4 Star
Priya Patel has wanted to become a baker since the first time she saw the light of her Easy Bake Oven. However, working as an assistant baker at Sugarplum Fairy Cakes isn’t the glamorous life she dreamed about. Priya tries to impress her boss, Helen Bouffant, with creative twists on traditional recipes but her culinary skills are completely ignored as she is forced to scrub toilets and clean up everyone else’s mess. After Priya is blamed for a major screw up at Sugarplum Fairy Cakes, she decides to throw in her apron. With the support of her husband, Arj, and a kick in the pants from her best friend, Mae, she decides to start her own cupcakery.
Just when Priya thinks she’s washed her hands of Helen once and for all, they both enter a charity bake off with a grand prize of $10,000. Priya will have to cook the most creative, delicious cupcakes of her life and defend herself against Helen, who will stop at nothing to see Priya and her cupcakery fail. The competition gets heated but there is one thing that will keep Priya going- the love of cupcakes. Does she have what it takes to win the bake-off? Whose talent will prevail?
Sabrina-Kate - 4 Star
I was pleased to have been the person chosen to review For the Love of Cupcakes as I enjoyed it quite a lot but that may be due in part to two things: I have always loved all things Indian and I also have always loved cupcakes, long before there was a cupcake craze. So for those two reasons but not those two alone, I loved this cute little book.
Priya was a totally likable character who seemed to have a great support system and fantastic luck at surmounting all of the many things that seemed to try and prevent her from succeeding in her cupcakery endeavor. You know the type of character that is just someone you like so much that you cheer every little victory and boo for every minor defeat? That was exactly the type of character that Priya was for me.
This book was the perfect mix of traditional Indian with little touches of recipes, tradition and language mixed in with a modern Canadian story. And this is where my tiny issue with the book comes in - there were some issues with locations in the book. Sometimes they would mention something in Montreal and then something in Ottawa but the story was supposed to take part in only one city so it confused me.
That being said, I was surprised that For the Love of Cupcakes was a debut novel as I found the story was well thought out, the characters well developed and the pacing was excellent. I look forward to hearing more from Kushwaha and can only hope that it will be soon. I also look forward to trying some of the original east-west fusion cupcake recipes that she provided at the end of the book!
Thank you to Take Two Publishing for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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