Scorched by my Monster Twin Ovens
(2026)(The fourth book in the Sweet Rise Bakery - A Kitchen Monster RomCom series)
A novel by Krista Larae
Jordan doesn't call at 3 a.m. Jordan isn't a 3 a.m. person.
So when my phone rang at 2:58, and it was him, whispering from a locked bathroom while three very polite men knocked on the door, I knew the Flour Council had stopped following its own rules.
They took the kindest man I know to make me flinch. Instead, I did the one thing nobody has done in two hundred years. I demanded the Proving. Three rounds of ritual baking in front of the High Table, in my own kitchen, in five business days, with my life as the entry fee. Other bakers have tried. None of them survived Round Three. The app that tracks my bonds sent me a notification that said, "Do not plan on success," then asked me to rate its guidance.
I have a sentient German mixer who wants me to weigh the blueberries. I have a French rolling pin who wants me to feel them. I have a Neapolitan espresso machine who wants me to plate them on a slate and, as the young people say, aura max. I have Jess and her color-coded legal pads, Winter and her pun board, a cat who has adopted my mixing bowl, and a sourdough starter who crossed the Oregon Trail. What I don't have is the faintest idea what Transcendence means.
Then the twin ovens that came with the building start talking.
Ovendon is six feet of bleached hair, black leather, and open flame, and he thinks I bully dough for a living. Bakeford is his brother, immaculate, patient, and hiding a great deal more metal than his twin. They've been sealed in ovens for two centuries. They've been listening to me for five years. And they know exactly why every baker before me failed.
The Council wants me harvested. My kitchen is on fire, and I mean that literally; the suppression system went off. And the only way through the Proving is to stop controlling everything and let the heat in close enough to burn.
Fine. But I'm wearing the apron that says This Bitch Can Bake.
Book 4 of the Sweet Rise Bakery series, a why-choose monster romcom about a Portland baker and the appliances who love her. Explicit, funny, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Book 5 finishes the Proving.
Content note: explicit why-choose scenes. Kidnapping of a side character (he's fine, he made friends). A kitchen fire. A cat in a FedEx truck.
Genre: Romance
So when my phone rang at 2:58, and it was him, whispering from a locked bathroom while three very polite men knocked on the door, I knew the Flour Council had stopped following its own rules.
They took the kindest man I know to make me flinch. Instead, I did the one thing nobody has done in two hundred years. I demanded the Proving. Three rounds of ritual baking in front of the High Table, in my own kitchen, in five business days, with my life as the entry fee. Other bakers have tried. None of them survived Round Three. The app that tracks my bonds sent me a notification that said, "Do not plan on success," then asked me to rate its guidance.
I have a sentient German mixer who wants me to weigh the blueberries. I have a French rolling pin who wants me to feel them. I have a Neapolitan espresso machine who wants me to plate them on a slate and, as the young people say, aura max. I have Jess and her color-coded legal pads, Winter and her pun board, a cat who has adopted my mixing bowl, and a sourdough starter who crossed the Oregon Trail. What I don't have is the faintest idea what Transcendence means.
Then the twin ovens that came with the building start talking.
Ovendon is six feet of bleached hair, black leather, and open flame, and he thinks I bully dough for a living. Bakeford is his brother, immaculate, patient, and hiding a great deal more metal than his twin. They've been sealed in ovens for two centuries. They've been listening to me for five years. And they know exactly why every baker before me failed.
The Council wants me harvested. My kitchen is on fire, and I mean that literally; the suppression system went off. And the only way through the Proving is to stop controlling everything and let the heat in close enough to burn.
Fine. But I'm wearing the apron that says This Bitch Can Bake.
Book 4 of the Sweet Rise Bakery series, a why-choose monster romcom about a Portland baker and the appliances who love her. Explicit, funny, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Book 5 finishes the Proving.
Content note: explicit why-choose scenes. Kidnapping of a side character (he's fine, he made friends). A kitchen fire. A cat in a FedEx truck.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Krista Larae's Scorched by my Monster Twin Ovens