Idlewild

November 7, 2016
Sierra (What It Takes) combines food, business, and love in this tender contemporary set in Detroit. As Asher begins to emerge from grief over his husband’s death, he realizes how badly he’s neglected the restaurant that was their shared dream and decides that a reboot is in order. When he’s ready to reopen, his all-new staff includes Tyler, a young man with charisma, charm, and the kind of head for business that Asher desperately needs. There are plenty of reasons for them to avoid the attraction between them, but one by one those reasons drop away, and the two fall into bed and into love. As their relationship develops, Asher and Tyler must navigate their very different experiences and expectations to avoid putting their hearts and possibly the entire restaurant at risk of implosion. Readers who appreciate that Tyler’s nuanced personality defies black gay stereotypes may be uncomfortable seeing those same stereotypes embodied by his tough, aggressive, emotionally walled-off ex-boyfriend Malik. And unfortunately, every relationship problem in the book comes down to the same lack of honest communication. Though narrow in scope (largely due to Asher’s self-imposed isolation), the romance is straightforward, sweet, and generally entertaining.

November 15, 2016
A widowed restaurateur falls for a young waiter in a Detroit-set romance with heart, sweat, and tears.When his husband, John, died five years ago, Asher let both their restaurant and his personal connections drift. Hoping to breathe life into the dying Idlewild, Asher replaces his entire staff. One of his new hires is Tyler, a recent pre-med grad taking a break from his march to an M.D. Tyler's intense, youthful exuberance and optimism shake Asher from his distant reserve. But Tyler is in a long-term relationship with Malik. While Asher has moved on in some ways from John's death, he's in deep denial about his emotional readiness for a new love. Sierra (What It Takes, 2016, etc.) has created a very natural and psychologically astute portrayal of a romantic relationship, by turns funny, delightful, and painful. A poet, Sierra often surprises with a lovely turn of phrase: to describe Tyler's mixed racial and gendered identity: "Tyler knows of the middleness of his body"; on the toll of restaurant life: "Morning is tight in his bones, and he hurts with exhaustion." Less successfully, Sierra uses the tension between "the two Detroits," personified in Asher's wealthy suburban upbringing and Tyler's East Detroit background, to build conflict; in those passages, the writing can seem didactic. A leisurely read that allows its characters to unfurl in layers, revealing how love of another reflects our true selves back to us in sometimes surprising and challenging ways. A lovely, finely wrought romance that reminds us that to truly love another, we must know our own hearts.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.