by Cathy Cormany from the April 24, 2025 issue
Tagline: Hugh's sister is on a mission to set him up, but Hugh's too busy running his bakery to notice--until he meets Josie. With flour on her cheek and a love for sweet treats, she just might be the recipe he needs for romance!
Observations: Were you guys fooled by this story too? I totally thought Claire was the love interest! I love being surprised.
I wanted to discuss verisimilitude in Woman's World stories. The degree of reality in these stories is fluid. Where I live in surburbia, there are pretty much no mom and pop type bakeries. There are grocery stores and chain bakeries like Panera, Nothing Bundt Cakes (hate that name), Corner Bakery and the like. There is a cake place - but that's more specialty baking like for weddings. Other than that, Corner Bakery is called that because they want you to feel like you're in the type of bakery that doesn't exist anymore.
But in the world of Woman's World stories, they certainly do. As I've said before, there is a certain amount of nostalgia present in the romances, mainly and probably because of the demographic skewing toward older women.
So if you're someone like me, who strives to ground her stories in reality (is it safe for the heroine to say yes to a man who invites her to dinner at his house when she just met him in the grocery store?) remember the fact that you can sculpt the world of your story to fit the tone of WW's published stories and expectations of the readers.
Photo by Greta Ceresini via Flickr CC License
4 comments:
Hi Kate! I also live near several small bakeries and bagel shops! Perhaps they’re making a comeback. Thanks as always for your feedback. Always so interesting.
I thought this was a cute story.
I live in an area where we have a family owned bakery. I think fourth or fifth generation. We also have a bagel shop and other bakeries within driving distance.
Funny how settings in stories relate to each reader.
Nostalgia's my undeclared middle name and big part of my taste since my teens, but while mom-and-pop bakeries are getting to be a rarity (like independent bookstores 😔), here in SoCal there are a few left in the wild. Thanks for the comments. Inspiration for this one came from a TV commercial, and an editor, way back in the day saying she liked mistaken identity stories. 🤭
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