Mary Jayne Baker Books In Order

Publication Order of Love in the Dales Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Miss Moonshine's Wonderful Emporium Books

Mary Jayne Baker is a Yorkshire award winning romance author. She was raised in the rural West Yorkshire heart of Bronte country. After her graduation from Durham University with a degree in English Literature, Mary spent years living across different cities in Nottingham, London, and Cambridge. Mary Jayne writes romance stories with a flawed heroine and alpha males, which won her the 2020 Romantic Novelists Association Award. She also writes contemporary women’s fiction books under the pen name Lisa Swift, cosy mystery books as Penny Blackwell and wartime sagas as Gracie Taylor and Betty Firth.

The 2020 Mary Jayne Baker’s novel, The Never Have I Ever Club, is Robyn Bloom’s story. For once in a long time, Robyn thought that her life was finally falling into place as Ash, the man she thought she would be spending the rest of her life with, was preparing to move in with her. Unfortunately, bad luck has a way of getting into Robyn’s life. Out of nowhere, Ash breaks up with her and relocates to a country halfway across the planet, where he gets into a relationship with a woman ten years younger than Robyn.
In an effort to move on with a broken heart, Robyn forms a new club for her rural village dubbed- the Never Have I Ever Club, where the members are prompted to try out new things that they’ve always wanted in life but never actually done. Soon the club became so popular as everyone wanted to try out all the activities on their bucket lists in various ways. And soon, Robyn finds herself confiding in a man named Will.

The two have been good friends since high school, but since Ash skipped town, he gets a new level of trust and understanding from Robyn, and soon the two fall in love. But the problem is that Will is Ash’s identical twin and is the opposite of his brother. Even worse, Ash realizes he made a mistake leaving Robyn and decides to return home and ask for a second chance, putting Will in the crosshairs. Will Robyn find true love in Will and have a happily ever after, or will she break his heart and give a second chance to the man who once broke hers?

The Never Have I Ever Club is a romance of the best kind you will ever read. There is no obvious answer to this love dilemma until the very last few pages of the book. It’s a perfect story for readers who enjoy reading will they, won’t they type of novels. Mary Jayne did a fantastic job in characterization, creating characters that are both engaging and relatable. You will find yourself caring about the situation Will and Robyn find themselves in and clearly see the problem that lies before Will. This tale never moves in a mawkish kind of style but instead stays modern and also spirited.

Overall, this is a heartwarming love triangle, the heroine is quirky, and the relationship between Will and her unfolds gently. It’s not a book that promises to change the world, but it’s a story that you need when you need a happy book to read while away for a few hours.
Love at First Fight novel mainly follows the story of two main characters, Bridie and Ben. However, there are plenty of supporting characters, including Hattie and Cal. The story is narrated from both Ben and Bridie’s point of view allowing you to sink in deeper into the respective character’s thoughts. The author also tells bits of the story from Hattie and Cal’s perspective, and this helps allow for an extra dose of drama to the love triangle.
At the start of the novel, we meet Bridie as she embarks on a journey for twenty dates on twenty dates so that she can prove to herself she’s never compatible with any man and that she doesn’t need any man. She has had dates before, but this time round, she hopes the dates will be good enough to take on her best friend’s birthday.

Behind all these struggles, Ben Kemp is the reason as to why Bridie cannot seem to find a perfect match good enough for her. Ben was her friend when they were teenagers and through high school. Bridie falls in love with him, and because of her anxiety and pigheadedness, the friendship ends on not-so-good terms, and everyone else in town knows they are nemesis.

Ben has returned home and finds himself faced with Bridie and cant withstand the contempt she holds for him. He decides to try and find out why they hate, and so does Bridie. On the other hand, we meet Bridie’s friend Hattie who’s in a relationship with Ben’s brother Cal. The two are deeply in love, and it seems nothing can stand in their way until Cal’s ex-girlfriend, a famous YouTube makeup artist, comes into the picture, and everything goes awry.

There is a lot going on in this story. Mary Jayne has created characters that feel so realistic, down-to-earth young men and women with very ordinary lives. Bridie and Hattie are high school teachers, Ben does adventure tours on muddy moors, and Cal is a mechanic. They are all funny, with strong bonds and relationships amongst themselves, and their banter is genuinely amusing.

One of the highlights of the story is the dialogue between Bridie and Ben. Through this dialogue, the author manages to create a convincing level of animosity between these two main characters by showing the readers that Ben left the woman she loves alone out during prom night. Who wouldn’t hold such a grudge if something of that nature happened to them? This background, combined with the other interactions during wedding preparations, all add to a good dose of humorous fights between Ben and Bridie. Overall, Love at First Fight is a classic rom-com story highly recommended to the fans of The UnHoneymooners by Christina Lauren. A romance book like this never gets old and is always entertaining.