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A review by mjsam
Recipe for Love: A Farm-To-Table Romance by Aurora Rey
3.0
ARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I’m pretty sure this is my first book by this author, and it was a nice enough place to start. It’s a fairly by the numbers romance, but nothing too noteworthy.
The two MCs are Hannah, who runs a farm that seems to grow everything and Drew, who is a chef who has taken a role as head chef at a farm-to-table restaurant to boost her chances of running her own kitchen in NY.
The relationship gets off to a slow start, mostly because Hannah doesn’t think much of ‘city girl’ Drew and believes Drew won’t stick around for long. They do spend a lot of time together in varying circumstances, and inevitably move past their reluctance (again mostly Hannah’s) to start a relationship. Their scenes together are fun and cute, and there’s some nice secondary characters (Hannah’s sister Clare, Drew’s boss/Hannah’s friend Nick), as well as some more tertiary characters like their best friends and family members that round things out a bit.
My main issue was that there wasn’t a lot of context given regarding certain aspects. Drew’s background for one, she’s described as having ‘sepia’ skin, and refers to herself being ‘brown’ (her mother and grandmother are described in similar ways), but it’s not until roughly the 60% mark that we find out that they are from Haiti, would it really have been difficult to work this in earlier? Same with Hannah’s sister, who is the youngest of four and 12 years younger than Hannah, who is the next to her in age, so one assumes she was a ‘surprise’ baby, but again, no context is given. Hannah’s brothers are mentioned but don’t even rate a conversation with her even when they appear in a scene, but we get detailed descriptions of all the crops Hannah grows and most of the meals they eat. I could have done with less of that and more fleshing out of the characters.
Anyway, that aside, the romance itself is sweet and I enjoyed it up til the ‘miscommunication/breakup’ section of the story, but I did like how it was resolved, and that the story continued past them gettting back together so that we got a glimpse of their HEA. It’s a nice enough romance, and I’d try more from this author. 3 stars.
I’m pretty sure this is my first book by this author, and it was a nice enough place to start. It’s a fairly by the numbers romance, but nothing too noteworthy.
The two MCs are Hannah, who runs a farm that seems to grow everything and Drew, who is a chef who has taken a role as head chef at a farm-to-table restaurant to boost her chances of running her own kitchen in NY.
The relationship gets off to a slow start, mostly because Hannah doesn’t think much of ‘city girl’ Drew and believes Drew won’t stick around for long. They do spend a lot of time together in varying circumstances, and inevitably move past their reluctance (again mostly Hannah’s) to start a relationship. Their scenes together are fun and cute, and there’s some nice secondary characters (Hannah’s sister Clare, Drew’s boss/Hannah’s friend Nick), as well as some more tertiary characters like their best friends and family members that round things out a bit.
My main issue was that there wasn’t a lot of context given regarding certain aspects. Drew’s background for one, she’s described as having ‘sepia’ skin, and refers to herself being ‘brown’ (her mother and grandmother are described in similar ways), but it’s not until roughly the 60% mark that we find out that they are from Haiti, would it really have been difficult to work this in earlier? Same with Hannah’s sister, who is the youngest of four and 12 years younger than Hannah, who is the next to her in age, so one assumes she was a ‘surprise’ baby, but again, no context is given. Hannah’s brothers are mentioned but don’t even rate a conversation with her even when they appear in a scene, but we get detailed descriptions of all the crops Hannah grows and most of the meals they eat. I could have done with less of that and more fleshing out of the characters.
Anyway, that aside, the romance itself is sweet and I enjoyed it up til the ‘miscommunication/breakup’ section of the story, but I did like how it was resolved, and that the story continued past them gettting back together so that we got a glimpse of their HEA. It’s a nice enough romance, and I’d try more from this author. 3 stars.