Review: Reluctant Concubine

Reluctant Concubine by Dana Marton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I saw lots of positive comments about this book so when I saw it on offer as a Kindle freebie I jumped at the chance to get what seemed to be a cult fantasy novel.

Hmm. This started well, Tera, a young girl, on the cusp of womanhood, hoping to receive healing powers from the spirits, is sold into slavery by her father. She spends long weeks as a maiden (aka virgin) being given all the worst jobs by the head concubine while the master is away at war, but her healing skills gain her friends and followers both high and low.

Then the High Lord visits her master and decides to take her as his concubine. Can Tera gain her powers before the High Lord takes her virginity? Can she escape and return to her own people? Has life amongst warriors changed her?

This seemed like an awful lot of world-building and Cinderella-type drudgery followed by a short-lived battle. Seriously, I think I was into the 90%s on my Kindle before the big battle started. It was okay but I don't feel any great need to read the second book in the series.

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Review: Jaguar's Mate

Jaguar's Mate by Katie Reus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

When Sapphire hears that a friend's daughter is being abused by her mate she is all ready to go in a rescue the two of them from a wolf pack which is clearly failing in its duty to protect its members.The only problem is a shortage of pack-mates to help in her rescue which is when her alpha suggests his friend, Eli the Jaguar hunter. Sapphire and Eli had a one-night stand and she can't get him out of her head, the trouble is she is cursed when it comes to relationships, nothing good can come of getting close to Eli. But can she stand travelling in cross proximity to the shifter who makes her heart pound and remain strong?

I think I recently said that novellas were the way to go with paranormal for me, short enough that the alpha bravado doesn't irritate and with a tight plot-line. In this case however, I just felt that the plot never really got going, it was all about the romance. Also Sapphire's 'curse' was a bit of a misnomer - bad luck dating would be more accurate.

Anyway, it was a short fun read but for me there was not enough smexy times, not enough plot and it all felt a bit halfhearted.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Ain’t No Party Like A Bear Party

Ain’t No Party Like A Bear Party by Nalini Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Silver attends a Bear party and muses on the differences shifters can make to your life.

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Review: Elena's School of Horror

Elena's School of Horror by Nalini Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elena and Aodhan watch his very first horror film.



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Review: The Mum Who Got Her Life Back

The Mum Who Got Her Life Back by Fiona Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After bringing up her twins practically single-handed after separating from their father when they were eleven years old, Nadia is looking forward to getting her life back when the twins go to university. A chance meeting in the Lush shop just before Christmas introduces Nadia to Jack, himself a single father, and they embark on a glorious passionate love affair.

However, just because your children have gone to university doesn't mean they are adults, when Nadia's son Alfie drops out of university Nadia's new life comes crashing to a halt, suddenly there are dishes left in the sink, towels on the floor and empty toilet roll inners on the floor. There's no time for naked afternoons and things become tense between Nadia and Jack, especially with Alfie's rabid veganism.

Jack runs a charity shop for a small group which supports animal rescue. On a daily basis he has to keep the peace between the various volunteers, some of whom are rather 'challenging'. He also looks after his young daughter on alternate weekends while worrying that his ex-wife may be verging on an alcoholic.

This is a lovely romance for the over-40s. It is refreshing to have heroine as a fifty-one year old, also nice that she lives in Glasgow rather than London or Edinburgh, especially nice that she is a life model for a local art class despite her children's objections. Good that the hero and heroine have their own family issues to contend with, that balancing of needs of children, exs, family and friends that we all have to learn once we reach a certain age. I guess what I am trying to say is that this rang true as two adults with hectic lives and competing claims on their time and attention.

I think this is my first book by Fiona Gibson but I will definitely look out for others as I enjoyed her writing style and deftly drawn characters.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Perfect Proposal

A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sophie Apperley is her family's dogs-body. Looked down on for neither being intellectual nor artistic, she 'merel' cooks, cleans and generally looks after her father, mother and brother whilst also holding down a number of odd jobs (mainly waitressing and bar work), helping out others less fortunate and designing/altering clothes in her spare time. Forced by her mercenary family to look after an elderly relative known colloquially as Evil Uncle Eric, she finds he is actually quite nice (and probably only evil to family members trying to scrounge money) and he tells her about a family oil well which might produce an income if 'someone' could ever unite all the shares and get someone interested in drilling for oil. Years ago a female relative in New York tried to do just that but Uncle Eric doesn't know whether she succeeded. Coincidentally, one of Sophie's friends who works at an art gallery in New York gets her a temporary job as a nanny. At an art show Sophie helps an elderly lady who is about to faint, the elderly woman, Matilda, turns out to be fabulously wealthy, befriends Sophie and invites her to spend Thanksgiving with her and her family at her mansion in Connecticut. The only fly in the ointment is Matilda's grandson Luke who seems determined to believe that Sophie is somehow trying to extort money from his grandmother.

From the Cotswolds to New York to Connecticut to Cornwall, Sophie and Luke bicker incessantly - but is there more to their relationship than meets the eye?

This is exactly what I want from a Katie Fforde novel, an artistic, caring heroine, a wealthy hero, lovely houses and eccentric relatives.

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Review: Overnight Sensation

Overnight Sensation by Sarina Bowen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four and a half stars.

Sarina Bowen does it again! Jason Castro has pretty much everything he ever wanted, playing for the Brooklyn Bruisers, living the good life, easy women and a great set of mates, sure his family think he is wasting his life playing sport and womanising but they think he should be a doctor or a lawyer. On a team night out he keeps catching the eye of the new tem intern, the delicious Heidi, they've been dancing around each other for weeks but Jason has rules about sleeping with women at work - he's a one-and-done kind of guy which doesn't sit well with working alongside them the next day.

Heidi Pepper isn't just an intern, she's also the daughter of the Commissioner of Hockey and 100% off limits. When her night with Jason becomes gossip fodder and her father starts laying down the law Heidi decides to move out of her father's Manhattan penthouse suite and into her own apartment, trouble is her pay is pitiful so she ends up staying with Jason and his roomie Silas.

I was on the fence about Heidi to start with, I thought she was a little childish and naive, well she is under twenty-one, but she really grew on me. She's so full of grit and determination and character, she grafts so hard and creates a business out of nothing. When her father starts dictating that Heidi do all the most menial jobs (security, cleaning the toilets, selling hot dogs) rather than the office job she was previously doing she just knuckles down and does it.

Poor Jason he tries so hard to do the right thing but everything, friends and family conspire against him and he is forced to live cheek by jowl with the delectable, distracting and clever Miss Pepper.

Loved it, devoured it on release day, can't wait for Silas' story.

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Review: Blind Date Bet

Blind Date Bet by Nicole Flockton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Isabella Knowles is the daughter of a military man and the widow of a military man, she has vowed never to date a man in the military. But then not only does she run into Ethan Masters when he is evacuating a shopping centre but her father dares her to go on a date with a military man who turns out to be none other than Ethan Masters. Despite their obvious attraction to one another Isabella keeps pulling away as everything Ethan does triggers a deep rooted fear. Can she learn to love again?

Oh dear, where do I start? First, I think the cover is a misdirect because although Ethan is a K9 handler we never get to see him at work frankly I think we only see his dog Sam once and that was in a social situation where he didn't do anything. Secondly, we saw nothing about Ethan's career, we hear "he got deployed", "he was on a training exercise" but nothing more, other of course than how sad he is being away from Izzy yadda yadda. Honestly he could have been a used car salesman or a hockey player for all the story we got about his career. Third, Isabella was frankly irritating, she yo-yo'd backwards and forwards with Ethan, going on dates, then storming off, apologising and then asking him to leave. Ethan on the other hand had 'protective' instincts which seemed to consist of insisting on checking that Izzy's doors and windows were properly locked before she went out. Fair enough but does he do it to his male friends and family? My guess is not, it's a sexist belief that women (even his mother who was career military) can't lock a door properly, gah! But mostly my beef with this novel was that it was all about Ethan and Izzy's feelings, nothing really happened, there was no big emergency just page after page of Izzy moping around because she loves him (but won't admit it) but can't face him being in the military. My final criticism is that this was an odd mixture of frequent sex combined with fade to black - some might say all left to the imagination but I just found it odd.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

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Review: Summer of Love

Summer of Love by Katie Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sweet romance about Sian Bishop, a single mother who moves to a small village, befriends a neighbour only to find that the neighbour is the mother of the man she had a wonderful one-night stand with, the night that gave her her son.

Gus, her one night stand, is an adventurer, an explorer and a wanderer, although their one night together meant a lot to both of them could a homebody and an explorer have a future? And how will Sian explain to Gus that he has a son?

Charming English village romance, complete with adorable moppet.

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Review: Goodness, Grace and Me: An hilarious, laugh out loud, Romantic Comedy!

Goodness, Grace and Me: An hilarious, laugh out loud, Romantic Comedy! by Julie Houston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Harriet is approaching 40. A married mother of two teenagers and a five year old she is also a teacher at the local school and still as much in love with her gorgeous husband Nick as she was the first day she saw him at university. Then Nick suddenly announces that he has given up his safe, steady job )the one he took after his own business went to the wall at the start of the recession) to go into business with a local millionaire who just happens to be married to Mandy, Harriet's girl-crush from school who led her brother a merry dance before dumping.

Soon Nick is off to Milan with the gorgeous Mandy, to help with translating the legal documents, while Harriet deals with her mother's increasing;y bizarre behaviour, two teenagers, her best friend's marriage disintegrating, her wilderness garden, straitened financial circumstances and the joys of public school teaching.

I liked this book but I didn't love it, in retrospect there was just too much going on, too many threads and it all got a bit frenetic, then everything got resolved in one chapter - so quickly that I actually turned over two pages at once and accidentally missed the end, I was knee deep in the 'six months later' epilogue.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Tanglewood Tea Shop

The Tanglewood Tea Shop by Lilac Mills
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Stevie inherits a small fortune from her aunt Peg and decides to use the money to buy a small tea shop in Tanglewood. Moving from working for a Michelin star restaurant in London to a small tea shop in a small village isn't without its challenges but Stevie soon makes friends.

What with dealing with the little old ladies, the yummy mummies and the school children, not to mention her less than supportive family, Stevie has her hands full and don't even get her started on the hunky man she saw riding a horse down the small High Street on her first day in Tanglewood.

I enjoyed this cosy small own romance, surely there's nothing better than reading about scrumptious cakes when you've just started a new diet, right :)? In fact my biggest issue with the novel was Stevie herself. I know that her cluelessness was meant to be humorous but honestly I found it exasperating. How can an intelligent woman in her mid-20s not know that when a riding stables talks about Shetlands they mean Shetland ponies? There were other examples, each one of them jarring rather than funny which didn't really gel with the Stevie we had come to know.

But that was a small niggle, otherwise this was a joy of village life, friendly locals, scrummy cakes and plenty of eye-candy.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Just Come Over

Just Come Over by Rosalind James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely perfect. I loved reading the early chapters as part of Rosalind James' newsletter and the book lived up to my expectations.

Zora Fletcher is a widow with an eight year old son called Isaiah. Her husband Dylan was a rugby player who played for the Auckland Blues. One day her son literally runs his trolley into the car of Dylan's older brother Rhys, who has returned to New Zealand (or En Zed as they like to say) after years abroad playing rugby, now he's the new coach for the Blues and has just moved into the area.

Just as Zora and Rhys are getting acquainted Rhys receives a bombshell, he has a six year old daughter in the US that he never knew about and her mother has been killed in a road traffic accident. At first he denies everything but one look at a photo of the little girl and he knows she's a Fletcher - but not his! To save his niece from a life in foster care, and to protect his sister-in-law, Rhys acknowledges the little girl, Casey, as his own and brings her back to En Zed.

Picture this, a big gruff manly man, the sort who can bulldoze through his opposition, and a girly girl who loves Moana, unicorns and bunnies. A man with no sisters learning to braid long hair. Rhys leans heavily on Zora to advise him on what to do but also to help with childcare while he is away with the team.

Rhys is just the nicest man ever. He's so determined to do the right thing and to look after this little girl that has come into his life. He pushes himself and others, yet he is also thoughtful and observant, doing the little things like buying food for dinner and washing up which mean so much to a working mother.

Zora is kind and funny, a great mother, practical and incredibly creative, I would have loved to see some of the floral arrangements that she makes for her customers.

Don't let me forget the smexy times because hoo-wee they were hot-hot-hot. Rhys might be all restrained emotions and practicality but he has a vivid imagination and an ability to read body language honed from years of playing rugby and watching his opponents.

I love this series and it just gets better and better, romance, cute moppets, rugby, sexy moments and fluffy bunnies - absolute bliss.

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Review: One Night with a Millionaire

One Night with a Millionaire by Shannyn Schroeder
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 10%.

Tess Howland is a single mother and a nurse, attending the annual fundraiser ball to garner funds for her patients. MIles Prescott is a millionaire . with a match-making mother, forced to accompany his mother to the ball since his father died.

I love a Cinderella romance and a single mother with a millionaire? Sign me up. Unfortunately, the little I read made Tess sound like a woman desperate for a one-night stand with literally anyone on her one night of freedom. When she talked about finessing the situation with Miles to get him suggest they spend the night together the gorge rose in my throat.

Maybe it gets better, maybe we see Tess being a caring mother and nurse but when I gave up there was precious little of that and an awful lot of a good-time girl on the pull.

Not for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Someone to Believe In

Someone to Believe In by Kathryn Shay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ten years ago Clay Wainwright prosecuted Bailey O'Neill for harbouring a known criminal and hiding him from the police, she went to jail. Now, Clay is a senator with Vice Presidential aspirations and Bailey is the 'Street Angel' running an anonymous hotline to help kids get away from gangs. The two of them clash on a regular basis, especially since they have both been put on a task force to determine how spend the city's allocation of money from a Youth Crime Bill.

As the two of them argue on the task force the sparks fly, yet a chance meeting outside the task force shows that Clay and Bailey have another kind of spark. But is there any future for a scion of a political dynasty, groomed for the White House, and a single mother from an Irish Catholic background?

Set against this background romance is Bailey's attempts to help a young girl called Taz escape from a vicious gang called the GGs, but as Clay and Bailey get more involved Clay gets more concerned about Bailey's safety and tries to get her to quit.

I liked this a lot. Okay I could 'feel' it was a little out of date (often because of the clothing choices and colours) but the age old dilemma of a strong man, used to being in charge, being confronted by a strong-willed woman pursuing a career which puts her in danger, and how he reacts. Loved the romance and I thought the gang plot was suitably graphic and scary.

On to find book 2.

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Review: I Owe You One

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Fixie Farr works in her family's general houseware shop in Acton, West London. Her older brother Jake is a successful businessman who made his first fortune importing nude, seamless underwear. He has high aspirations for the shop, wanting it to appeal to a more upmarket clientele. Fixie's older sister Nicole is beautiful, she modelled for a short period (aka once) and is very into new age thinking like crystals etc. The store is managed by their mother with Fixie's assistance until her mother becomes unwell and goes to stay abroad with her sister to get better. Suddenly Fixie is combatting her brother's attempts to sell £95 olive oil and £1,000 watches and her sister's decision to hold yoga classes in the shop in the evenings.

The only high spot is that Jake's BFF Ryan has returned from his successful career as a film producer in Hollywood, suddenly single and raising Fixie's hopes that their one-night stand several years ago might blossom into something more permanent.

Then Fixie agrees to look after a stranger's laptop in a cafe while he takes a personal call, the ceiling collapses and only Fixie's quick reflexes save the stranger's laptop. The grateful stranger, Sebastian Marlowe is a local businessman, an ethical investment manager, he gives Fixie an IOU, written on a coffee sleeve, in recognition of her good deed.

What ensues is a series of IOUs where Fixie and Seb exchange favours back and forth. But romantically who will Fixie choose? The new guy or the guy she's been in love with since she was a little girl?

I have to say, for most of this book Fixie was so clueless about the behaviour of her siblings and Ryan that I wanted to shake her, she was infuriating and definitely fell into the too-stupid-to-live category. She was so ineffectual, so passive, so pathetic that I lost any empathy for her, she literally couldn't see what was in front of her eyes. By the end of the book Fixie had turned herself around but by then the damage (for me) had been done. So, I liked the ending but the start was slow.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.


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Review: Never Say Duke

Never Say Duke by Erica Ridley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My favourite so far, although I have to say the cover bears little resemblance to the plot.

Theodore, Viscount Ormondton, has returned from the war scarred and unable to walk. Refusing to see friends and family he has hidden himself away at his friend the Duke of Azureford's cottage in the little village of Christmas with the servants sworn to absolute secrecy.

Virginia Underwood has taken refuge in Christmas after fleeing a lunatic asylum. She has a fear of noise and crowds and keeps mainly to herself, tending to wounded animals she finds around the castle. Taking her cat Duke for his morning constitutional he jumps into an open window and meets Theo. Virginia knows that she can use her experience of healing animals to help Theo and slowly, with Theo's grudging assistance, she helps him strengthen his bad leg and start to use crutches.

As love blooms between our wounded hero and our reluctant heroine the real world intrudes, can true love overcome?

I loved this from start to finish. Although Virginia is socially awkward she is never so gauche that the reader loses sympathy for her. Although Theo wants to hide away he soon looks forward to Virginia's visit and learns to love her devil cat. Just a glorious romance from start to finish.

I received a free copy of this book from the author via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: My Favorite Cowboy

My Favorite Cowboy by Donna Grant
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Audrey Martinez is a veterinarian that is so devoted to her work she has no time for men and has adopted a bit of a love them and leave them attitude, maybe it's a hangover from when her father walked out on her and her little sister Maddie after their mother's death. Someone has poisoned three horses at a friend's stables and she is desperately trying to save the horses.

Caleb Harper was deeply scarred when his mother walked out on him and his brother and sister when they were still small, he was affected more than the others (or maybe just in a different way) because he actually saw her leaving and begged her to stay. Now he never lets any woman close, he knows a million ways to let a woman go. When Caleb and his brother and brother-in-law find out about the poisoning they are the first to pitch in to try to catch the poisoner, but what is the motive?

Caleb and Audrey feel an instant attraction, but can they overcome their pasts and catch the poisoner?

I'll be honest, other than Donna Grant's writing there was nothing I liked about this novel, which is a pity because I like Donna Grant's other novels. I thought Audrey was severely lacking social skills, indeed so was Caleb, she needed her sister to point out basic human responses. She put her work above everything and had no friends other than clients or potential clients. Caleb was the sort of guy who sees a relationship hurdle and instead of acting immediately by, I don't know picking up the phone, he stews for five days, blames work pressures and doesn't want to use the telephone because its too impersonal! You just slept with the woman and then ghosted her for five days FFS.

The plot kind of fizzed out, mired in the quagmire of Caleb's indecision and Audrey's lack of self-worth, then got settled bish-bash-bosh by some circumstantial evidence and (of course) a recorded confession.

Overall, I found this cliche-ridden, turgid and the villain's motivations made no sense to me. A pity because I did enjoy the first book but revisiting my review of the second book it seems like I had the same complaints about the plot taking a back-seat to sex and angst in the second book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: How to Seduce a Bad Boy

How to Seduce a Bad Boy by Traci Douglass
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 25%.

I love a good trope as much as the next reader but this cliche-ridden romance had nothing to engage me.

Melody Bryant is that cliche, the small-town virgin librarian in love with her brother's BFF, the former military man now running an auto shop, Adam Foster. For his part, Adam knows his friend would never accept him dating the kooky but lovely Melody. When Melody begs Adam to teach her about men and dating he refuses but is conflicted, then her BFF gives her a makeover, puts her in a short dress and pow! Melody is a stunner but all Adam can see is her short skirt.

Yawn, irritation and yawn again. There is honestly nothing new, no new angle, nothing even likable about Melody or Adam, just crudely drawn stock characters and tired storylines.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Living Dangerously

Living Dangerously by Katie Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Gah! Forgot what I wanted to say about this book. Polly is a 35 year old single woman, she works at a health food shop and has dreams of making a living from her pottery. She bumps into an old school 'friend' who invites her to a dinner party. All of the other guests (and the hosts) are wealthy middle-class and fairly smug, especially the single man, David. Later Polly comes to know David better through acquaintance with his rebellious teenage son Patrick.

There is a love triangle/square between Polly, a journalist called Tristan, David and his son Patrick, although I think most readers can see which way Polly is going to jump. I understand that this was Katie Fforde's first novel and it exhibits some rather dated views of how a hero should behave, at times I thought David was like a teenage boy in his ridiculous jealousy when he wasn't even dating Polly - that sort of behaviour screams stalker to me. Also, as I have mentioned previously, Katie Fforde doesn't really flesh out her heroes, they remain shadowy characters whose motivations are vague and never truly explained. David is no different.

If you like novels where friends and family are desperately trying to set our heroine up with a man, she's artsy and involved in saving a local parade of shops from being torn down by developers, where there are snobby dinner parties and surly teenagers and scary housekeepers you'll love this.

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Review: Wretched

Wretched by Cara Crescent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is a difficult book to rate, there were bits I quite liked, bits I really enjoyed and bits I found excruciating.

This is set in a future when Earth has fallen under the dictatorship of the UN, then various rebels overthrew the UN but the power vacuum left everyone worse off. The rebels are branded traitors and anyone disfigured or disabled by the war is shunned. Chief Donovan Reese played a large part of the rebellion and holds himself responsible for the terrible injuries suffered by the men and women under his command but also for fighting on the wrong side for too long, for allowing the UN to take control of Earth.

Earth is part of the IgA, an interplanetary organisation which fosters cooperation and sharing between planets, provided they adhere to certain codes of behaviour (a bit like the real UN), Troon has failed to make the grade because of its aggressive behaviour and almost medieval conquest mentality, in fact it is under sanctions.

Now Donovan and his business partner/co-pilot Macie are bounty hunters and they have been captured and tortured by a violent and aggressive alien race called the Vladsets from the planet Troon. Then their captors drag Donovan before the Queen Vessa. The seven foot tall, blue-gray aliens with big black spines forces Donovan to marry her daughter, Celeka, and then sends the three of them off into space. Celeka is a mystery, some kind of pariah to the Vladsets she is covered from head to foot in cloths which hide every part of her.

Donovan and Macie support a large number of wounded vets by employing them as cargo carriers, in turn the profits they make are used to support what is left of the former US military while they try to find a leader.

While Donovan tries to find out about his new wife he is also trying to secure his next bounty and investigate what is going on with Troon and the IgA inspector.

This is old fashioned sci-fi, part Star Trek (complete with blue spiky aliens), part Firefly with lots of spaceships, docking bays, stasis sleep chambers etc. If it had stayed like that I would probably have given it the full four stars. Unfortunately, the pace and storyline were too often interrupted by alien erotica as Donovan teaches his new wife how to have sex. Pages and pages and pages of it. I nearly DNFd a couple of times because it was so tiresome, it wasn't even anything different (no tentacles) just regular old vanilla sex with a little mild BDSM.

Anyway, that's just my view, maybe I'm a sci-fi snob and like it unadulterated by sex, that may float your boat.

Ultimately, I definitely want to see what the story is with Macie and some of Donovan's other friends, I like the world that Cara Crescent has created and I would be interested in reading more in this series.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Recipe for Love

Recipe for Love by Katie Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Zoe Harper has entered a cooking competition (think Masterchef), when she arrives at the country house in Herefordshire where the competition is situated (owned by the sublime Fenella and Rupert - also if anyone reading this could tell me if Fen and Rupes have their own novel I would be ever so grateful).

Before the competition even starts Zoe is wandering the grounds when she encounters an attractive, albeit arrogant and grumpy, man who gets his car stuck in a ditch. Zoe and the man spend a lot of time getting his car out of the ditch by which time both of them are very muddy and sweaty, Zoe has also realised that the man is Gideon Irving, renowned critic and food author and one of the three judges in the competition.

This book is choc full of cooking challenges, delicious sounding food, romance and nefarious competitors. If you enjoy Masterchef you'll love this I'm sure.

Having read so many Katie Fforde books recently I've decided that she doesn't really write the male lead characters at all, we get lots of the thoughts and actions of the female characters but the heroes are always a bit of a rough ink sketch, not much detail. Inevitably our hero falls for the heroine almost immediately, is a bit taciturn, gets possessive/jealous/breaks the rules, doesn't explain things to the heroine etc. But I still love them!

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