REVIEWED by Jay V.
TITLE: Chef On Top
AUTHOR: M.J. O’Shea
SERIES: Sizzling in the Kitchen #3
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 126 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 9, 2019
BLURB:
Chef Jake Casey has never been what you’d call… liked. By anyone. He was the odd outcast son of the town drunk, and he’s spent his adult life doing everything he can to be nothing like his father. If that meant stomping on a few dozen toes, so be it. But contrary to popular belief, he is human. It gets a little old being alone all the time. When he lands a new job on the other side of the country, Jake decides he’s going to change. New city, new restaurant, new Jake.
It’s going pretty well until his first and only friend’s ex shows up with a fiancé in tow. Ty is horrified. Jake might not have much practice with the friend thing, but he decides he’ll do what everyone in the movies always does – he offers to be Ty’s fake boyfriend. It can’t go wrong. Right?
Ty Caldecott knows better. His life isn’t a teen rom-com and situations like these always end up in humiliation. But the prospect of seeing Taran every day with that ring shining on his finger makes Ty want to vomit. Ty doesn’t want to look like a pining loser, so he tells Jake he’s in.
It can’t go wrong.
Right?
REVIEW:
Jake is trying to better his life and outlook. Being a bad ass, demanding chef has gotten him far in his career but has damaged any potential for friends and partners. When the opportunity to go to Vegas to help launch a restaurant from an up and coming celebrity chef, he jumps at the chance and begins to try to reform himself. Pulled in by the network that focuses on food, Ty is returning from being in test kitchens to being in a live kitchen to help launch the restaurant. Jake is really working to be a better person and his friendship with Ty really helps. They get pulled in to an uncomfortable situation when Ty’s ex-boyfriend shows up and they have to play fake boyfriends for a brief time. Can they help each other get out of a rut?
This one is a tough one to review as the ending to this book is, quite frankly, a hot mess. I actually asked to confirm I hadn’t gotten a copy with the last chapter cut out, but, alas, this is how O’Shea chose to end the book. Writing a book centered around a character that was quite the asshole for the first two books is brave. I really wanted to hate him, but his striving to be a better person was saintly, if not too far out of the realm of a consistent personality. If you think of him as someone else, the character jump is plausible. The story itself is more a narrative on opening a restaurant, restarting your life, and becoming friends with someone you work with. As for the fake boyfriend part, that come fairly late on in the story, seems far fetched, and somewhat out of left field. It doesn’t last long and you wonder why it was even there. Both characters had redeeming qualitative but it was a real struggle to see the chemistry between them. The previous books in the series were saved by amazing descriptions of food, but this one falls short in that aspect so no saving grace there. It just drags as there’s no real core to center the story.
I’m still not sure why the abrupt ending that leaves everyone hanging. Is it so there’ll be another in the series? Frankly, I’m not sure I’m invested enough to care or continue reading a potential next book, but I might be drawn back in for the descriptions of food.
RATING: 
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