The Romance Recipe
Ratings8
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.4
"Ruby Barrett's writing leaves me breathless." --Rosie Danan A fiery restaurant owner falls for her enigmatic head chef in this charming, emotional romance Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak. Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie's skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane... Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer. Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn't want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn't want to deal with Amy's take-charge personality and she doesn't want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean... Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there's more than just the restaurant at stake. Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters. Book 1: Hot Copy Book 2: The Romance Recipe
Reviews with the most likes.
There's “slow-burn” and then there's glacial. I didn't even care enough to finish.
3.5, rounding up. Also, this COVER, so good! One of the MCs here is a bisexual powerlifter, so I was fully prepared to love this, and I did love the ... not quite a slow burn, since they get together relatively early, but the mutual pining and crushing on each other was a lot of fun to read. The character dynamics got pretty repetitive and frustrating to read, and it felt like they were having the same argument over and over with no resolution. I have legitimately no idea what happened at the end of the book - like did Sophie end up doing the TV show? Is the restaurant still open? I kind of wish the book had been in close-third person instead of alternating first-person narration, because I don't think the narrative voice was super-well differentiated between the two MCs. I enjoyed this overall, and I'm definitely enjoying the mini-trend of cooking/restaurant-themed romance, though it does make me hungry.
