review by Maryom
On paper, Kate Richmond seems to have her life sorted. Her relationship with wine-writer Daniel is strong and secure. Her job entails writing about her passion - food - and she's even got promotion, and been put in charge of the magazine's photo shoot in Mauritius... but she's within a hair's breadth of losing everything. The assignment to Mauritius gets off to a rocky start and goes downhill from there, with a cyclone thrown in for good effect! And as for staying faithful to Daniel, Kate's barely settled into her hotel before she's attracted to Fai Li, one of the local reps they're supposed to be working with, and whether she calls this 'love' or not, no such emotion is around when she's propositioned by one of the hotel's managers ... Can Kate salvage both her career and her love-life from this mess?
You get plenty of romantic comedy style books - well, this is more of a romantic disaster! Kate's life should be plain sailing but she manages to mess almost everything up. Her job, she claims, is more important than marriage, or even a steady relationship, but she's in above her head and everything's about to fall apart around her.
It's hard at times to like a book in which the main character isn't likeable, and unfortunately Kate isn't, or at least I didn't find her so. In putting job before marriage/relationships, she seems cold-hearted and a little mercenary. Her behaviour leaves a lot to be desired - she totally misleads not just Daniel at home, but Fai in Mauritius - obviously neither are best pleased when they find out what she's been up to and with whom, and who can blame them!
In fairness it's probably best to say I'm not much of a romantic fiction reader, so that's probably why this book didn't grab me. What tempted me to read it and what saves the book though is the food. As Kate tosses a salad, grills a main course,whips up a little something for desert, the flavours leap off the page - and there are even recipes at the en in case you wish to try some dishes for yourself.
Publisher - Lulu publishing
Genre - romcom/chicklit
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