Raspberry Kisses~Cecelia Dowdy | Review

This review is brought to you by my sister Katie. (I'm trying to convince her to start a book blog).

Title: Raspberry Kisses (The Bakery Romance Series #1)
Author: Cecelia Dowdy
Genre: Christian Romance
Length: 271 Pages (Kindle)
Publication: December 2014
My Rating: 5/5 Stars


I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

To find out more about the novel, click the title which will link you to the goodreads page.

Review

This novel follows Rhea Morrison, a young widow facing eviction from her apartment and will be forced to close her bakery. When she borrows money from her twin sister Raven she agrees to go on a singles retreat to spy on Martin Lane, a pastor Raven claims to be dating. 

The characters were well developed and multidimensional. Rhea was a likable protagonist and reading about her development of a new recipe for her bakery was interesting. Her growing connection with Martin and his involvement with her bakery added a nice storyline for the novel to follow.

Each of the characters were fighting demons of their own and their interactions with each other brought out the depth of their personalities. Rhea lost her husband only two short years ago and has sworn of pastors. Martin's present situation is constantly hindered by his past mistakes. As the characters faced their own fears and insecurities they were able to draw more closely together while keeping each other at bay, creating a realistic setting. 

The novel was very well written and easy to follow. Dowdy was able to bring the characters to life through her imaginative style. The novel also had a strong focus on Christianity that I really enjoyed.

The only downside of this novel was that some of the plot elements were executed rather slowly. It felt like some of the major plot lines could have converged earlier on in the novel and made the ending that much better. 

Overall I really enjoyed this novel. I am eager to see if the later installments in this series will feature Rhea and Martin or move onto other characters as the focus. I will definitely be reading the following novels once they are released. 

~Katie~