Through community and baking, Amy navigates being a queer woman in sometimes-conservative Tulsa, and her people-pleasing instincts. The story centers on Amy, a baker and bartender in Tulsa, OK, who is trying to figure out how to navigate a crush on a new-in-town lesbian working in the oil industry.
In her debut romance novel Queerly Beloved, author Susie Dumond makes weddings, and therefore cake, a central part of the narrative. Though wedding traditions, and who is allowed to participate, have changed over the generations, cake remains a must in Western culture. It acts as a metaphor for the whole celebration - a little fussy, a little expensive, and tricky to get right but incredibly rewarding and sweet when you do. There is nothing that evokes a wedding quite as much as a big, fluffy cake.
