Mom Com

By: Adriana Mather

Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie

“Clever, hilarious, and—most importantly—a whole lot of fun…This is a perfect holiday love story.” (Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Adriana Mather comes a heartwarming tale of love, family, and pastry perfection.

Maddi DeLuca is coming home for the holidays with her nine-year-old son, only it’s not the triumphant return she might have hoped for. She recently broke down on a reality TV baking show, letting the entire country know she feels like a colossal failure, and she can be certain her mother will remind her of all the ways she hasn’t lived up to expectations over the years.

Ten years ago, all Maddi dreamed of was running her father’s beloved bakery in their tiny coastal town of Haverberry Cove, Massachusetts. Her best friend, Wilder Buenaventura, had his own dream—a life with Maddi. And for one brilliant moment when they were seventeen, those dreams collided. They baked together. They loved each other insatiably. But like a fallen soufflé, their relationship imploded, taking their lifelong friendship with it.

If she had her way, Maddi would have stayed in California, hiding her head in its beautiful white sands. But at her mother’s request, she has returned to her hometown to help deal with an urgent matter concerning her father’s will and his nostalgia-filled bakery. What Maddi doesn’t know is that this issue also mysteriously involves the one person she’s spent forever trying to forget—Wilder. Now she finds herself forced to make an impossible decision: give up her father’s bakery and her lifelong dream, or find a way to coexist with Wilder without murdering him with a cookie cutter.

©2023 Adriana Mather (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

Don’t miss this amazing story!

This story had me in tears at points, laughing at others. And enjoying the romance throughout. Normally, I prefer not to cry during my romances however, this was so well written that I’m really glad I chose to walk through the experience with the heroine. This is a not to be missed experience.

Good characters

I really liked the story and the characters. Wish I had bought this one for Kindle instead of Audible though because the flashbacks came with no warning, and I found it jarring and confusing. It would take me a few lines to figure out whether we were in the past or the present.

Not anything as promised in the summary or cover

With a title of Mom Com, I was amazed at how little Maddie’s or Wilder’s mom’s factored in and disappointed at the almost nonexistent comedy, Likewise, the holiday backdrop promised in the summary was miserly and if you took out the chapter intros describing random desserts, there was little time actually spent baking or running the bakery.

Instead of what I thought I’d get, this was 11 hours of relationship drama between two unlikable people.
There’s Wilder “the grass is always greener and I’ll let others chart my relationship paths” Buenaventura. His mild manners and abject failure to talk to Maddi and just go for their second chance romance made him someone I couldn’t root for.

There’s Maddi “the glass is always half empty and it’s always everyone else’s fault” DeLucca.
She’s ungrateful and judgmental- like starting off with her thinking how dare I get to inherit half a bakery if the other half goes to my childhood sweetheart? She bemoans everything: she’s poor, a single mom, just lost her dad (who she’s been apart from for 10 yrs), has to live up to her appearance-focused mom, has a disappointing career path, shares custody of her kid with a lukewarm ex, had an embarrassing viral moment … I was screaming in my mind to just stop with the pity party. And egads! It’s 10.5 hrs into this 11 hr book before these two numskulls tell each other why they really broke up, or why her dad twisted his will. They could have gotten to their HEA with one conversation.

Then there’s the little annoyances, like unnecessary F bombs, especially when there’s no sex scenes. There’s an abnormally large amount of flashbacks to high school, but without any signposting to signal that these were memories. The only thing I liked about this was the narration.