The Romance Recipe

by Ruby Barrett

Overview

"The feelings in this one are dialed up so high you almost can’t look at them directly: It would be like staring into the sun... Like Rosie Danan or Kate Clayborn, Barrett has a way of making palpable the full journey of a relationship" –New York Times

“Simply put, The Romance Recipe is a treat.” –USA TODAY



Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak.

Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane…

Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.

Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn’t want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn’t want to deal with Amy’s take-charge personality and she doesn’t want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean…

Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there’s more than just the restaurant at stake.


Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.


Book 1: Hot Copy
Book 2: The Romance Recipe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335506917
Publisher:	Carina Press
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	156,629
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Ruby writes steamy romances about big feelings. Mutual pleasure, pining, and healing are common themes in her books. She loves to read romance, lift weights, drink tea, and cackle with her friends. Ruby is a bi woman with ADHD living in Ottawa, Canada with her daughter, and her husband.

You can find her at www.RubyBarrett.com.

Editorial Reviews

04/18/2022

Barrett (Hot Copy) again tackles the complexities of workplace romance in her fun if shaky sophomore rom-com. Restaurateur Amy offered her head chef job to Sophie, a finalist from reality cooking show Pop-Up Kitchen, based exclusively on the crush she’d developed on Sophie over the course of the show. At first, Sophie drew crowds, but her shine has faded. Sophie knows she only got the job because of her celebrity, and though she would cancel all her social media accounts if she could, she puts extra time into curating the ideal feed, hoping to keep her boss—and secret crush—happy. Readers are told that each woman has feelings for the other from the start, but it’s difficult to see this in their early, largely contentious interactions. When Sophie’s ex-fiancé announces a new reality show that would mean free advertising for the restaurant, Amy and Sophie go head-to-head over whether to enter. In the process, both reveal more about themselves than either expected to, and their chemistry finally comes through. Understanding why these women are so drawn to each other may take some time, but their grounded personal and professional struggles are easy to invest in. The result is a down-to-earth queer romance. Agent: Kiana Nguyen, Donald Maass Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Included in Autostraddle: 49 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Out Summer 2022

One of Popsugar's 101 Romance Novels to Spice Up Your Summer

“Amy and Sophie’s romance is charged from the get-go, with generous helpings of spice and sweetness as the novel progresses. The bisexual representation is one of the book's most compelling elements; Sophie comes out in her early thirties, and through her journey to her relationship with Amy we get to see the overwhelming joy and love that her self-acceptance brings.” –USA TODAY




'In her debut, Ruby Barrett wrote one of my favorite romance heroes of all time, but it's her heroines who shine in The Romance Recipe. A prickly restaurant owner butts heads with her new chef in this steamy f/f romance, which will be the perfect way to celebrate Pride when it publishes this June." —Meryl Wilsner, for Entertainment Weekly


“Simply delicious! Amy and Sophie’s chemistry sizzles across the pages.” —Rosie Danan, author of The Roommate and The Intimacy Experiment



“Sensual feasts abound, both in luscious culinary creations and detailed sex scenes, as Barrett masterfully portrays the sensation of infatuation growing into true love.” —BookPage


"A down-to-earth queer romance" —Publishers Weekly

"Like Rosie Danan or Kate Clayborn, Barrett has a way of making palpable the full journey of a relationship: It’s not just two hot bodies being hot in proximity to each other — though the sex scenes are definitely spicy! — but two distinct lives growing toward a shared future.”—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher