The main characters in ‘Latte darling’ are Maddison (Maddie) Richards, who’s 31 years old and Axel Davis, who’s 52 years old. Both have their own business. Maddie owns a coffee shop and Axels is owner of a body shop. They meet on a blind date. (Although the blind date was actually meant with Axel’s son Brian and not Axel! But it’s Axel who shows up for the date.) From the beginning there’s chemistry between them. Both think the other is too good for them but the attraction between them is too great to ignore so they start seeing each other. During the story they will have to overcome two obstacles. They will have to confess their relationship to Axel’s son Brian and a few negative, bad comments from a relative on Axel’s side makes Maddie very insecure about herself and her body and makes her question their relationship. Can Axel convince her that they belong together?
This story took me a bit by surprise. It was a lot steamier than I expected but I liked it!
From the blurb I knew that there would be a big age gap between Maddie and Axel (Axel’s son Brian was 20 years old if you were wondering about that) but the ‘daddy’ talk in the bedroom took me by surprise. But then the big age gap made the use of that word in the bedroom sort of ‘logical’. Anyway I liked it and even more so that there were some funny conversations about the word ‘daddy’ in the story too. Maddie and Axel were great characters in their own way.
Maddie’s parents died when she was only 18 years old, so she had to grow up fast. Although Maddie had a great life she was also very lonely. She wanted someone to love and care for her. But her shyness and sensitivity made it difficult to find someone. Until the thought of going alone to her best friend’s wedding made her desperate enough to try a dating app, not knowing that that would be the start of a new love and chapter in her life.
Axel was something else. A big, muscled silver fox with a lot of tattoos, you would think that this bossy, alpha, grumpy guy would scare Maddie but NO. For the first glance, she’s attracted to him and his body and more importantly she felt safe with him. They were really perfect for each other. Maddie was insecure about her curvy body but Axel really did his best to show her in different ways that he loved her curves. And yes, he was very bossy and overprotective but Maddie loved it.
I read in some other book reviews that they found Maddie too passive and compliant in the relationship and I can understand why they said that but I had no problem with that. Maddie just had a very sweet and gentle character and she was very submissive. That made her and Axel the perfect couple because he was super bossy outside and inside the bedroom.
The secondary characters consisted of Maddie’s and Axel’s employees and Axel’s son, they were great characters. This was a light, steamy and funny story where the main focus was on the couple. (We didn’t learn much of their past, just what was needed for the story.) There was an epilogue at the end and I enjoyed that very much.
