Lou is the owner of Luella’s, a struggling French restaurant in Milwaukie. Al is a British transplant who writes restaurant reviews for the local newspaper. An anonymous tip sends Al to Luella’s however, he doesn’t know that he’s shown up on the worst day of Lou’s life as she just caught her fiancé cheating. Al also doesn’t know that the woman whose restaurant he just gave a scathing review to, is the same woman he keeps running in to and can’t get out of his mind. As her restaurant is on the verge of closing, the only bright spot for Lou is the new guy she just met and has agreed to show around the city. Al doesn’t know that the woman he is falling for is the owner of the restaurant he slammed and Lou doesn’t know Al is the reason her restaurant is failing.
I have to confess this book was not as great as I hoped it would be.
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed. The story is sweet and charming and, according to Goodreads, is a mix between You’ve Got Mail and How to Eat a Cupcake. The storyline was definitely something that I could see being turned into a Hallmark movie – she’s a chef, he’s a restaurant reviewer/critic, there’s a case of mistaken identity, and a meet-cute where they literally run into each other.
I felt the conflict between the characters was real. There are too many times where I read stories or watch movies where the conflict is based on miscommunication or a lack of communication and there are so many instances where the characters could come clean and they don’t. But here, I never felt that was the case. It was clear that by the time the characters figure out who each other is, there was never going to be a simple solution and nothing would have been solved by Al/Lou telling the other who they were.
But despite liking those things, the book just didn’t draw me in as I had hoped.
The timing is a bit off in the book. The book spans about a year or so in time, yet it seems like Lou and Al only spend a day together maybe once a month? The parts where they are not together are kind of skimmed and skipped over and we don’t know what’s happening in that time. I think I needed more of Al and Lou to be together for me to become invested in them. The romance was nice but I didn’t quite care enough.
Also, while I don’t know anything about the restaurant review business, I am a little skeptical that Al’s one review would cause so much damage. As far as I can remember, we are never given the name of the newspaper Al works for, but I am led to believe it’s a local paper. Considering that the characters mention that Al has never given a restaurant a positive review, I am just doubtful that one bad review would cause Lou’s restaurant to fail (especially when we are told many times how great a cook she is and how good her food is), but I guess it could happen. Again, I have no knowledge in this area, but it was something that bugged me while reading.
And finally – this book should definitely come with a warning that reading it may make you hungry.
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