Deliciously Sinful

by Lilli Feisty

Nick is one of LA's most famous chefs, known for his culinary talent as well as his reputation as a bad boy. But when he's fired for his 'attitude problem,' the only job Nick can find is running a small café in a tiny town in northern California. He takes the job with the intention of staying one year, until his reputation and the rumors of his dismissal die down. His boss is an ecologist with no idea how to run a restaurant. Pheobe inherited The Green Bite from her aunt and uncle when they packed up and moved to Costa Rica. The last thing she wants is to own a restaurant but she can't close the place down - it's been a popular spot since it opened in the early 70s and now she can't believe she's falling for a man who offends all her principles and beliefs - she caught him throwing a plastic bottle into the garbage can! And he's made no secret of his disdain for the town and his desire to return to 'civilization.' So why can't she stop thinking about him? All she knows is that she finds herself doing things she knows will annoy Nick simply to get a reaction out of him. And the more annoyed he is, the hotter the sex is. The things that man can do with a spatula...

But every day, Nick looks at the calendar, marking down the days until he can return to LA. So the question becomes, how can Phoebe make it another six months without totally falling for him?

• ISBN10: 0446571555
• ISBN13: 9780446571555
• Publish Date: 16 December 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Forever
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

Reviewed by Carin for Cocktails and Books


Phoebe Mayle was content with her life as an owner of an organic farm, she enjoyed living in the small Northern California town of Redbolt. Things started to get overwhelming when her aunt and uncle passed away and left her the family owned, award winning, vegan cafe. She struggles with the idea of bringing in a non family member to be the chef but Phoebe can't cook. After a phone interview with one of the hottest (in more ways than one) chef's in LA she hires Nick Avalon by reputation alone.

Nick Avalon is the British born, bad boy chef who made the wrong people mad this time. He lost his kitchen and missed out on hosting the TV he was up for and now he is chef-non-grata in the kitchens in LA. Nick takes the only job he can get, working in Redbolt, to lay low for a year until he can return to the LA scene. When he makes his appearance on the scene in the laid back town of Redbolt in his Hummer drinking to much tequila and chain smoking he doesn't make a great first impression.

The sparks fly between Phoebe and Nick from the beginning as Pheobe has to learn to let go of her need to manage and control everything, and Nick needs to learn that he needs to let go of the past so he can have a future. The sexual tension is thick between Nick and Phoebe and explodes for the first time in the stockroom at the cafe. Phoebe's brother-in-law and niece are also an integral part of the story as well as Nick's best friend. Can Nick find himself among the ""bumpkins"" he is surrounded by in Redbolt, Can Pheobe learn that she doesn't have to control every aspect of her life?

This novel also contains questionable use of pudding, an entirely inappropriate use of a whisk, a sassy heroine and a self absorbed hero, a coming of age story for an 18 year old vegan and her widowed father and what I would call BDSM lite. Phoebe has a need to control her life because of all that she has lost, Nick has built years of walls and celebrity around himself so he is never hurt again. I found that there was a quite a bit of heat in this novel and a fair amount of sex, the BDSM aspect was of a very playful variety and was not detailed heavily. It is a fun book, but I found that a lot of story-lines were introduced and then given a half-hearted conclusions. Over all it was a good book and I liked it.