Warning: this book causes extreme eye rolling, loud sighing, and uncontrollable urges to scream at the characters.

Alyssa Deveraux and Luc Traverson shared one night of uninhibited passion that left both of them shaken. Alyssa wanted more, but Luc was terrified of his loss of control. The next morning he left without a word.

Now, Alyssa is trying to get out of the stripping business and is a budding restaurateur, about to open her own restaurant. Hoping to get Luc back in her life, she hires him as the guest chef for the next week. He is less than pleased, but cannot resist her lures.

The rest of the story goes something like this: I hate you! I love you? I hate you! I’m pregnant! We’re married! I hate you! I love you? I love you!!!!!

Throw in 3 ½ stalkers (yes, and a half) along the way, a terribly tragic past for Alyssa, and you’ve got the gist of the story.

Alyssa freaked me out. At some parts, I felt like this book was written for a man instead of a woman. It’s like every man’s fantasy come true: she’s a stripper/former hooker, does a pole dance just for him, and is constantly lying around naked in attempt to make him “love” her. And then she has the guts to get huffy because he can only think of her in terms of a stripper and not a real woman. Um, I don’t blame him. She keeps letting other men fondle and kiss her, and makes no real effort to compromise her behavior for Luc. He is definitely insensitive towards her, but she also has no patience for him. It has obviously never crossed her mind that a man might not initially be comfortable dating a former stripper (who happens to let men feel her up).

Luc is equally annoying in different ways. He’s an unattractively pompous brick wall. He and Alyssa are like broken records; Alyssa keeps telling him that she hasn’t slept with Tyler, her bodyguard/bouncer, and Luc keeps accusing her of everything under the sun. There’s no trust or love between these people, and you can be sure that every argument is punctuated by a routine sex scene.

The icing on this cake is that Alyssa is attacked by three men in the last half of the book. Three! What’s worse is that there isn’t any closure or development in these plot lines; these guys just come in, attack Alyssa, and then get caught. The End. It was beyond ridiculous, and by the time she was attacked by the third person, I was totally over this book.

If you can’t tell already, Delicious is melodramatic beyond all belief. Never in my wildest dreams could I have believed there would be so many soap opera staples in one helpless little book. I’m surprised someone didn’t get into an accident and develop amnesia or lose their eyesight on the way to the end of the story. Skip this.