BRIOCHE IN THE OVEN

A fresh romance is put through its paces when an accidental pregnancy complicates a business expansion.

Building on Brownlee's last book, Fromage à Trois (2018), Australian expatriate Ella and French cheesemonger Serge’s Parisian relationship is tested when Ella announces she’s pregnant. Having dated for less than a year, the couple must navigate the prospect of starting a family at the same time Serge is opening another shop. But Serge insists that their cramped Paris apartment is no place to raise a baby, and they make haste to some farmland in the bucolic Loire Valley. It’s an adjustment for the more metropolitan Ella, and the somewhat isolated countryside exacerbates the fact that Ella and Serge are still relative strangers to one another. The language is a bit twee and quaint, lapsing into caricatured, italicized French from time to time. Food and, of course, cheese play a large role in Ella and Serge’s relationship, from discussing it to making it to eating it; this is an unusual aspect of their life, but it becomes tedious around the halfway point. The pacing and tone feel a lot like a lazy Sunday afternoon watching made-for-TV movies. Even if you fall asleep, you won't miss much, and it’s not necessarily worth it to rewind and catch up on what you’ve missed. Though the book feels like a love letter to France and its culture, most of the magic of exploration and new experiences seems to have been used up in the first volume.

An uninspiring sequel.