I really enjoyed this!

I really enjoyed this! While this book had a few bumps, it really fit into the type of romance I enjoy and I would love to read Kelly again.

Reality shows are my guilty pleasure and I love books about contestants on them. In this book, it’s a cooking show that reminded me of a mix of Top Chef and MasterChef. I enjoyed the scenes about the show, the cooking, the challenges, and my favorite, the flirty scenes between our two love interests. I did have an issue with the other contestants. They all seemed very cookie-cutter and I was missing more depth. One character is the “villain”, and yes she is a transphobic asshole, but I was hoping for something more than this one-note. While these secondary character contestants didn’t really work for me, the fact they were pretty flat did help the main characters shine in comparison.

I loved the mains. It took me a little bit to warm up to them, London especially was a bit icy in the beginning, but I quickly fell in love with both of them. They are not perfect, they both have their flaws and both can have very high emotions that gave the book a very angsty feel, but I loved them anyway. They kept me entertained and kept me reading even when the book slowed down a little at times. I just wanted more of them together. Their relationship is not insta-love, but it is a little quick. Two people being around each other almost 24/7, because of a reality show, makes sense to me that they would connect faster so I was fine with the quicker romantic pace. I’m happy to say that the more intimate and sex scenes were well done. This book had some high heat that I was not expecting and I thought it was great. My only complaint in this department was the toe sucking, I mean come on Kelly, just no!

I do want to quickly mention that I was really happy with how the nonbinary rep was written. One of the mains, London, is nonbinary and the way the book deals with misgendering, in a non-harmful way, was just really well done. I have been reading more and more books with nonbinary main characters in the past few years and this book, in my opinion, was one of the best.

TLDR: This was a really enjoyable romantic read. The mains were great and with the high emotions and angst, the book was really entertaining for me. The story did slow a little at times, and the relationship was a little fast, but in the end, many more things worked for me than not. I would recommend this to people who are cooking and reality TV show fans. I would also recommend this book for people looking for a good nonbinary rep. I would not hesitate to read Kelly’s new books in the future. 4.25 Stars.

An ARC was given to me for a review.