Cooking Up a Storm [Mass Market Paperback]

The 'hero', Storm (aka Eugene) Dupre IS a hottie and I felt like with more 'fleshing out' (no pun intended) I could have really connected with him. He's awesome in that he lives to please his partners--what makes them happy makes him happy. Storm is also into mild bondage--with himself as the submissive. This doesn't go along, in my mind, with the strong sexual figure I would have liked in Storm. By the time he decides to go after the heroine for love, however, she's a total nymphomaniac and her ability to be monogamous is seriously in doubt.

As far as Abby (the heroine) goes, I ended up liking her less and less as the book progressed. Storm awakens her sexual desires (awesome) BUT she proceeds to experiment with everyone in town, including a lesbian girl who has had a crush on her the entire book (note: these are erotic fiction for WOMEN--I thought it was men who liked the girl-on-girl things). Another of her sexual partners includes one of her deceased father's friends - ewww.

Anyway ... although the love scenes between Storm and Abby were great, I felt like the rest of the sex was really gratuitous (maybe I'm missing the point here ;+)

Storm comes looking for a job but really for a business he can take over. He is not sympathetic at all. Abby has a failing restaurant and needs help, both in the restaurant and in finding her sexual side. Storm unleashes a monster. Abby finds herself witha a number of people before deciding to make her way back to the aphrodesiac laced cooking, and loviong, of Storm.

I started our liking Abby and not caring much for Storm, but ended liking Storm much more but still not rooting for either one. I thought, by the end of the book, that they deserved each other.

Would I buy it? Yes. Would I keep it? No. The ses is to ordinary and the plot not interesting enough for it to go on my keeper shelf. Good beach or bathtub read where you don't care if it gets wet.

The book started out great! Jaded Storm Dupre is a hot, sexy LA-based chef looking for a fresh start and new challenges. A help-wanted ad for a chef to work in a small Cape Cod inn grabs his attention and soon he has uprooted his life and moved across the country intent on eventually buying out the inn's owner. She is Abby Coates who is hanging onto the inn by a thread. She hopes that the additional business a hotshot new chef will bring in will allow her to get the inn back on firm financial footing. Abby has just ended her relationship with a longtime boyfriend with whom she had a less than satisfactory sex life. Of course she and Storm are immediately attracted and she finds that sex with Storm has opened her eyes to lots of possibilities. Unfortunately, from there things went downhill for me, as Abby proceeds to have sex with just about everyone in town! Meanwhile the love-em-and-leave-em Storm begins to fall hard for her.

But I have to say that toward the end I really disliked Abby (...)! On the flip side, I began to like Storm more and more. I would have liked this book much more if it had concentrated on Abby and Storm as a couple rather than Abby's sexual exploits. And in the end, I have to say that I had no faith that their relationship would survive. But that's just me. For those who like erotica for it's own sake, this story may work. It didn't for me.