Review: "Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot" by Alexis Hall

Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot by Alexis Hall
Published December 2025 via Piatkus
★★★

Back in the world of everyone's favorite rip-off of The Great British Bake Off! Not actually sarcasm—I love me a good Bake Off–inspired book, and the Winner Bakes All series (which takes place largely on the set of the entirely-fictional-not-at-all-based-directly-on-a-real-life-show Bake Expectations) is in fact a good set of reads.

Audrey Lane is the latest protagonist to find herself on set. She's a journalist with a sharp eye for the undercurrents—so although she hopes to do well, she's well aware that she's been cast as much for the sake of appearances (have to have a diverse cast, visually as well as demographically) as much as for her ability to bake; it would be nice to win, but she can see the story the producers are setting up a mile away, and that story does not include Audrey in the top three. And: She discovers early on that the things that interest her most about the competition are 1) the backstory of the oldest contestant on the show, which the producer absolutely does not want her to investigate, and 2) that producer herself.

The romance is...what it is. Audrey decides early on not to be put off by Jennifer's foul-mouthed rudeness, but Jennifer has been so consistently foul-mouthed and rude throughout the earlier books that it's impossible for her to be something else. And I'm not entirely sure what to do with her. If Jennifer were a male character, she'd be right up there with the horrible leads from 80s romance novels (although with a great deal more consent involved, so there's that). And as a female character, I...also don't like her that much? I don't know. It strikes me that Aubrey interacts with Jennifer mostly (not entirely) on Jennifer's turf, and mostly (not entirely) around people who have spent a lot of time around Jennifer and learned how much of her bark is also bite. And I guess I just wonder how much time Audrey is eventually going to spend assuring her friends that Jennifer isn't actually awful.

(Side note: I do love Audrey's analysis of the way she and her ex differ: Natalie had been different. For her, it had always been about Truth with a capital T. Where are the bodies buried and who buried them and who paid for the shovels? But all Audrey had ever really wanted to do was to ask what happened next? (loc. 3661))

The backstory with Doris—the oldest contestant—is in fact intriguing, though it kind of suffers from the same thing that Audrey's relationship with Jennifer does. Doris is now in her 90s and no shrinking violet, but I suppose...at least when Jennifer isn't swearing her little potty mouth off (and, in fact, when she is), she treats Audrey like an equal. I couldn't decide whether or not to root for Doris to get a "happy" ending, so...do with that what you will.

What I really did love: the baking. This seems like such an obvious thing for a Bake Off rip-off, but as it turns out (I've read more than my fair share by now), it's not! So I was honestly just thrilled to get details about every dang bake—some details more detailly than others, sure, but none of this "and then they all made cupcakes and wow! Some of them were chocolate! And then there were some others, okay, moving on now". No, Hall takes pains to think about what each challenge is, what each contestant might try, and how it might work out; better, it's not just window dressing but part of the plot. I haven't loved the romances in the past couple of these books, but I would keep reading just for the way Hall thinks through the plot-within-the-plot.