Breakfast in Bed is the third book in Robin Kaye’s Domestic Gods series. While I had a few issues with it, on the whole I found it to be an enjoyable read.

Moving to New York to be closer to her new-found brother and sister-in-law Annabelle, Becca Larsen needs a temporary place to stay while her new brownstone is being renovated. When Annabelle offers to sublet Becca her old apartment, it’s the perfect solution. Only, when Becca shows up to move in, she finds someone else has already taken up residence – and not just any someone else, but Rich Ronaldi, Annabelle’s brother – a man Becca can’t stand.

Rich Ronaldi has just moved back to New York and taken a position as a psychology professor at Columbia University. Since it’s so difficult to find a decent place to live, he’s been subletting his sister Rosalie’s apartment. What he didn’t know is that his other sister, Annabelle, had offered to let Becca sublet it. Rich has no plans on sharing the apartment with Becca – that is, until his girlfriend breaks up with him for not being “relationship material.” Determined to win his girlfriend back, Rich sets out to prove that he can learn to cook and clean with the best of them. He offers Becca a deal: if she teaches him how to become a Domestic God, he’ll let her stay in the guest bedroom. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Becca agrees.

On the whole this was a cute, fun read. There was a bit of a sagging middle, but the latter portion of the book seemed to fly right by. Rich is completely hopeless when it comes to anything involving cooking, cleaning, or laundry, and his mishaps along the way provide for many laugh-out-loud moments. His driving desire behind getting his girlfriend back is that his boss wants to see Rich “settle down,” and Rich too is beginning to think it’s time. But it’s pretty obvious that Rich is focused more on the goal of winning his girlfriend back, and not on how he actually feels about her – which is lukewarm.

Given the setup, I thought I’d see a lot more of Becca actually teaching Rich various tasks, but really she just gives him the barest of instruction and sends him off. In truth she has no interest in helping him – she doesn’t even like the man – so she’s just doing the bare minimum to get to stay in the apartment. Consequently, Rich gets into a lot of trouble – some believable, some not-so-believable. Most of the time I laughed and went along with it, but there was at least one occasion when I just couldn’t believe that anyone as smart as Rich is supposed to be would also be so outrageously stupid.

Which brings me to the whole idea of Rich being a psychology professor: it didn’t quite jibe for me. Almost everything about Rich, from his personality to his behavior, just didn’t seem to fit with him being a professor at an Ivy League university. For long periods of time I would forget that part of the plot, and when I was reminded it was somewhat of a jolt.

Conversely, I really enjoyed that Becca was a sculptor. She may be rich – from a sizable trust fund – but she’s quite grounded. Her determination to make a name for herself independent of her family background was admirable, as was her desire to maintain her relationship with her newly discovered brother.

Despite the issues I had, overall I enjoyed Breakfast in Bed, and plan to check out the previous entries in the series.