Wine, Tarts, and Sex
Grade : C+

I love food (both cooking and eating), and I love books with chef protagonists, so the very title of this book made my mouth begin to water. However, Wine, Tarts, and Sex didn’t quite live up to the promise of the title. There certainly was wine (though it disappeared for a while), I don’t remember any tarts, but there was definitely sex. A lot of it.

Jake Chambers is a world famous chef who just got tired of the LA scene. So, despite the fact that many of his friends and colleagues think he’s crazy, he buys another restaurant, this time in Minnesota. Liv Bell is a former cover girl turned vintner, who chose the unlikely location of Minnesota for her vineyard. Despite the challenges the terrain presents, she creates good wine and she’s proud of her product. One day, while making a delivery, she discovers one of her regular customers no longer owns his restaurant and that a sexy new chef is in his place.

Liv and Jake are instantly attracted to each other, though both are a bit hesitant to act on it at their first meeting. But with next week’s delivery comes more willingness. Much more. ( I don’t think I’ll ever look at a zucchini the same way again.) Once the two of them got started, they were like rabbits who didn’t leave the bedroom for two days. A bit unrealistic perhaps, but then most erotic romances are in that regard. Their chemistry sizzles. Both of them go into the relationship viewing it as fun, nothing more. And both try to keep convincing themselves of that as they find it harder and harder to leave.

Things get a bit more complicated when an old friend of Liv’s - and an old lover of Jake’s - comes to hide out with her young son from her husband, a very rich and corrupt man who will stop at nothing to get full custody of his son. This subplot is a bit unnecessary. It adds some suspense, and a minor side-romance, but in reality Jake and Liv get involved very little. The subplot's ending was anticlimactic, and what appeared to be the book's climax was instead just one more step leading to the story's less than exciting conclusion. And in this scene, like most others in the suspense subplot, Jake and Liv were more peripheral than involved.

Jake and Liv were both interesting, modern characters. They’ve both lived the high life of celebrities and big cities, yet they find each other in the rural Midwest. Their emotions all seemed real enough - I believed what they felt even if I didn't quite understand why they reacted as they did. Their relationship was based mostly on sex and, though there was some out-of-bed bonding, it wasn't enough for me.

One very minor thing I also had a problem with: Jake didn’t like Liv’s wines. In the beginning, I thought (and hoped) that he might just have preconceived prejudices against Minnesota wine, but, no, he just didn’t like her wine. This really is a minor point in the grand scheme of the plot, but it just made me sort of mad at Jake on Liv’s behalf.

The ending also didn't really work - it was abrupt. The events leading up to the conclusion were good, but nothing was quite resolved. Jake and Liv simply reverted to the basis of their relationship - sex.

Though I've focused on my complaints about the plot, the book is better than average, and despite its flaws, I enjoyed much of it. The story certainly isn’t perfect, but the book doesn’t automatically fall into the reject pile. I don’t know if I would go out and buy Wine, Tarts, and Sex, but there’s no harm or foul in getting it from the library or borrowing it from a friend.

Reviewed by Jane Granville
Grade : C+
Book Type: Erotic Romance

Sensuality: Burning

Review Date : July 10, 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Jane Granville

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x