Once Tasted

April 14, 2014
Moore’s second Knowles novel (following Once Tempted) contains all the obligatory elements: a hero built like a Greek god, a heroine who thinks of herself as ugly (though she’s actually stunning), and circumstances that force them to spend time together. Mia Bodell and Reid Knowles have been secretly pining for one another since high school, but mutual lack of communication and mistaken assumptions pulled them apart for a decade. Now all grown up, Mia is managing her Uncle Thomas’s vineyard in Acacia, Calif., and cowboy Reid, her neighbor and new business partner, is unavoidably in her path. The two of them shoot sparks, but it’s clear that Reid hasn’t quite left his womanizing ways behind when he talks Mia into sex after she rejects him. Fans of pushy alpha males will enjoy saddling up with this and adventurously explicit liaison full of intriguing details about winemaking.