Baked to perfection.
When a high-strung pastry chef learns that her dream job is at stake, her carefully organized life transforms into a four-course meal without a recipe in this delicious debut.
Simone Larkspur, 28, is nothing if not by the book. After studying her apron off at Le Cordon Bleu, she scored her dream gig as a recipe developer and writer for The Discerning Chef, a cookbook and magazine publisher in Manhattan’s West Village. So when her boss, culinary giant Pim Gladly, lets Simone know that TDC is losing money, her pastry-perfect world is turned upside down. In order to save TDC’s empire, they'll have to pivot to video, which is not in Simone’s comfort zone, to say the least. To Simone’s dismay, Pim hires an entire team of videographers, including “windbag” Chase McDonald, to help her and the other chefs record trendy recipe videos. Also new to the crew is kitchen manager Rachel “Ray” Lyton, whose positive energy and infectious laughter irk Simone most of all. It’s not that Simone is jealous of Ray for being out and proud or that she herself is private about being bisexual; it’s that Ray’s personality is the complete opposite of Simone’s. Ray is open, approachable, and flirtatious, whereas “innuendo and subtle interest bounced off Simone like off a good nonstick pan.” While Simone would like nothing more than to grapple with her feelings for Ray alone, their on-screen chemistry does wonders for TDC’s popularity, and they both become instant online celebrities. But when Ray is discriminated against after coming out to the team as nonbinary, Simone realizes that maybe her perfect job isn’t so perfect after all. Alexander whips up a delectable couple with Ray and Simone; they are each on their own journeys for self-awareness and self-confidence, which they gratifyingly achieve on an individual level. Alexander’s romance confronts workplace discrimination, internal biases, and issues like transphobia and misgendering with ease.
Baked to perfection.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-8908-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.
A TV producer and a detective try to stop a strange pattern of young women disappearing.
In “Auclair, Loooziana,” disillusioned detective John Bowie reluctantly meets in a bar with Beth Collins, producer for the true crime show Crisis Point. She needs to interview him about the disastrous case of the missing Crissy Mellin, but he refuses. The teenager disappeared three years ago on the night of a blood moon and hasn’t been found, but a suspect hanged himself in jail after signing a confession. Case closed, says John’s boss. But John is convinced that their prisoner could not have been guilty, and he’s deeply upset at his failure. “The Mellin case messed up your life,” Beth tells him. She persuades John that Crissy’s disappearance is the latest of a series that happen on the night of a blood moon, the colloquial term for a total lunar eclipse. “It’s going to happen again,” she predicts. And wouldn’t you know, another blood moon is coming in four days. Tick, tick, tick. Beth’s boss at Crisis Point insists on airing an update on the case, but Beth knows the show is going to get it wrong, and its reputation will be ruined. Meanwhile, there’s an electric sexual tension between Beth and John that the author toys with nicely—do they, or don’t they? The answer plays out in detail more than once. The characters are fun if easy to pigeonhole: the detective angry at his failure, the honest (and beautiful) outsider eager to do her job but susceptible to love, the hero’s corrupt (to say the least) boss, and the ogre who carries out said boss’s dirtiest deeds. Even John’s dog, Mutt, plays a small but vital role. When John found him, he’d been “a flea-bitten hide wrapped around a skeleton that whimpered.” Little plot devices are easy to spot, like the phone that rings at a crucial moment, or the handgun that John places in Beth’s hand for her protection. Does Chekhov’s guideline apply here? The romantic angle leavens the dark theme, and readers will have plenty of incentives to turn the pages.
A satisfying crime novel with a side order of romance.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781538742983
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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