Review by Sadonna
TITLE: Catch Me
SERIES: Kitchen Gods
AUTHOR: Beth Bolden
NARRATOR: Wyatt Baker
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 9 hours 33 minutes
BLURB:
Chef Wyatt Blake is finally ready to move on from his thankless job. He gets no wiggle room, zero praise, plenty of abuse, and on a good day, he might only spend 12 hours in the Terroir kitchens.
A friend of his recommends a private chef position, but despite the boost in pay, Wyatt doesn’t want to babysit some spoiled, rich LA family. Imagine his shock when the family isn’t a Kardashian clone but Ryan Flores, the only professional baseball player to ever come out of the closet.
Ryan is also at a career crossroads. His team’s management wants to see his more responsible side, which means no more late-night hookups and no more adrenaline-charged stunts. When his agent suggests he find a fake boyfriend to give him an air of domesticity, he’s only reluctantly interested. Until, Ryan goes to a local bar and spies the cute private chef he’s supposed to be interviewing the next day.
Maybe a quieter life wouldn’t be so bad, as long as Wyatt is part of it?
Wyatt believes Ryan could be more than just a crappy boss, but he isn’t sure about leaving the kitchen for the life of a professional boyfriend. Especially when he wants the reality so much more than the fantasy.
Catch Me is a contemporary gay romance, and while it is the second book in the Kitchen Gods series, it can be listened to as a stand-alone.
REVIEW:
Note: As this is Book 2 in the Kitchen Gods series, it does contain spoilers for Book 1. It can be read as a stand-alone, although there is a bit of background set in the first book.
Wyatt Blake needs to move on. His job is driving him to the edge, he has no time to himself and he needs money to take care of family commitments. He heads to LA for an interview for a much better paying private chef gig. He’s not excited about cooking for the spoiled rich. Wyatt has no idea that the client is the guy he hooks up with his first night out in LA before his interview. And that means it turns out the client is the first out professional baseball player, Ryan Flores. However, the job isn’t just about cooking. Ryan asks Wyatt to be his fake boyfriend as well. Seems management isn’t so excited about Ryan’s reckless adrenaline junkie streak and Eric, Ryan’s manager, thinks if he appears more “settled” it’ll get the Dodgers management off his back and extend his contract hopefully.
But Wyatt can’t accept the position – well not as a fake boyfriend. He’s not out to his family and he doesn’t want them to find out that he’s gay. Ryan understands, but he’s really disappointed – because despite his best efforts, he really does like Wyatt. They have fun together – riding motorcycles, surfing, hanging out. Ryan doesn’t really want to do this fake boyfriend thing either, but he doesn’t want to leave LA.
Ryan and Wyatt seem to keep getting closer though. Ryan introduces Wyatt to his family even. They continue to enjoy each other’s company and the sexual tension is always simmering just beneath the surface. But when Ryan resolves to find someone else as a fake boyfriend, well Wyatt isn’t ready to accept that at all. But just when it looks like things might turn around for them, things seem to get offtrack again. Ryan and Wyatt keep second guessing each other and their relationship and things seem to go from bad to worse. When a crisis hits though, it seems like they are forced to face facts – that they belong together.
I really have enjoyed this series. I read the first book right when it came out. I thought I’d try the audio for this one. I liked the story and both Ryan and Wyatt as characters, but the narration was just OK. At times the pacing and voices were just off for me. Wyatt Baker is a new to me narrator, so I took a little bit to get use to his voice characterizations and pronunciations. I also really liked the secondary characters in this one – especially Wyatt’s and Ryan’s families and friends, including Ryan’s best friend Tabitha who is a character from another of Bolden’s series. It was also nice to look in on Miles and Evan from book 1. I’m anxious to get to the next book which will feature another former Terroir co-worker of both Wyatt and Miles from the first book.
RATING: 
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