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Delicious (The Marsdens) Mass Market Paperback – July 29, 2008
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To rising political star Stuart Somerset, Verity Durant is just a name and food is just food, until her first dish touches his lips. Only one other time had he felt such pure arousal–a dangerous night of passion with a stranger, who disappeared at dawn. Ten years is a long time to wait for the main course, but when Verity Durant arrives at his table, there’s only one thing that will satisfy Stuart’s appetite for more. But is his hunger for lust, revenge–or that rarest of delicacies, love? For Verity’s past has a secret that could devour them both even as they reach for the most delicious fruit of all.…
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBantam
- Publication dateJuly 29, 2008
- Dimensions4.2 x 1.12 x 6.7 inches
- ISBN-100440244323
- ISBN-13978-0440244325
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Sherry Thomas is the most powerfully original historical romance author writing today."–Lisa Kleypas, New York Times bestselling author
“This seductive, magical historical rewards readers with exquisite language, nearly erotic culinary descriptions, and a fairy-tale ending. A delectable treat.”—Library Journal
“A Cinderella story with a compelling culinary twist, Thomas's scrumptious Victorian confection proves impossible to resist.”—Publishers Weekly
“Packed with engaging characters, gripping dialogue, a devious plot, steamy sex and smart writing. This is definitely an author on the rise. Another keeper! Get it!”–Reader to Reader
“Delicious, delectable and a mouthwatering blend of Cinderella, Top Chef and Like Water for Chocolate, not to mention Chocolat. [Sherry Thomas] dazzles with her intelligent, compelling story and memorable characters. This well-crafted romance places her among the very finest of the next generation of authors.”—Romantic Times, Top Pick!
“Entertaining and thoroughly absorbing.”—Romance Reviews Today
“Delicious just about says it all: Sherry Thomas's second novel is a multi-course banquet of delectable story-telling, scrumptious characters, and delightful verbal treats.”—The Romance Reader
About the Author
Her story is all the more interesting given that English is Sherry's second language—she has come a long way from the days when she made her laborious way through Rosemary Roger's Sweet Savage Love with an English-Chinese dictionary. She enjoys creating stories. And when she is not writing, she thinks about the zen and zaniness of her profession, plays computer games with her sons, and reads as many fabulous books as she can find.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In retrospect people said it was a Cinderella story.
Notably missing was the personage of the Fairy Godmother. But other than that, the narrative seemed to contain all the elements of the fairy tale.
There was something of a modern prince. He had no royal blood, but he was a powerful man—London's foremost barrister, Mr. Gladstone's right hand—a man who would very likely one day occupy 10 Downing Street.
There was a woman who spent much of her life in the kitchen. In the eyes of many, she was a nobody. To others, she was one of the greatest cooks of her generation, her food said to be so divine that old men dined with the gusto of adolescent boys, and so seductive that lovers forsook each other as long as a single crumb remained on the table.
There was a ball; not the usual sort of ball that made it into fairy tales or even ordinary tales, but a ball nevertheless. There was the requisite Evilish Female Relative. And mostly importantly for connoisseurs of fairy tales, there was footgear left behind in a hurry—nothing so frivolous or fancy as glass slippers, yet carefully kept and cherished, with a flickering flame of hope, for years upon years.
A Cinderella story indeed.
Or was it?
It all began—or resumed, depending on how one looked at it—the day Bertie Somerset died.
Yorkshire
November 1892
The kitchen at Fairleigh Park was palatial in dimension, as grand as anything to be found at Chatsworth or Blenheim, and certainly several times larger than what one would expect for a manor the size of Fairleigh Park.
Bertie Somerset had the entire kitchen complex renovated in 1877—shortly after he inherited, two years before Verity Durant came to work for him. After the improvements, the complex boasted a dairy, a scullery, and a pantry, each the size of a small cottage; separate larders for meat, game, and fish; two smokehouses; and a mushroom house where a heap of composted manure provided edible mushrooms year-round.
The main kitchen, floored in cool rectangles of gray flagstone, with oak duckboards where the kitchen staff most often stood, had an old-fashioned open hearth and two modern, closed ranges. The ceiling rose twenty feet above the floor. Windows were set high and faced only north and east, so that not a single beam of sunlight would ever stray inside. But still it was sweaty work in winter; in summer the temperatures rose hot enough to immolate.
Three maids toiled in the adjacent scullery, washing up all the plates, cups, and flatware from the servants' afternoon tea. One of Verity's apprentices stuffed tiny eggplants at the central work table, the other three stood at their respective stations about the room, attending to the rigors of dinner for the staff as well as for the master of the house.
The soup course had just been carried out, trailing behind it a murmur of the sweetness of caramelized onion. From the stove billowed the steam of a white wine broth, in the last stages of reduction before being made into a sauce for a filet of brill that had been earlier poached in it. Over the great hearth a quartet of teals roasted on a spit turned by a kitchen maid. She also looked after the civet of hare slowly stewing in the coals, which emitted a powerful, gamy smell every time it was stirred.
The odors of her kitchen were as beautiful to Verity as the sounds of an orchestra. This kitchen was her fiefdom, her sanctuary. She cooked with an absolute, almost nerveless concentration, her awareness extending to the subtlest stimulation of the senses and the least movement on the part of her underlings.
The sound of her favorite apprentice not stirring the hazelnut butter made her turn her head slightly. "Mademoiselle Porter, the butter," she said, her voice stern. Her voice was always stern in the kitchen.
"Yes, Madame. Sorry, Madame," said Becky Porter. The girl would be purple with embarrassment now—she knew very well that it took only a few seconds of inattention before hazelnut butter became black butter.
Verity gave Tim Cartwright, the apprentice standing before the white wine reduction, a hard stare. The young man blanched. He cooked like a dream, his sauces as velvety and breathtaking as a starry night, his souffles taller than chefs' toques. But Verity would not hesitate to let him go without a letter of character if he made an improper advance toward Becky—Becky who'd been with Verity since joining her staff as a thirteen-year-old child.
Most of the hazelnut butter would be consumed at dinner. But a portion of it was to be saved for the midnight repast her employer had requested: one steak au poivre, a dozen oysters in sauce Mornay, potato croquettes Æ la Dauphine, a small lemon tart, still warm, and half a dozen dessert crepes spread with, mais bien sur, hazelnut butter.
Crepes with hazelnut butter—Mrs. Danner tonight. Three days ago it had been Mrs. Childs. Bertie was becoming promiscuous in his middle age. Verity removed the cassoulet from the oven and grinned a little to herself, imagining the scenes that would ensue should Mrs. Danner and Mrs. Childs find out that they shared Bertie's less-than-undying devotion.
The service hatch burst open. The door slammed into a dresser, rattling the rows of copper lids hanging on pin rails, startling one of them off its anchor. The lid hit the floor hard, bounced and wobbled, its metallic bangs and scrapes echoing in the steam and smolder of the kitchen. Verity looked up sharply. The footmen in this house knew better than to throw open doors like that.
"Madame!" Dickie, the first footman, gasped from the doorway, sweat dampening his hair despite the November chill. "Mr. Somerset—Mr. Somerset, he be not right!"
Something about Dickie's wild expression suggested that Bertie was far worse than "not right." Verity motioned Letty Briggs, her lead apprentice, to take over her spot before the stove. She wiped her hands on a clean towel and went to the door.
"Carry on," she instructed her crew before closing the door behind Dickie and herself. Dickie was already scrambling in the direction of the house.
"What's the matter?" she said, lengthening her strides to keep up with the footman.
"He be out cold, Madame."
"Has someone sent for Dr. Sergeant?"
"Mick from the stables just rode out."
She'd forgotten her shawl. The air in the unheated passage between kitchen and manor chilled the sheen of perspiration on her face and neck. Dickie pushed open doors: doors to the warming kitchen, doors to another passage, doors to the butler's pantry. Her heart thumped as they entered the dining room. But it was empty, save for an ominously overturned chair. On the floor by the chair were a puddle of water and, a little away, a miraculously unbroken crystal goblet, glinting in the light of the candelabra. A forlorn, half-finished bowl of onion soup still sat at the head of the table, waiting for dinner to resume.
Dickie led her to a drawing room deeper inside the house. A gaggle of housemaids stood by the door, clutching one another's sleeves and peering in cautiously. They fell back at Verity's approach and bobbed unnecessary curtsies.
Her erstwhile lover reclined, supine, on a settee of dark blue. He wore a disconcertingly peaceful expression. Someone had loosened his necktie and opened his shirt at the collar. This state of undress contrasted sharply against his stiff positioning: his hands folded together above his breastbone like those of an effigy atop a stone sarcophagus.
Mr. Prior, the butler, stood guard over Bertie's inert body. At her entrance, he hurried to her side and whispered, "He's not breathing."
Her own breath quite left her at that. "Since when?"
"Since before Dickie went to the kitchen, Madame," said the butler. His hands trembled very slightly.
Was that five minutes? Seven? Verity stood immobile a long moment, unable to think. It didn't make any sense. Bertie was a healthy man who experienced few physical maladies.
She crossed the room and dipped to one knee before the settee. "Bertie," she called softly, addressing him more intimately than she had at any point in the past decade. "Can you hear me, Bertie?"
He did not respond. No dramatic fluttering of the eyelids. No looking at her as if he were Snow White freshly awakened from a poisoned sleep and she the prince who brought him back to life.
She touched him, something else she hadn't done in ten years. His palm was wet, as was his starched cuff. He was still warm, but her finger pressed over his wrist could detect no pulse, only an obstinate stillness.
She dug the pad of her thumb into his veins. Could he possibly be dead? He was only thirty-eight years old. He hadn't even been ill. And he had an assignation with Mrs. Danner tonight. The oysters for his postcoital fortification were resting on a bed of ice in the cold larder and the hazelnut butter was ready for the dessert crepes beloved by Mrs. Danner.
His pulse refused to beat.
She released his hand and rose, her mind numb. The kitchen crew had stayed put at her command. But the rest of the indoor staff had assembled in the drawing room, the men behind Mr. Prior, the women behind Mrs. Boyce, the housekeeper . . . everyone pressed close to the walls, a sea of black uniforms with foam caps of white collars and aprons.
In response to Mrs. Boyce's inquiring gaze, Verity shook her head. The man who was once to be her prince was dead. He had taken her up to his castle, but had not kept her there. In the end she had returned to the kitchen, dumped the shards of her delusion in the rubbish bin, and carried on as if she'd never believed that she stood to become the mistress of this esteemed house.
"We'd better cable his solicitors, then," said Mrs. Boyce. "They'll need to inform his brother that Fairleigh Park is now his."
His brother. In all the drama of Bertie's abrupt passing, Verity had not even thought of the succession of Fairleigh Park. Now she shook somewhere deep inside, like a dish of aspic set down too hard.
She nodded vaguely. "I'll be in the kitchen should you need me."
***
In her copy of Taillevent's Le Viandier, where the book opened to a recipe for gilded chicken with quenelles, Verity kept a brown envelope marked List of Cheese Merchants in the 16th Arondissement.
The envelope contained, among other things, a news clipping from the county fish wrapper, about the Liberals' recent victory in the general election after six years in opposition. Verity had written the date in a corner: 16.08.1892. In the middle of the article, a grainy photograph of Stuart Somerset gazed back at her.
She never touched his image, for fear that her strokes would blur it. Sometimes she looked at it very closely, the clipping almost at her nose. Sometimes she put it as far as her lap, but never farther, never beyond reach.
The man in the photograph was dramatically handsome—the face of a Shakespearean actor in his prime, all sharp peaks and deep angles. From afar she'd watched his meteoric rise—one of London's most sought-after barristers, and now, with the Liberals back in power, Mr. Gladstone's Chief Whip in the House of Commons—quite something for a man who'd spent his first nine years in a Manchester slum.
He'd accomplished it all on his own merits, of course, but she'd played her small part. She'd walked away from him, from hopes and dreams enough to spawn a generation of poets, so that he could be the man he was meant to be, the man whose face on her clipping she dared not touch.
Chapter Two
London
We've known each other a long time, Miss Bessler," said Stuart Somerset.
At the Besslers' Hanover Square house, the drawing room had once been a rather ghastly green. But Miss Bessler, taking the reins of the household after her mother's passing, had papered the walls in a shade of carmine that was almost sensual, yet still solemn enough for the home of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Miss Bessler raised a severe eyebrow at Stuart. She looked very fine tonight: Her eyes were bright, her cheeks held a tinge of becoming blush, her Prussian blue gown was pure drama against the crimson chaise longue on which they sat nearly knee to knee.
"We've been friends a long time, Mr. Somerset," she corrected him.
They'd met years before she'd made her official debut, when both Stuart and the Besslers had been guests at a weeklong house party at Lyndhurst Hall. He'd been alone in the garden, smoking a cigarette, thinking of someone else. And she'd escaped from the nursery to watch the dancing in the ballroom, indignant that a mature, clever girl such as herself wasn't allowed to join the fun.
"Yes, we have indeed been friends a long time," he said.
And it had been with pride and affection that he'd watched the lovely child—though she'd always insisted that at only a few weeks short of fifteen, she'd been no child—grow into an even lovelier young woman.
"That's much better," said Miss Bessler. "Now, won't you please hurry and ask the question so I may tell you how delighted and honored I will be to be your wife?"
Stuart chuckled. It was as he'd thought. Mr. Bessler hadn't been able to keep the news to himself. He took her hands in his. "In that case, would you make me very happy by consenting to become my wife?"
"Yes, I would," she said firmly. She looked happy—and relieved, as if she hadn't quite believed until this moment that he really would offer for her. Her hands squeezed his. "Thank you. We both know that I'm not getting any younger."
He still thought her a young woman, because of the twelve-year difference in their ages. But there was some unfortunate truth to her words. At twenty-five, with eight seasons under her belt, she was far older than the usual adolescents on display in London's ballrooms and drawing rooms.
"Not that it would change my answer, because I'm too practical and selfish to give you up," she said, "but I do hope you haven't proposed entirely out of pity, my dear Stuart—may I at last call you Stuart?"
"Pity is the last of my motives, Lizzy," he said. "There is no one else in all of Society with whom I'd rather spend my life."
He'd delayed looking for a wife until he was old enough to have sired the current crop of debutantes. He didn't want a seventeen-year-old, either on his arm or in his bed. He needed a more seasoned spouse who would not be flustered by the demands of an MP's household. Lizzy was a descendant of an old and highly regarded family, a statesman's daughter, and a gracious and competent hostess. And she was beautiful. She was everything Stuart could sensibly hope for in a wife at this stage in his life.
There were, of course, his more insensible hopes—but he'd had to accept that some dreams were stillborn and some memories mirages.
Product details
- Publisher : Bantam (July 29, 2008)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0440244323
- ISBN-13 : 978-0440244325
- Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.2 x 1.12 x 6.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,063,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15,247 in Action & Adventure Romance (Books)
- #15,353 in Folklore (Books)
- #94,401 in American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Sherry Thomas writes both historical romance and young adult fantasy.
On the romance side, she is one of the most acclaimed authors working in the genre today, her books regularly receiving starred reviews and best-of-the-year honors from trade publications. She is also a two-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award.
On the young adult fantasy side, there isn’t much to report yet, her debut book, THE BURNING SKY, book 1 of the Elemental Trilogy, has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and been named to the Autumn ’13 Kids’ Indie Next List.
Sherry writes in her second language. She learned English by reading romance and science fiction—every word Isaac Asimov ever wrote, in fact. She is proud to say that her son is her biggest fanboy—for the YA fantasy, not the romances. At least, not yet…
Customer reviews
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To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book has an engaging pacing and well-written prose. They describe the food as delicious and extraordinary. Many find the story heartwarming and touching, making them smile and swoon. However, some readers feel the character development is inconsistent and the plot twists are confusing. Opinions differ on the premise, with some finding it intriguing and keeping them interested, while others consider it disappointing and twisted.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the book's pacing. They find the characters complex and engaging, with entertaining dialogue that builds tension and feelings between them. The author writes stories with evocative prose that evoke emotions that move the reader. The characters are described as human and believable.
"...I did - and I do. The book reminds me somehow of the magic realism (I think they`re called) books that were so popular back in the early..." Read more
"Sherry Thomas cleverly handles the flashback, in what is proving to be a typical device for her stories...." Read more
"...The characters are so wonderfully relatable. Even the secondary romance is fantastic. I laughed and squirmed in embarrassment at times...." Read more
"3 & 1/2 stars Delicious is a tantalizing story about food and love. The heroine, Verity, had a child at 16 or 17...." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and lyrical. They praise the author's skill and eloquence.
"...this book as much as her other two, it remains much smarter and more well-written than most other romance novels on the market...." Read more
"...Ms. Thomas' writing was absolutely decadent. The pacing of the romance was perhaps a slower burn, but no less thrilling...." Read more
"Once again this author is out of the ordinary, and worth thinking about." Read more
"...I liked his reasons and was a little surprised by them. Well done author. CAUTION SPOILERS:..." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's taste. They find it delicious for food and say the cook is extraordinary.
"...The cook has quite a reputation. She is an extraordinary cook, but everyone still gossips that she was Bertie's mistress...." Read more
"...In addition I quite liked the male characters, who are very yummy, and distinctly human...." Read more
"Delicious, daring, and divine! Sherry Thomas's writing is GORGEOUS, and once again she proves herself mistress of the art of historical romance...." Read more
"...Suspense, sex, history and food! Incorporated the history and lifestyle of England in the late 1800's which added such authenticity...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book. They say it makes them smile and swoon at the end.
"...The book made me cry three times. And, at the very end, it made me smile so big. It deserves all the luscious stars I could give it." Read more
"...Swoon!" Read more
"No joke, it feels like Sherry Thomas reaches into your chest and squeezes your heart...." Read more
Customers have different views on the plot. Some find the premise intriguing and thought-provoking, while others feel it's predictable and absurd. The twists are also considered predictable.
"...The pacing of the romance was perhaps a slower burn, but no less thrilling. The characters are so wonderfully relatable...." Read more
"...Interesting idea for a story but....I don't really get how her cooking could create such sensual desire and/or inspiration and joy...." Read more
"...The whole book was kind of like that. A mix of absurd, lust, and melodrama. It just confused me and wore me out...." Read more
"Once again this author is out of the ordinary, and worth thinking about." Read more
Customers find the character development disappointing. They mention the unbelievable dowager duchess character, a twisted tale, and head-spinning changes of characters. The heroine is also not well-received.
"Not so great heroine. And no explanation for the heroine's two (?)..." Read more
"...resolution on the question mistress or wife and the unbelievable dowager duchess character just added to the disappointment...." Read more
"A twisted tale and head spending change of characters Verity or Lissie..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2012I had to wait a few days after I`d read this book and until I wrote the review because I wanted to distance myself from the immediate infatuation with it to see if I truly loved it. I did - and I do.
The book reminds me somehow of the magic realism (I think they`re called) books that were so popular back in the early 90s. You know, the ones where the love between two characters was almost something predestined and not just an emotion between two people.
In this book we have a heroine who has a past and who looks up the hero in a fit of rage - or maybe insulted pride. Not with him but with his half-brother. They fall instantly in lust and love and the hero proposes marriage even though he doesn`t know who she is. She knows who she is and why marriage between them is impossible so she leaves him in the early morning. They later meet again because she`s stayed with the half-brother who insulted her pride. She was his cook extraordinaire and when her employer dies, she starts cooking for the man she fell in love with that night so long ago.
He does not know that the woman he`s pined for for so long is now his cook but he now manages to push that love aside because of his new-found fascination and attraction of his new cook. This is what I mean by magic realism because he falls in love with her again without knowing anything about her apart from her cooking skills.
This is not a love story about a couple who get to know each other and find they have a lot in common and then fall in love. No, they fall in love like a lightning struck them and they stay in love in spite of everything. Normally I dislike those "magically in love" books but here it worked perfectly. It`s probably because of Sherry Thomas` magical writing skills that made even me buy a concept I would have thought I would never buy. But, as I wrote in the beginning, I truly loved this book. I suppose I was struck by this lightning too.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2010Sherry Thomas cleverly handles the flashback, in what is proving to be a typical device for her stories. While I didn't love this book as much as her other two, it remains much smarter and more well-written than most other romance novels on the market. In retrospect, some aspects are contrived, and I felt the balance between the two parallel love stories is off, but while I was reading it I still liked the style and sensuality of the writing. I look forward to everything Thomas writes, and enjoyed the introduction to the Marsden brothers in this book, though it is a sidenote to the main story of Verity.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2015I absolutely loved this novel. I won't rehash the plot; there are any number of reviews here that have done just that. What I will say is that Delicious strays completely from the cliche and well worn path of romance novels past. Don't get me wrong, I love that well worn path, if you're a fan of romance, particularly historicals, you'd have to be. But in the case of Delicious, I found myself flying through 400 pages, nearly in one sitting. It was only when I was about 40 pages out from the end that I put it down, not wanting to leave Stuart and Verity's story just yet.
Ms. Thomas' writing was absolutely decadent. The pacing of the romance was perhaps a slower burn, but no less thrilling. The characters are so wonderfully relatable. Even the secondary romance is fantastic. I laughed and squirmed in embarrassment at times.
Yes, I can see how this novel may not be for everyone. Is it unrealistic? *shrugs* One can argue that most romance is just that. I doubt there are so many hot, well endowed, wealthy, well adjusted men out there as romance would have us believe! But I don't care, I love the fantasy.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 20153 & 1/2 stars
Delicious is a tantalizing story about food and love. The heroine, Verity, had a child at 16 or 17. For this she was ostracized by her English titled family. She gave her child to an older couple to adopt because she had no resources to live on. A great opportunity arose and she was able to apprentice under a renown cook. Verity excels at cooking and is offered a post by Bertie Somerset, a gourmand and heir of Fairleigh Park. She jumps at the chance because her son's adoptive parents work as Fairleigh Park's groundskeeper. She falls in love with Bertie who promises to marry her but after she gives herself to him, he changes his mind. She continues to cook for him but will no longer be his mistress.
SPOILER ALERT!
Verity plans her revenge on Bertie. She will seduce Bertie's half- brother, Stuart, and then cook for him. "It would be a blow to his (Bertie's) gastronomic aspiration were she to defect to his greatest nemesis (Stuart) —and make his brother’s table the most celebrated in all of England." Verity arrived at Stuart's home in London but Stuart was not home and has no servants to receive her. Verity tries several times throughout the day to gain entry to no avail. In the evening as she makes another attempt, she is set upon by ruffians. Stuart happens by and rescues her. They both fall in love instantly. She discovers that unlike Bertie, Stuart had no interest in food; and she realizes her plan for revenge will not work. She does not tell him her name and only gives hints of who she is. Stuart likens her to Cinderella. He doesn't know her name but he wants her passionately and they become intimate. Afterwards she realizes his great worth and honor. She doesn't want to ruin him by association with the notorious cook, the French Madame Durant.Thus she leaves him after one night.
Fast forward 10 or so years and the hero still holds the memory of Cinderella in his heart but now wants to move forward rather than hoping someday he will find her. Stuart gets engaged to a close friend. Stuart inherits the Fairleigh property after his brothers early demise; and he inherits his brothers cook. The cook has quite a reputation. She is an extraordinary cook, but everyone still gossips that she was Bertie's mistress.
Stuart falls in love with the Madam Durant sight unseen, when her food seduces him. She avoids letting him see her face since she doesn't want him to connect her with Cinderella.
Interesting idea for a story but....I don't really get how her cooking could create such sensual desire and/or inspiration and joy. I found it extremely ridiculous that he is in lust with a phantom cook. She allows intimacies but only when her face is covered. The conclusion to the story has a rather complicated ending. At first, a significant person in the story takes away the expected HEA but within moments, the same person has a an change of heart that is so unrealistic by the character's portrayal.
I did like the separate romance that involved Stuart's fiancé and his male secretary.
Top reviews from other countries
- Susan DReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars ❤️
This is the first book in The Marsdens series and is a deliciously captivating book offering two wonderfully passionate love stories, the first between Verity and Stuart and also that between Lizzie and Will.
Both relationships are well written with fully rounded characters who are far from perfect. The book has a unique time line moving between their past (ten year’s before) and their present - as well as a plot that overlaps the relationships of both couples.
There is a sensuality in the descriptions of taste, smell, touch, sight, sounds - not only around the wonderful food prepared and the differing dishes but of skin, hair, hands, clothes, ribbons, mud, the landscape etc. Her prose is evocative and compelling, drawing the reader in to that world and engaging the reader’s emotions.
This is the first Sherry Thomas book I have read and I’m awed by her emotional insight, her grasp of the nuances that make up relationships and her ability to present sympathetic characters with evident flaws. I am looking forward to reading the second and final book in this series Not Quite a Husband.
- Lisa ClementsReviewed in Canada on April 13, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!!
I truly love Sherry Thomas's writting. My heart was fluttering through the whole book...I couldn't stay seated and I was sad when it ended. Even the secondary romance was great...I wish the book had been longer 💙
- Booklover130Reviewed in Australia on October 26, 2017
3.0 out of 5 stars Confusing plot, and verging on magical realism in parts which was weird
This is the Sherry Thomas book I've enjoyed the least, even though I know others have loved it. I found the plot a little 'muddy' and hard to follow, until the full, very long and wordy reveal late in the book. I didn't like Verity very much, and found some of her behaviours jarred with me. The book was veering towards kinda magical realism as well, which didn't sit well with me in a HR. The whole thing about the cooking - Verity's food being SO SUBLIMELY WONDERFUL, life-changing etc etc was just too OTT for me - it started to feel a bit ridiculous.
The thread about Stuart never seeing Verity's face, yet still falling in love with her (again) also started to get pretty ridiculous. Alright already. Just turn on the lights and have a look, Stuart!
I also really disliked the Duchess who had interfered in Verity's life so harshly and robbed her of so much. The explanations at the end seemed too facile after all of the drama and angst. I think Verity would have been a lot more bitter towards her.
So, yeah, not my favourite by this author. But I have enjoyed some of her other books and will keep reading.
- RosewoodReviewed in Canada on August 17, 2014
4.0 out of 5 stars Not one of Sherry's best
Great romance but I didn't like all the politics in the novel - that part was a bit of a bore for me
- gimmielindaReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2015
3.0 out of 5 stars On a par with her other novels.
This novel did what I wanted - it entertained me over the course of a few days. A nicely told romance with several hot love scenes.