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The Singh Family Trilogy, Book 2

From the publisher:

This is book two of a series and I haven’t read the first one (for a change!) but I will. This was really good. I loved the characters and learning about these South Asian families (and their food!)

Our hero and heroine are both brilliant in business and uber-successful. Raj is a strong, independent woman who is finalizing her divorce. Ajay is getting ready to take over his family’s company but Raj’s ex really screws them both over. Trust issues abound, for good reasons. But Raj is a smart, tough woman and Ajay has his moments as well. Together, they could be unstoppable, if only they can get past everything in their way.

There is a lot of angst and many obstacles to overcome, and I couldn’t put it down until I got to the last page. I was invested! This is a quick read, and a terrific romance.

Note: Some of the reviews I read said you have to read the first book to understand this one. I didn’t, and I didn’t even know I should have until I finished it. So I’m going to say maybe you will get more out of this one if you have read the first, but I thought it stood by itself beautifully.

BLOG TOUR!

From the publisher:

Anytime a romance is centered around food, I’m a happy reader. The setting in Hawaii just added more interest.

Nikki’s parents retired and moved to Maui. Their retirement dream wasn’t to lay on the beach, but rather to have their own food truck featuring their Filipino family recipes. When Nikki’s dad suddenly passes away, she leaves her life on the mainland behind and swoops in to stay with her mother and make her parents’ dream a reality.

A couple of years in, a new food truck shows up right next to theirs. Island etiquette dictates that is encroachment and severely looked down  upon. It happened to Nikki when they first started out, so she decides to offer a little friendly advice to their encroaching neighbor. At first things are great, that is until the owner, British hottie Callum, realizes that Nikki isn’t an inspector. At that point, he basically tells her to piss off, and walks away. 

Nikki is infuriated, and it is quickly apparent that this is going to be an enemies-to-lovers romance, and it’s a good one. It takes quite a while to get to the romance, but once it does the book flies. 

I loved learning about Filipino food (as I didn’t know anything about it,) and I loved how these characters eventually worked through their difficulties. I especially liked how Nikki was the hard ass, and Callum was more emotionally available, a nice role reversal.

This was a slow moving romance, but a good story with interesting characters and setting. Take a ride on a food truck with Nikki & Callum and you won’t be disappointed.

10/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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Wedding Date Series, Book 5

From the publisher:

This is one of my favorite series that I didn’t even realize was a series until I was about three books in. So you probably don’t have to read them in order, but it never hurts to do so.

As you may surmise from the cover, this is a biracial romance and I liked the way that was handled here. It wasn’t a problem, but it was interesting. Of course, I didn’t notice the cover as I read on my Kindle and I am often oblivious to covers until I start working on my review. But I know Jasmine Guillory after reading five of her book,s so it was not a surprise that it would come up.

What I love about this series are the well-developed characters that make me feel like I know these people. The story is fun and there’s lots of angst with all the sneaking around. I was glued to the story and couldn’t put the book down until I turned the last page, digitally speaking. Another terrific read and highly recommended.

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Brown Sisters Series, Book 2

From the publisher:

I have never watched a telenovela and I gave up on Jane the Virgin after the first season. So while I may not be the targeted audience, I loved this book. The characters were interesting and authentic and the romance had the usual ups and downs, as it should.

There was an occasional Spanish phrase thrown in, sometimes translated and sometimes not but that’s what Google’s for. It wasn’t enough to drag me out of the story, but rather made me want to look it up and hurry back.

Interestingly, the main character, Jasmine, while Puerto Rican, is not fluent in Spanish. Many of her family are, and some of her co-stars are happy to help her when she needs it. Her accent is spot on though, and that’s important. I loved the idea of a television show like this, drawing from another culture yet not appropriating it but celebrating it. Not sure why Jane the Virgin didn’t work for me but it didn’t. Netflix, are you listening?

Ashton is a man of mystery. He comes to the set, always prepared, but disappears afterward. Jasmine is the type to try and create a working family out of her coworkers, planning Friday night drinks and other outings. She invites Ashton as well, but he usually refuses.

When their first kissing scene is a bit of a disaster, Jasmine draws enough courage to go directly to Ashton and convinces him that they need to rehearse. In private. Which leads to a very passionate affair, except Jasmine is constantly in the media and Ashton tries to keep as far away as possible. He has a secret that he does not want in the papers. Their affair seems like it’s headed south until the last possible moment when they reach their happy ending.

This was a terrific read, fast-moving, funny, and sexy. I highly recommend it and will be looking for her two earlier novels!

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Brown Sisters Series, Book 2

From the publisher:

Let me start out by saying that I loved this book! Which makes perfect sense since I loved the first book in the series, Get a Life, Chloe Brown. The series centers around the Brown sisters, with one left to go and I can’t wait.

Dani has been hurt before and is very guarded with her heart. In fact, she is only looking for a friend with benefits, at least until she finishes her dissertation. But super hot security guard Zaf is not on board with this. He is a true romantic, but he realizes that he can’t push Dani too hard or she’ll take off. When the opportunity arises to fake a romance that will help his children’s charity, Dani is all in. Little does she know that her heart is, too.

This was a super fun read and I highly recommend it. You do not have to read the books in order, but you should definitely read them both!

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From the publisher:

Whenever I see a book get this much positive attention, I expect a lot. Understandably so. I am so happy to report that The Boyfriend Project lived up to my expectations!

Samiah is a Black woman at the top of the tech pyramid, and trust me, she had no easy climb. As I have repeatedly heard, it is a tough battle for any woman to get into the tech industry, even harder to move up to a position of authority, and almost impossibly difficult when that woman is Black. But Samiah doesn’t complain, she just has confidence in her own abilities and pushes on.

But this brilliant woman is somehow fooled into dating a man who is dating other women as well. He uses different names, but he has his regular date night restaurants. Samiah’s sister tells her to jump on Twitter, some woman is live-Tweeting a bad date right in her neighborhood. As Samiah watches in real-time, she quickly realizes this is the same jerk she’s been seeing.

Samiah shows up at the restaurant, along with another woman in the same situation. Naturally, a video is immediately uploaded and goes viral. Who wouldn’t want to watch three women turn on a sleazy guy?

The three women decide to get together and quickly become friends. They decide to spend the next six months working on bettering themselves, and not spending any of their valuable time on men.

When Samiah goes back to work, all of her co-workers have seen the video but she just puts her head down and gets back to work, despite being the highlight of office gossip. There is a new guy starting there, Daniel Collins, and he is adorable. And when he approaches Samiah with compassion about the incident, she is very much taken with him. Working together, they become friends and then more. But what Samiah doesn’t know is that Daniel is not who she thinks he is. He knows he should not be getting involved, but when you fall so hard for someone it’s difficult for logic to enter into the relationship.

Of course, everything blows up when Samiah realizes that Daniel has been lying to her. But no worries, this is a romance so a happy ending is in store.

This was one of the best romances I’ve read in a while. I loved how smart the characters were and how real they felt to me. I was totally invested in their story and was sorry to turn the last page. Don’t miss it!

7/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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From the publisher:

One of Oprah Magazine’s Most Anticipated Romances of 2020

A high stakes wager pits an aspiring entrepreneur against a ruthless CEO in this sexy romantic comedy.

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he’s forced to share his space with the owner’s beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

This has got to be one of the best romance debuts I’ve ever read!

Sam is a man shouldering a lot of guilt. His sister is in a wheelchair after a possible altercation with her ex-husband, a prominent surgeon, and Sam’s mentor. Theirs was an arranged marriage, and Sam is the one who introduced them. The surgeon denies all, but Sam is bound to avenge his sister. Meanwhile, he feels like a failure as a son and a brother, and his way to deal with the guilt is to push away his family, his career, and his culture.

Like Layla, Sam is Desi-American, a term that was new to me. Their families are from India, and while they live in San Francisco, like most of us they brought with them their culture and their food. In fact, Layla’s parents own a Michelin starred restaurant, but it is struggling in their new location in a business district.

Layla has been living in New York, working at a job she doesn’t particularly like, and dating an Instagram influencer. Until she catches him doing blow off the bodies of two naked supermodels. She goes nuts, a video of her throwing his stuff off a balcony goes viral, she loses her job, her home, and her dignity. It’s time to move back with her family where she feels safe.

Layla tells her parents she wants to open her own business and they are eager to help. Her father tells her she can have the office above the restaurant, rent-free. He will let the new tenant know the deal is off. Layla eagerly accepts, except before her father can tell the new tenant to look elsewhere, he has a heart attack and is hospitalized.

In the only plot point in this book that I had a real issue with, Layla’s father gets a pacemaker but for some unknown reason is put into a medically induced coma. It’s convenient for the plot but makes no sense to anyone who has ever dealt with or had a family member deal with any sort of heart condition, especially a pacemaker. But it really is a minor thing, and I was so drawn into this story I tried to overlook it. (I guess I didn’t totally succeed because now I’m complaining about it!)

Sam is the new tenant, he has given up the practice of medicine since his sister’s accident and is now a corporate vulture. His company helps other companies downsize, and he spends his days firing people. His moral center is slightly askew at this point, but at least he still has one, unlike his partner and friends.

Sam and Layla immediately butt heads over the office. Then Layla is shocked when a young man arrives looking for her. He tells her he has set up a meeting with her father through a dating site. Apparently, her father put up her profile on an arranged marriage type dating site, sifted through hundreds of responses, and selected a list of ten men for Layla to meet. Sam agrees to help her with the dates she is going to have, and they make a game of it. If she marries, she will leave and he gets the office.

Enemies to lovers is always a popular trope in romance, and this one is done exceedingly well. Throwing in a big, extended, nosy family and the arranged marriage with its parade of kooky suitors adds a lot of laughs to this heartwarming and sexy story. I got so caught up in the story and with these characters that when the boy-loses-girl part came along, I could barely read it. I swear I had one eye closed! I kept putting it down and picking it back up because it was so painful to read. I was able to talk myself off the ledge and back into the book because it is a romance, and I knew the happy ending was coming.

I love it when I get that caught up in a book. I love learning about cultures that are different from my own. I especially love learning how many cultures are more similar than different – their foods and religious practices may differ, but family is still family and that is pretty much the same everywhere.

I loved this debut novel, and I hope everyone reading this will pick up this book and love it as much as I did. It is sweet and sexy and funny and a total escapist read. Don’t miss it!

6/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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From the publisher:

From talented new writer, Yaffa S. Santos, comes this unforgettable, heartwarming, and hilarious rom-com about chefs, cooking, love, and self-discovery that is a cross between The Hating Game and Sweetbitter.

Lumi Santana is a chef with the gift of synesthesia―she can perceive a person’s emotions just by tasting their cooking. Despite being raised by a single mother who taught her that dreams and true love were silly fairy tales, she decides to take a chance and puts her heart and savings into opening a fusion restaurant in Inwood, Manhattan. The restaurant offers a mix of the Dominican cuisine she grew up with and other world cuisines that have been a source of culinary inspiration to her.

When Lumi’s eclectic venture fails, she is forced to take a position as a sous chef at a staid, traditional French restaurant in midtown owned by Julien Dax, a celebrated chef known for his acid tongue as well as his brilliant smile. Lumi and Julien don’t get along in the kitchen–to say Lumi is irritated by Julien’s smug attitude is an understatement, and she secretly vows never to taste his cooking. Little does she know that her resolve doesn’t stand a chance against Julien’s culinary prowess.

As Julien produces one delectable dish after another, each one tempting Lumi with its overwhelming aromas and gorgeous presentations, she can no longer resist and samples one of his creations. She isn’t prepared for the feelings that follow as she’s overcome with intense emotions. She begins to crave his cooking throughout the day, which throws a curveball in her plan to save up enough money and move on as soon as possible. Plus, there’s also the matter of Esme, Julien’s receptionist who seems to always be near and watching. As the attraction between Lumi and Julien simmers, Lumi experiences a tragedy that not only complicates her professional plans but her love life as well…

Clever, witty, and romantic, A Taste of Sage is sure to delight and entertain readers until the very last page.

The publisher compared this book to Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter, which was very popular and even turned into a Starz TV series. But to be honest, I wasn’t a fan; I found it pretentious at best. But A Taste of Sage is a debut novel, and I love finding new authors, so I wanted to give it a read. After 20+ years reviewing, I have learned to not trust everything the publisher says about a book! And it was good. Not pretentious at all, but very well written with characters that felt like real people, despite the synesthesia, or as I thought of it, magical realism, and it takes pretty good writing chops to pull that off.

The first line of the publisher’s synopsis mentions synesthesia. The first time I ever heard of that was in T. Jefferson Parker’s The Fallen, which was a fantastic read (and made my best books of the year list, 2006.) I was completely fascinated by it and read a lot about it. If you haven’t, I think the quickest way to understand it is from Neuroscience for Kids:

Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means “joined perception.”

From my understanding, I don’t really think I would call Lumi’s gift synesthesia. It definitely feels more like magical realism to me, which Merriam Webster defines as “a literary genre or style associated especially with Latin America that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction.” That seems right. But what do I know?

If I was doing book comparables, I would say it most closely reminded me of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, but with more romance. Which is good for me because that means I get the happy ending, yay!

Oh, but the bumps in the road that come before that happy ending were positively epic.  For one thing, Lumi hates working anywhere that isn’t her own restaurant and dreams of opening another. One of her co-workers is evil and because of the Lumi’s gift, that comes through in her food, causing the climax of the book (and not in a good way!) I wish I got to know Julien a little bit better, but really this is Lumi’s story, and we know enough to know that we want them together.

There are recipes sprinkled throughout the book for Dominican fusion type food. The only one that intrigued me was the salmon with pesto and pineapple, but my husband vetoed it. I may sneak it by him one night anyway. And I love that the author uses her Dominican background in this story. The voice rings true and I love learning about other cultures through fiction.

If you like books set in the restaurant industry, (and I do,) and you like a touch of magical realism and/or synesthesia, (and I do,) then I think you may like this book as much as I did!

5/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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Farraday Country, Book 1

From the publisher:

Welcome to Farraday Country, a twist on the popular 7 brides for 7 brothers set in cattle-ranching west Texas, with all the friends, family and fun that fans have come to expect from USA TODAY Bestselling author Chris Keniston.

On a barren road in the pre-dawn hours, Adam Farraday, the oldest of seven siblings, happens upon a disabled sports car and an angel in white searching for a disappearing dog. What is it about this secretive redheaded beauty that intrigues him as no woman has before?

After learning her fiancé’s true nature minutes before her wedding, Meg O’Brien drives as fast and as far away from her world as she can. Stranded with no money, and nowhere to go, the city girl must learn to fit in to small town life and all its quirky trappings. Too bad falling in love with her handsome rescuer is not an option.

This was a super fun read. I loved the damsel in distress idea, especially with her being stranded as it upped the tension considerably. Amazon is giving away the Kindle version of this book (as of this writing) so I got to read the first book of the series. There are 11 in total, and I look forward to reading the rest.

Keniston does a really good job with such a short book – I think it falls into novella territory. Regular readers here may remember I often complain about short books because they lack character development. That holds especially true when it’s the first book of a series that is introducing multiple characters. But I am not complaining here! Shocking, I know. I really liked the story, the characters, and the setting, so that bodes well for the rest of the series. Count me in.

3/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

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Fur Haven Dog Park, Book 1

From the publisher:

A poodle, a black lab and a Chihuahua walk into a dog park…

All Caleb Donovan has to do to redeem his family name is take a rundown Miami Beach apartment building and turn it into luxury condos. Easy, right?

Unfortunately, that would also turn the local dog park into a parking lot and the neighbors aren’t having it. Caleb is faced with outright revolt, led by smart, beautiful building manager Riley Carson and her poodle, LouLou.

For Caleb, this project should have been a slam dunk. But even more challenging than the neighborhood resistance is the mutual attraction between him and Riley. It would be so much easier just to stay enemies.

Can Riley and her canine sidekick convince Caleb that what’s best for business isn’t always best for the heart?

Based on the description, the adorable title, and the super cute cover, I had high expectations for this book. It’s set in nearby (to me) Miami and there aren’t a lot of romances set there. And it has dogs! But I didn’t love it, and I wanted to. It was cute and sweet, but it just felt too shallow. It needed a bit more depth.

There are some very funny moments, and a few sweet ones as well. Caleb definitely has some baggage, but I never really felt like I got to know him. Riley was a little bit more developed, and I liked her grandmother. The other tenants in the building also added some laughs. I will probably read the next book in the series, just because this author was new to me and I want to give her another chance. I am forever hopeful.

2/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™