Effie grew up on a tiny Maine island and couldn’t wait to get out of there. She went to culinary school and then spent 16 years traveling all over the U.S. and the world, working in various restaurants. She finally got a gig as a head chef in San Francisco, but it turned out to be far less successful (and less enjoyable) than she had hoped.
In desperate need of money, she returns home to Alder Isle for the summer. Brown Butter, a Michelin-starred restaurant on the island, is in need of a sous chef. Effie plans to work there only for the summer, to get enough money to head to her next location, and she vows not to get attached to being back home.
Within a few hours of returning home, she runs into her childhood best friend, Ernie, whom she’s not seen since the night they graduated from high school. Ernie’s kindness and sense of humor makes Effie feel at home again, and it doesn’t hurt that Ernie has gotten seriously hot as he’s grown older. It turns out he’s working at Brown Butter, too.
She finds herself falling for Ernie but keeps pushing him away since she knows she’ll only be in Maine for the summer. As things at the restaurant become tougher, and a scandal is on the verge of blowing up, Effie wonders whether she’s found the place—and the person—she wants to stay with, or if she needs to leave again.
I love second-chance romances, and if you combine that with a story set in New England and at a restaurant, you bet I’m sold. I loved the banter between Effie and Ernie as well as all of the supporting characters, and I loved the way Rochelle Bilow combined romance, steam, humor, emotion, and heavier issues. So good!!
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