Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Home Skillet
SERIES: Culinary Kings #1
AUTHORS: Cate Ashwood & Sandra Damien
PUBLISHER: Kydala Publishing, Inc.
LENGTH: 196 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 31, 2108
BLURB:
Sometimes the only way to move forward… is to go back.
JAMES
I don’t know what’s more shocking—the sudden end to my marriage, or the fact that I’d married a woman at all. But now I’m broke and homeless, kicked out of my Upper West Side apartment while my ex-wife walks away with everything we’ve ever worked for.
So what’s an executive chef stripped of his dignity gonna do?
Go back to Jersey with his tail between his legs, that’s what.
BEN
I can’t say that spending a decade pining after my best friend was the best use of my time. While I’d pretty much become an expert at the whole unrequited love thing, I’d resigned myself to the fact that Jimmy and I were never gonna happen. But when Jimmy turned up on my doorstep in his hour of need, I jumped at the chance to offer him my bed—er, couch. I mean, what are friends for, right?
Now that he’s released from the shackles of matrimony, I can’t wait to show him exactly what he’s been missing out on all these years.
What I didn’t anticipate was him showing me that maybe I’d been missing out too.
REVIEW:
I do enjoy a good second chance love book.
Benny and Jimmy had been best of friends and, when they went off to college to learn to be chefs, they roomed together and became more. But that all changed when Ben had to quit school and Jimmy decided to marry his female best friend so she could access her trust fund and he could open his restaurant “The Carvery”. James Carver had it all. His dream is of owning a New York restaurant that was at the top of the NY market had finally come in thanks to his hard work. But that all came crumbling down when his wife told him she had met someone else, was divorcing him and selling the restaurant because she had 75% ownership. So Jimmy quits and returns to his best friend. Ben has loved Jimmy all his life! Unfortunately Jimmy never figured that out. So Ben was his best friend even though it gutted him to not have his love returned. But one night out at a club and that all changes.
I kept cheering for these two and hoped that they would somehow become brave enough to tell the other how they felt. I know that Jimmy’s world was jerked out from under him but I could see how it could happen. He was so damned focused on his goals that he wouldn’t, no couldn’t, see what was happening around him. And Ben was so hung up on his best friend that he let him walk all over him for a chance to hang out. The thing that surprised me was, once Jimmy’s restaurant took off, I couldn’t see why he wouldn’t have brought his best friend up to work there instead of leaving him at the disgusting Buck’s. But then he wouldn’t have been able to put away “deep on the back shelf of the closet” his feelings and desires for Ben.
I was happier with the second half of the book that the first. It seemed to pick up and the story started to finally move in the right direction, although sometimes too fast! Where as the first half could have moved on a bit faster. And, I have to say, Jenna (Jimmy’s wife) surprised me pleasantly in the end. These two had always been only friends and how she treated him in the beginning was not a friend. It was nice to see her redeem herself. Victoria, Jimmy’s sister, was a bright spot too.
What I had a hard time wrapping my head around was Jimmy taking the job at Buck’s. He was just written up as the new rising star of the New York Culinary scene and then he is in a barbecue joint in Jersey just getting by. I know the prenup was holding him back but that was just too much of a stretch. The newspapers would have had a field day with that tidbit.
This was a cute book and I enjoyed it, especially when the story finally got moving. I will say that reading this did a number on my diet. The story would describe making something that sounded fantastic and my stomach would start growling. I can’t wait to try the recipe at the end of the story.
RATING: 
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