Just by coincidence, I picked up the second book of Louisa Edwards’ Recipe for Love series at the library just before I started reading Just One Taste. It set some pretty high expectations for the third entry in the trilogy. Luckily for me, the book didn’t disappoint.

Wes Murphy is the son of a con man who found his true life’s calling in a halfway home’s kitchen. Now studying at a prestigious cooking school, Wes is taken by his new Food Chemistry professor. A child prodigy, Dr. Rosemary Wilkins is utterly brilliant and socially inept. Though he started out wooing her to bump up his grade, their experiments on aphrodisiacs bring about some real chemistry. However, when their relationship is discovered, both of their careers are threatened – so Wes leaves without saying goodbye to take up a job in New York City at a restaurant called Market.

Six months later, Rosemary is on the brink of making some serious breakthroughs on the aphrodisiac study, which started out as a farce but now stands to make bank. She comes down to New York to tell Wes. However, neither of their feelings has dimmed in their time apart, and both have to face each other’s pasts, motivations, and ambitions.

Wes and Rosemary are great characters. It is a true melding of opposites – the charming man raised by a con artist, and a socially awkward chemist. Rosemary is, with one exception, very well characterized. I loved seeing the world through her eyes, trying to navigate through the emotional and irrationality of romantic relationships when all she truly understands are chemical interactions – not personal ones. But, that one exception: she references stereotypical nerdy pop-culture frequently. Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy, and a few others whose references I didn’t understand. It felt out of place given her otherwise consistent and well-developed character development. I couldn’t see such a brilliantly scientific woman, so immune to the tides of popularity and pop culture, getting all hung up on science fiction and vampires.

The setting and secondary characters are great. As a former restaurant critic, the author gives the kitchen scene a ring of authenticity that I really enjoyed. The other cooks in the kitchen also added a lot of personality, especially a secondary romance between two men that has arced through the trilogy. The strength of their relationship and the romance rivals Wes and Rosemary’s, and provides a peek into a type of relationship that is only now gaining some mainstream acceptance.

Readers new to Louisa Edward’s trilogy needn’t read the previous books to enjoy this Just one Taste, but I’d recommend doing it anyway. It’s a solid debut trio, and I’m looking forward to more from this author.