Rating: 5🌈
Beth Bolden’s Sweet As Pie is everything I needed and all I love about contemporary romances. This genre is able to encompass so many different styles, elements, types of characters and storylines that I can choose right now between a beautifully written novel about grief and loss or this heartwarming tale of family, food, and two chefs in need of each other.
Bolden’s story called to my heart at the right time. Letting me know I needed her superbly written tale of a romantic journey between two lonely hardworking chefs. One from a large Italian family of California restaurateurs and the other a baker of exquisite pastries in a small South Carolina town , Indigo Cove, with a romantic legacy that bears his family name.
Luca Moretti, a family of restaurateurs we’ve met before in Food Truck Warriors, is instantly recognizable as the overworked (self induced) , tightly controlled brother who sees himself as the person who has sacrificed himself for his family. He’s intense and very stubborn.
And believable. I’m sure there’s some readers who are able to see him as someone they know. Bolden makes his personality and our ability to further understand him enlarge when he meets baker Oliver Billings.
Oliver, a genuine creative genius with baked goods and a fine businessman, understands Luca in a way his own family hasn’t been able to. Kindred spirits from opposite sides of the country.
They bond over food, Luca’s mission to save his aunt’s deli, their love of family with all its attending issues, and finally their love for each other.
I was so caught up in their love story, this small world of people, and , yes, the food they were creating, that I hardly noticed the time.
The author is able to pull me into this world so completely for so many reasons. One it’s her love of her subject matter. Not love, but food.
Beth Bolden is an excellent conveyor of her passion for food and its chefs. Whether she’s writing about bakers or sous chefs, chefs in fine restaurants or those madly cooking fare in food trucks, it always feels, passionate, authentic , exhilarating, with the aromas and , yes, flavors, coming through the pages.
I’ve drooled while reading these pages.
And her characters are rich with warmth, lively with humor, living, breathing human beings that capture your heart and mind.
This is a book that will be a comfort read for me. Give it a chance. I bet it will be for you too.
It’s a must have and must read!
Sweet As Pie is everything!
Related Series:
Food Truck Warriors series
Buy Link:
Sweet as Pie: a MM Grumpy/Sunshine Standalone188Kindle Edition$5.99
Description:
Luca Moretti is grumpy—and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Wrangling six—Italian—siblings and the family’s restaurants would make anyone cranky. But when his mother requests that he save his aunt’s struggling Italian deli in charming, picturesque Indigo Bay, he has no idea that he’s about to overdose on sweetness.
Luca expected his aunt’s stubbornness—she’s a Moretti, isn’t she?—and his cousin’s resistance to actual work, but the last thing he expected is the absolute ball of sunshine known as Oliver Billings.
Oliver loves Indigo Bay. Loves owning his small artisan bakery, Sweetie Pie’s. Helps nice old ladies cross the street. Even volunteers for the local Sweethearts Festival.
Sweet isn’t really Luca’s style, or so he thinks. But when he discovers Oliver can be a little spicy too, his prickly exterior begins to crumble like a well-baked crust.
If Luca isn’t careful, he’s going to develop a taste for sweets—and a particular baker’s pie.
And one or two servings will never be enough.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 