Hot Gooey Hex

She baked him by accident. Now he’s too hot to handle.

Poppy Bell doesn’t believe in fate—or magic. She believes in espresso, sarcasm, and vintage velvet. So when her Great-Aunt Myrtle leaves her a quirky thrift bakery called “Hex & Honey”, Poppy heads to the small town of Moonriver Cove ready to sell, snack, and split.

But “Hex & Honey” isn’t just a secondhand bakery filled with abandoned mixers and cursed Bundt pans. It’s enchanted—and it’s hungry. One accidental spell later, Poppy conjures something very strange in the flour bin: Rye, a six-foot-three cinnamon roll golem with golden skin, a body sculpted by literal magic, and an unexplainable hunger for… her.

He’s made of enchanted flour, sugar, and who-knows-what else—but he walks, talks, bakes like a dream, and worships the ground Poppy stomps on in her cherry-red Doc Martens. Oh, and he smells like vanilla and sin.

Now Poppy’s stuck with a kitchen full of magical mayhem, a town full of nosy locals, and a golem boyfriend who thinks she’s the reason the stars were invented. But someone (or something) wants Rye gone, and if they can’t figure out why the bakery is activating ancient love spells, Poppy could lose everything—including the only man who’s ever made her feel perfectly made.

• Hot Gooey Hex by Sammie Jackson
• Published By: (unknown – will update when available) on August 20, 2025
• Genre: Romance, fantasy
• Pages: 132
• Dates/Time Read: 7.26.2025 – 7.31.2025 (6 days); 2 hours 2 minutes
• Format: eBook
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• ⭐⭐⭐
• 🌶🌶

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I’ll be totally transparent with this review. I have never read a novella (I don’t think?). I ignorantly overlooked the fact that this book was a novella when I signed up for the ARC team for this book. Not a huge deal. But I will admit that my inexperience with novellas may lead to my being a bit skewed in my opinion of the book. I have read short stories, though. My understanding is that a novella is more or less in the middle of a short story and a full novel.

When I first read the synopsis of this book, it really grabbed my attention. I’m learning to love fantasy books, and what female doesn’t enjoy a romance? I read a lot of thrillers in July, so I thought this would be a perfectly sweet romance to end the tense reading month that I’ve had. And I was right! It was a sweet, cozy, romantasy. I enjoyed the story, found it entertaining, but…I wanted more from it. Is that because it was a novella? Possibly. But I still can’t deny the fact that I think the author could have given a bit more. I’ll explain.

I chose you,” he said. “Not because of the magic. Not because I was programmed to. But because you feel like home.

There was one major annoyance that I had with this novella. About 75% of the book is single-sentence “paragraphs”. The book is 132 pages long. However, if you condensed all of these single-sentence paragraphs down into more typical paragraph lengths, the book would probably end up being more around 60 pages in length. Not a big deal, unless you’re trying to fluff up your page count so it can be considered a novella, maybe? That seems a bit dishonest. I felt like the author could have made better use of their time by fleshing out the characters a bit more, giving the reader a bit more of the backstory of the FMC. Because I really enjoyed the plot. I loved the FMC! She was sassy and funny. But I felt such a disconnect from her because I understood nothing about her as a character.

This led me to not understand why she was heartbroken or why she was so against her feelings for Rye (the MMC). I mean, sure! What woman hasn’t suffered from some kind of heartbreak? It isn’t that I need the details, but I also can’t just jump into having empathy for someone if I don’t really understand what’s happened. The whole premise of how/why she creates Rye was because she was unable to sleep as she lay there thinking over all of her life decisions. The only backstory we’re given about Poppy is that she’s baked through three heartbreaks and one roommate betrayal. And this is why I feel my lack of experience with novella may negatively impact my feelings for the book. I’m used to having more details. But, as stated already…I seriously think there were missed opportunities by the author to fill in at least a little bit of the information to make the reader care that much more about Poppy and Rye.

The other thing I disliked about the story was the author’s overuse of the phrase “should/could have been illegal in x states/counties”. She used this phrase three times in the entire novella! That seems excessive for a 132-page book. Especially when there are so many one-sentence paragraphs!! lol It made this phrase stick out to me like a sore thumb. Overall, I enjoyed the plot, the characters, and the closed-door romance. I’d even watch this if it were a movie or a show! haha But the author’s writing style and overuse of that phrase kind of killed it for me a bit.