Review: Hot Chefs and Sexy Times
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 26, 2014
I have never read anything by Amanda Usen before and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I could not put this book down.This story is one of my favorite tropes...the older brother's best friend. Our heroine, Jenna Cooper grew up wanting to run the family restaurant so she went to culinary school. Her older brother, Cole was also a chef as is his best friend, Roman Gallagher, who also happens to be chef playboy of the west coast. Jenna was sixteen when Cole first brought Roman around and she was hooked then.Jenna's family restaurant is having financial troubles and who better to help them out then the sexy Roman Gallagher who's job it is to revitalize the restaurants his mother purchases into something bigger and better. Jenna leaves her family in New Jersey to fly to California to visit Roman for a week. She decides she is going to do whatever she can to try and get his help. Roman is currently trying to fix up the Beach House on Venice Beach, which is an upper class, fancy restaurant. Jenna tries convincing Roman to hire her to be the pastry chef for one week and if she proves herself then he has to help her fix her family's business.Roman and Jenna working side by side is so funny and entertaining. She has always had a crush on him and even though he finds her very attractive, he cannot pursue anything because she is Cole's little sister! Jenna keeps pushing Roman for more. She finally suggests that for her week here they become friends with benefits. Roman finally agrees but on his time table which means things will progress very slowly. He thinks if he goes slow enough she will forget pursuing him.This entire storyline was wonderful. There were quite a few laugh out loud moments along with some tearful moments towards the end. I also loved the secondary characters. Max, Roman's sous-chef was hysterical! I loved the rapport that Max and Roman had.I will definitely be reading more books from Ms. Usen.I did receive an ARC of this story in exchange for an honest review.