Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: The Missing Ingredient 
SERIES: Dreamspun Desires #63
AUTHOR: Brian Lancaster
NARRATOR: Seb Yarrick
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
RELEASE DATE: November 8, 2018
LENGTH: 5 hours, 19 minutes
BLURB:
It can take losing everything to realize what you had all along.
Up-and-coming London chef Marcus Vine is poised on the edge of success, but the only men courting him are investors. That leaves Marcus with some free time—which is fortunate, because his godchildren need him.
A year ago, a horrible accident killed Marcus’s best friend, Raine, leaving her children without a mother and her husband, Tom, without a partner. Consumed by grief, Tom has been going it alone, refusing help, but when Marcus sees him out with the children, it’s obvious that Tom and his two daughters need someone. His persistent caring finally wears Tom down, allowing him to accept the comfort Marcus offers. Soon Marcus is up to his elbows in homework, home-cooked meals, and after-school activities. Over time he helps them rebuild their world, until soon their lives are approaching normal.
Then the unexpected happens: Tom confesses he has romantic feelings for Marcus, and nothing can ever be the same.
REVIEW:
When you, or at least I, pick up a Dreamspun Desires book, I’m not expecting a masterpiece. I’m not expecting anything remotely deep or a book that will keep me on my toes. I pick them for the fluff, the cuteness, to listen to a book where I don’t have to engage my mind, but just simply get a way for a moment. This line gives me that, each and every time.
The Missing Ingredient is set in London. We follow Marcus Vine, a rising star in the culinary world. A car accident robbed him of his best friend and left his god children without a mother; then the unthinkable happens, Tom, the father and widower asks Marcus to leave them alone. Now a few years later, a chance meeting at a restaurant, makes Marcus go back on that promise as it is clear that the little family of three is still struggling. His offer to help out soon has him elbow deep in homework and cooking meals for the family. He soon realises that the crush he’s had on Tom for the past 10 years has not gone away. Not only that, Tom seems to have developed feelings for him too, making the whole situation even more precarious.
The overall story was a good one. No major drama, except for the expected one around Toms newly realised bisexuality. But there is one thing that I just cannot get passed and that’s Tom. I never warmed to him, not even a little bit. He was just too self-centred, selfish, rude and so many other adjectives that I’m not even going to try to list them all. The way he treated other people was just horrible, especially Marcus. I truly believed Marcus deserved someone better, someone that knows the meaning of give and take, respect and equal values. So in the end I just couldn’t be happy for the two of them, because I feel that there has got to be someone better out there for Marcus, that Tom has more growing and maturing to do – not to mention grovelling, before he’s deserving of Marcus.
Seb Yarrick was a new to me narrator, and after a quick search it seems he’s kind of new in the field with only a couple of books under his belt. I loved his British accent, which alone brought me to London and made my afternoon a pleasant one. As for the voices, well I could have wished for a distinction between Marcus and Tom, the distinction that he did have were for male / female characters, and while he did mix them up a few times, it was still easy to follow along the story.
The Missing Ingredient was everything that I expected from the series and it wasn’t. I was expecting, hoping, for main characters that I’d root for and liked. I didn’t quite get that with this book and it did bring down my enjoyment of this book quite a lot. However, Seb did a strong effort with his narration, and with some more books I believe he has the potential to become a really good narrator.
RATING: 
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