Louisa Edwards

For the month of February, I wanted to read through many of the romances I had sitting around, and for a food loving reader like me, what could be more appealing than a romance with a chef and a food critic as the main characters? Louisa Edwards' Can't Stand the Heat fit the bill on the surface but unfortunately it had so many issues that it ended up just making me cranky.

Miranda Wake is the food critic for Delicieux magazine and when she gets drunk at a party introducing the food world to Chef Adam Temple's new restaurant, Market, she gets into a confrontation with the good looking chef which ends with him challenging her to spend a day in his kitchen and her agreeing. Negotiations with his primary financial backer extend the time to a month, which horrifies Adam and delights Miranda. She has been trying to pitch a book proposal about the food world but she keeps getting turned down because she has no actual restaurant experience and this gift of a month should solve that problem. Her other issue is that her 19 year old brother has moved home and doesn't want to go back to college. Adam, in the midst of opening a much anticipated restaurant, is suddenly saddled with a hostile restaurant critic in his kitchen, a place where almost everyone has worked together and with him before and is a tight and familiar team. Of course, these two antagonists are attracted to each other and find themselves unable to keep their hands off of each other. Miranda's younger brother Jess, who is hired on as a waiter, and sous chef Frankie are also falling for each other.

Miranda's character was awful. It wasn't a pleasure to spend time with her. The way she treated her brother, which the text excuses because she raised him after their parents' death 9 years prior to the story, was ridiculous. I have a 19 year old son I've raised for his entire life and I wouldn't treat him the ways she does her brother. Her infantilizing him is only part of the problem though because her reaction to him being honest about who he is and what he wants is hateful rather than loving and accepting. Adam saving her from her worst impulses was lovely but not earned on her part. But this is not the only time she lashed out like a selfish brat and that made it hard to want her to have a happy ending with Adam. The major catalyst for the girl loses boy part of the story was completely outlandish and the resolution to correct it was easy and too quick.

The timeline in the book is nonsense in all ways. It is hard to believe that Adam and Miranda could overcome their extreme antagonism in only about a day. It is beyond belief that Miranda could pitch a salacious and dirty tell-all book, have it accepted by a publisher (and given an advance large enough to pay for her brother's college), write all 150 pages of it (this, btw, is not generally considered book length, especially for a new author), and have portions of it leaked on some editorial assistant's blog online the day after she hit the send button on the manuscript all in about two weeks' time. It was all I could do not to throw the book across the room at this point. If I wasn't incapable of abandoning a book unfinished, I probably would have. Before the major plot issues, I already didn't like Miranda's character, there were too many forced food and cooking similies, and I wished the book centered on Jess and Frankie rather than Miranda and Adam (although Adam was fine if too forgiving). This was definitely not the book I'd been hoping it was.… (meer)

I received an ARC of this book to read through a Review Crew. All opinions are my own. Naughty Brits is a contemporary romance anthology by Sarah Maclean, Sophie Jordan, Louisa Edwards, Tessa Gratton and Sierra Simone. The stories all take place in England (and Wales) have one British and one American protagonist, include a scene at a fancy fundraiser held at the British Museum, all of the heroes are marvellously endowed, and all of the tales are super steamy. Sarah’s story A Duke Worth Falling For is the story of Rupert Maximillian Arden, Fourteenth Duke of Weston who, when he realizes celebrity photographer Lilah Rose doesn’t know who he is, takes a chance to be just Max and not the Duke for once in his life, realizing too late that he’s fallen in love and that Lilah’s not going to forgive him for his deception. Better With You by Sophie Jordan is about V M Mathers, an author who’s publisher has decided that after an incident at a reading of her book Self Love that a bodyguard will be necessary for her time in England. Used to being on her own and looking after herself, Vee is not quite sure that handsome Luca Moretti is not going to be more trouble than he’s worth. Not A Bad Boy by Louisa Edwards is the story of a plus-size non-fiction author Mallory Pritchard and a scorching movie star Ian Hale (think Tom Hardy). They meet in the park while walking their dogs, not quite able to believe that he really wants her Mallory is going to have to learn to swim with the sharks if she wants this to work. SongBird by Tessa Gratton is the story of Elspeth Gwenlan, who had been studying Opera when her father became ill and she came home to run the family pub. She’s at a crossroads trying to decide if she should accept an offer for the pub from a large corporation or stay in her village and run the pub that’s been in her family for generations. Daniel Kelly’s family business made the offer to buy the pub, and he’s been sent to make sure things go smoothly, wanting to check out the lay of the land before announcing why he’s there, he waits too long, and it will cost him dearly. Supplicant by Sierra Simone begins with a prologue four years earlier when Charlotte Tenpenny is left at the altar by her fiancé, who’s also her professor James Church Carson, only to come home to find her father has abandoned both her and her 12-year-old brother and taken all the money she had saved for rent and school. Working two jobs and raising her brother takes all of Charley’s energy, so when she sees Church at the fundraiser, she’s working as a waitress at, murder may be too good for him.
I enjoyed reading these stories immensely and highly recommend reading the book. Steam Level: Extremely Steamy … hot hot hot. Publishing Date: September 15, 2020. #NaughtyBrits #SarahMacLean #SophieJordan #LouisaEdwards #TessaGratton #SierraSimone #ContemporaryRomance #RomanceAnthology #SweriouslySteamy #bookstagram #Bookstagramer #EscapeRead… (meer)