Can't Stand the Heat
Louisa EdwardsContemporary romance
Available from St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 978-0-312-35649-1
September 2009
| Sexy chef and restaurant owner Adam Temple dares the extremely critical food critic Miranda Wake that she can't make it a day in his kitchen. Then her publisher and his financial backer get into the challenge and change the terms to a month. Miranda is excited; this could be her big break for excellent tell-all kind of material for the book she's been trying to write and how hard could it be to cook? Adam does not want his restaurant to suffer and has no intention of cutting the tantalizing redhead any slack. If you can't cook in his kitchen, you have to get out. When Adam discovers that Miranda really can't cook, he offers her some private lessons on cooking and passion that Miranda isn't likely to ever forget!
I love the premise of this book, a know-it-all food critic that can't cook butting heads and more with a hunky chef with lots to lose if he can't influence her opinion. The main story is fabulous and I loved the constant bickering and making up between the main characters. There are great cooking tips and incites to the world of a professional chef. There is also a cast of kooky secondary characters to keep the story light and very entertaining except I don't like to find surprises in my books that is material that I don't want to read. The main character's brother and one of the other cooks develop a homosexual relationship that goes a lot further than I'm interested in reading about. If I had known it was a major part of the story, I would not have chosen this book. In a main stream fiction romance, I want one man and one woman with a happily-ever-after ending and it is becoming more and more difficult to find book where the author hasn't stuck in something else. Give a warning or heads up and I am fine, I don't have to chose to read the book if I don't want to. Just because erotic books and non-traditional romance books apparently enjoy great popularity does not mean every romance reader wants non-traditional or erotic material in a main stream book. I am saddened that there was no mention of a same gender relationship in the story. I loved the main story and would have loved to have read more, similar stories, but I won't read another book by an author I can't trust. I feel violated that there is not a warning or some indication that would have allowed me an opportunity to decide for myself if I want to read about a non-traditional relationship.
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Reviewer: Steph B. |
