#38 Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

This is set in the same universe as Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors and you do see the main characters from it but they are only side players here. Ashne is struggling to keep open her father’s famous restaurant 12 years after his death. It is teetering on the edge in part to some employee’s siphoning off money while she was at cooking school and her inability to cook anything but her dad’s old recipes. Rico is a recently retired star soccer player that was forced into it due to a knee injury. He also happens to be her secret high school sweetheart. I picked this up because I thought the cooking show angle that brings them together and the Austin remix would be entertaining but the family drama in Ashne’s past with a distant mother and an alcoholic father can make this an uncomfortable read. There is a HEA at the end and some closure to hurts that the heroine suffered but it can be a bit emotional.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley