Hot Under Pressure

February 20, 2012
San Francisco scenery, delicious menus, and warm relationships finish Edwards’s Recipe for Love trilogy (after Too Hot to Touch and Some Like It Hot) on a high note. Henry Beck, stoic ex-Navy cook and fish specialist for the East Coast team on the cooking show Rising Star Chef, goes head-to-head against his estranged wife: Skye Gladwell, a hippie California native and head of the Queenie Pie Cafe. Skye asks for a divorce, and Henry responds with a bet; either way, he’ll sign the paperwork, but if she loses the contest, she owes him a night of passion. What sounds like a mean “I hate you but I want you” story transforms delightfully into a warm and authentic tearjerker as the intimacy of the competition allows the couple, through the language of food and a sensual memory-filled homecoming, to open their hearts to new perspectives and a second chance at love.

April 15, 2012

Down to the wire in the final stages of a culinary competition they both desperately want to win, Chef Henry Beck squares off against the one woman he hasn't been able to forget in ten years--Skye Gladwell, his estranged wife. But Skye wants something else, as well as the win--she wants a divorce. Beck agrees to the divorce but proposes a wager, too: if his team wins, he gets one last night with Skye. She reluctantly accepts, never thinking that this bet might just be one they both can win. VERDICT Mouthwatering culinary detail, steamy sensuality, a well-told backstory, and appealing protagonists blend in a lively, wickedly delicious mix that neatly concludes Edwards's trilogy and is sure to please cooks and "consumers" alike. Edwards (Some Like It Hot) lives in Austin, TX.

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