have a lot of time to get to know each other. On the trip, Allie's ex, the father of her child, who has been out of her life for years, reaches out to her and tells her he wants custody of their son. Allie and Logan agree to get married to show the court that they are able to better provide for her child than her ex. Logan doesn't want to be a father or a family man, so a fake marriage works out for him, right?

Allie and Logan are an adorable couple you will find yourself rooting for before they even start their trip. Logan brings out a side of Allie that seems to have been hidden for a while and you can see her start to open up to Logan along the way. We also get to see why Logan feels he can't provide Allie with what her and her son need. Once they arrive back to Allie's hometown and the inn her family runs, Logan gets to see how special this place really is to Allie.

Baked Inn Love is book two of Erin Branscom's Freedom Valley series. It's super cute and a quick, clean listen. Kiera Stevens and Thomas Locklear narrated this book and did a great job at bringing Allie and Logan to life!

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF: You love cute and clean romances with some family drama and a unique HEA.

Sweet and Heartwarming!

This is the second book in the Freedom Valley Series. Allie and Logan's friends to lover and fake relationship is sweet, and heartwarming, filled with drama, and twists and turns. Allie, a single Mom, is beautiful, smart, caring, and determined. Logan is very handsome, supportive, and protective. They are opposites attract, and they are perfect together. I loved to follow them in their journey to love. Allie's son is so cute! The supporting characters are great. The family bond in the story is amazing. Keira Stevens and Thomas Locklear did an excellent job bringing this story to life. The ending is so beautiful! I enjoyed it. Looking forward to more in the series. #HomeCookedBooks

Sweet Road Trip Romance

What starts as a quick road trip coast to coast begins the journey of a lifetime. Baked Inn Love is a sweet road trip Romcom. More lighthearted than book one, Baked Inn Love is a charming reminder that love can be found when you least expect it. If you like a fun, low-steam, heartfelt romance, add Baked Inn Love to your TBR.

Thomas Locklear and Keira Stevens are new-to-me narrators. I enjoyed their performances. They matched well in style and pacing. At times I struggled with Thomas’ voice for female characters, but his characterization of Logan was wonderful. His voice has a gravelly, unwavering, sultry tone that fits Logan. Keira gave a delightful performance as Allie throughout her blossoming character arc. Baked Inn Love is an endearing love story and fun audiobook.