It’s sweet, witty, entertaining and promising start made me think “Yes! I found another feel-good rom-com will warm my heart and help me to forget my shitty and stressful day”! I felt some four or five starred review was already coming up. So I poured more wine to my glass, extended my legs and started reading.

I was so happy to be introduced to Lumi Santana, Dominican chef, lovely, relatable heroine loses her dream restaurant and trying to find a solution to make her ends meet, holding her head above the water and she finally gets a job at French restaurant owned by Julien Dax.

Yes, this is the moment we are introduced to our hero and wait for the couple’s sparkling, sizzling, growing chemistry. But guess what? It perfectly blows on your face and the only reason you cannot find the sparkle and hot chemistry, losing your interest and entire excitement is THAT PRETENTIOUS, MEAN, ARROGANT, A…HOLE HERO!

Can a hero with worst traits sabotage the entire foundation of the book? Yes he can. Yes he will, he already did that.
When I read a romance: I don’t care about clichés or same elements starting with enemies to friends and friends to lovers relationship dynamics. And of course something big happens to force the lovers break up. They suffer and some groveling later, one of them (mostly hero) makes a remarkable jest and takes his girl back, riding his horse into the sunset for their HEA!

But this formula never works if one of the characters needs to be punched several times and there is no chemistry or reliable romantic elements. This book has disable anti-hero killed not so reliable romance and forced chemistry.
Overall: Writing of the book was not so bad but romance parts and character building failed me. I only gave 2.5 stars and rounded them up to 3 for the sake of the heroine and representation of Dominic culture and diversity elements. I still wish to read more books of the author but next time I’m begging her to create more able heroes!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers for sharing this romantic ARC with me in exchange my honest review.

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twitter206 s Chelsea (chelseadolling reads)1,503 20.2k

This book was.... bizarre? It started out fine enough, but as the book went on things got WEIRD. It started as a fun, cute contemporary but then it introduced some slight fantastical elements and then things also got REALLY intense and dramatic and I honestly feel this book gave me whiplash. Also worth noting- I listened to the audiobook of this one and the female narrator gave the hero the strangest """sexy""" whisper-y voice and it was so awkward to listen to. This just.. did not work for me.117 s Diane S ☔4,859 14.3k

Yes, it's a bit schmaltzy and not my usual type of read, though what usual is anymore I haven't a clue.
Food and love in the kitchen. They say one can always tell when something is cooked with love, but Lumi takes it a step further. She has a form of synthesia that lets her tell the emotions of the preparer of the food. I'd fall in love with her chef too, he's definitely a keeper. i said a little too much smoochy love and sex, but hey these are unusual times and this book helped lift me out of the bluesy mood I've been in the last few days. Plus, there are some good recipes included, which I fully intend to try. Back to the more serious stuff, or maybe I need more schmaltzy reads?56 s Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ CampbellAuthor 56 books19.9k


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Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! While you should ideally read diversely year-round, I'm trying to supporting Hispanic/Latinx authors by reading all of the Hispanic/Latinx-authored books on my Kindle that I couldn't get to throughout the rest of the year.



A TASTE OF SAGE was an impulse buy for me (aren't they always?). I'm a sucker for food-themed books, and the idea of an enemies-to-lovers romance between two rival chefs who both favor the cuisines of their childhood really spoke to me. Also, it's a bit of a workplace romance, too, because when Lumi's business goes under forcing her to job hunt, she ends up being forced to work for Julien.



I was shocked at how low the ratings were for this book... until I got to the halfway mark. You see, throughout this book, recipes are interspersed at key points so you can make the food the characters are talking about-- which is a great touch. Or it was, until one of the characters gets grievously injured in a kitchen and this horrendous accident is followed by... you guessed it. Another recipe.



Talk about tonal whiplash.



I think books these are actually the perfect examples of situations where illustrated covers don't work. I saw a TikTok (I believe it was by chels_ebooks) that talked about how old skool romance covers were usually a pretty good indicator of the spice level (although not always). If the lady looked prim and dainty on the cover, it was a ly bet that it was going to be a "clean" regency romance. And if the lady was bursting out of her top in the aggressive embrace of the hero, the lihood of spice (and probably dub-con) goes up in the mind of the person looking at the cover, and they can make their purchase accordingly.



When people look at illustrated covers, they picture light and sweet, so when a book has a cutesy cover but actually has really dark and depressing moments, readers can feel consciously or subconsciously cheated. I feel a better cover for this book would have been a wooden table with photographs of food, and the table could be covered with chopped herbs. Maybe a picture of a knife in the foreground. I think that would have hinted at the food, the magic-realism, the homeyness, and also a little hint of menace (subconsciously) because of the knife. The illustrated cover here really does not work.



I actually really d both characters and loved the recipes. I don't think this book is as bad as everyone says it is, but the tonal shift was definitely a game-changer that impacted my overall enjoyment of the book as a whole. But ultimately, the magic-realism, the ode to Dominican fusion, and the premise of two flawed and headstrong characters falling in love ended up saving the book for me. Just go into this book knowing that it gets a little miserable for a while halfway through, and if you or someone you know recently suffered from a bad burn, this could potentially be triggering.



2.5 to 3 starschick-lit kissing-books magic-realism ...more47 s2 comments Berit Talks Books2,057 15.7k

Sweet and spicy! Yaffa S. Santos has cooked up a delectable tale bubbling with food and romance. Lumi is pretty bummed out when her Dominican restaurant goes out of business and she is forced to take a job as a sous chef at a traditional French restaurant. Even more irritating her new boss is a bit of an arrogant ass. He thinks he is gods gift to the kitchen and even though he is drop dead gorgeous Lumi is not impressed. That is... until she is. Lobsters, apples, tomatoes, tarts, kisses, turtles, misunderstandings, recipes, and charm.

This was a fun little treat. I really d Lumi and all her sas. I also really d the fact that she could feel the emotions of the person who prepared her food, that was a fun magical element to the story. Julian was hard to , but I think deep down he was a good guy. The romance between Lumi and Julian didn’t always work for me. There was a turning point though where I got it, I just wish I had felt it earlier. I also wish we had got to know these characters a little better they weren’t quite as multi dimensional as I would’ve d. The cooking in the book was great and I loved how they included the recipes. I would have definitely love to dine at Lumi’sie’s Dominican restaurant.

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