The short review is that I questioned the believability of the initial plot set-up. But if you can get past that, and plenty of readers on Amazon and Goodreads have, you can enjoy a breezy, sexy contemporary romance involving an established couple renewing their emotional commitment to each other while scrambling to start a new business. There is even a pie recipe in the back! And here are my detailed impressions.

The book starts with a prolog in which Quint remembers his beloved dad Jimmy’s funeral after Jimmy died of an unexpected heart attack. He relives how he tried to escape his sorrow with extensive fishing trips in the weeks that followed, abandoning his real-estate business and his equally grief-stricken wife Callee and mother Molly – not to mention his worried assistant Andrea whose livelihood is tied to his failing business. In Chapter 1, Quint realizes that he’s been a total jerk and might not be able to redeem himself to everyone whom he’s let down. He discovers that Callee is midway through the paperwork to divorce him, and Molly has stolen his office space and his abandoned employee Andrea to start a pie café. The grand opening is a few weeks off and Molly is working hard to make it happen.

Meanwhile Callee, who now plans to enroll in cooking school in Seattle, returns to Montana to give back her heirloom wedding ring to her beloved mother-in-law Molly. She’s not happy to run into Quint, who has just arrived to gape in astonishment at the pie café that used to house his real estate business. But as soon as Callee and Quint start arguing, Molly suffers a near-fatal heart attack right in front of them. Terrified, they rush her to the hospital where the doctors warn them that Molly must suffer NO STRESS if she is to recover. Good luck with that, though, since the grand opening of the pie café still looms ahead. Molly extracts a promise from guilt-stricken Callee that Callee will take over for Molly as pastry chef, recruiter of café staff, and events coordinator so that the pie café will open on time to participate in a big food event.

Here is where I question the plot because Callee hasn’t yet enrolled in cooking school. Everyone knows she can barely boil an egg let alone make pastry. Why would Molly ask Callee to fill in as pastry chef – especially after what Quint reveals halfway through the book? Unless Molly is just matchmaking. Aside from this , I found the book delivers a light and fast-paced plot about second chances and the perils of start-up businesses. Jane the new pastry chef is a stand-out character, and her story to be told in the sequel DELICIOUS looks intriguing.

Type of Romance: Male-Female Romance
Title: Delectable
Author: Adrianne Lee
Publisher: Hachette Book Group/ Grand Central Publishing, imprint Forever.
Subgenre: Contemporary Romance
Setting: small town Kalispell, Montana
Sex scenes: some mildly explicit scenes
Viewpoint: alternating third person (Callee, Quint) by scene/chapter
Note: A free review copy of this novel was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for a honest review. I received no compensation for this review from author or publisher. Look on Amazon.com for Delectable: Big Sky Pie #1