“Knives, Seasonings, & A Dash of Love” by Katrina Kwan

3⭐️/5⭐️
2.5🌶/5🌶

“He really wants her. She really wants him. Alexander just might break his own rules. Just for her.”

The basic premise is this: Alexander is the head chef in an upscale restaurant. Eden is his new sous chef, but she’s hiding the fact that she never went to school and has no formal training to be a chef. She has a natural talent for working in the kitchen, and it doesn’t take long to win over Alexander. Alexander is the definition of a grump, but he recognizes Eden’s talent and respects her. But she’s hiding something else: Eden knew Alexander ten years ago, and Alexander doesn’t remember. Eden wonders what happened to change Alexander’s personality, and readers follow along as she slowly unravels all of the struggles he has faced in the last ten years.

-There was so much I loved and enjoyed about this book, and I truly think it will be enjoyed by so many people. I haven’t read many romance novels where one or more of the MCs are chefs, and I loved the deep dive readers experience through Alexander and Eden’s worklife.

-Alexander’s story is compelling, and it was my favorite part of the whole book. I think he was fleshed out beautifully, we really get a sense of who he is, what his struggles are, why his struggles are both unique to him as an individual, but also how they apply to the Asian American community as a whole.

-When Alexander and Eden become a couple, their romance is really lovely. They have excellent chemistry together, and I loved the spicy scenes.

Here’s what I struggled with:

-It felt like I was dumped in the middle of an existing story, and there wasn’t enough exposition given to Eden’s character prior to her introduction. I think if readers got to know Eden prior to showing up to the restaurant there would have been less of a whiplash.

-The whole reason why I requested this book on NetGalley was because it’s inspired by Reylo. However, the one-to-one Star Wars parallels were too heavy. I’ve read several Reylo inspired romance novels, and they seem very hit or miss. Either they straddle the line of inspiration perfectly, or it’s too heavy handed in Star Wars references. For example, all of the supporting characters shared the same first initial with their Star Wars counterpart. I think there needs to be more originality to those characters.

-There’s third act conflict that felt very rushed, and it was also resolved extremely fast. If there’s going to be a conflict, I’d rather it be something simmering in the background and then all of a sudden reaching a boiling point. And if the couple is going to face this obstacle, they need to put in the work to make me believe they’re going to succeed as a couple; I didn’t get that impression from Alexander and Eden.

-This was a pretty quick read, and despite my issues with the plot and supporting characters, I did enjoy the story. I stand by what I said earlier, I think many people will take to this story and rate it higher than I did; it was just ‘ok’ for me.

This book definitely needs to come with a warning: Do Not Read While Hungry!

Shang and Eden’s love story was low angst and full of amazing side characters. Their personalities were so different that I wasn’t really sure I would like this couple, but then they went on their first official date to an aquarium and they started to grow on me.

As their workplace romance heated up, things got toxic with management and they were forced to leave. They both used the time away from work to reconnect with family and to put to rest traumatic events from their pasts.

With the help of their friends and family they open a new restaurant and make a name for themselves in the culinary world doing what they love with the people they love.

Content warning: profanity, racism, child abandonment

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book so much it made me hungry.

I love reading books about kitchen, cooking settings.

This was a cute read and had me heading to the kitchen afterwards.

I absolutely loved this book. Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love follows 2 cooks: Michelin star chef Alexander Chen and culinary dreamer Eden Monroe. The dual POV of the story follows both characters as they learn to navigate cooking in the kitchen alongside one another and rediscover what made them fall in love with cooking in the first place.

The first chapter and the last chapter open with the same scene. The esteemed Chef Chen doing running the kitchen during the peak dinner rush. The difference between both scenes - Chef Alexander leading with an iron fist at La Rogue to begin and ending in a kitchen where he is leading his found family through the nightly dinner rush with the people he loves most in the kitchen and dinning room around him.

Eden is officially my favorite MC. From the beginning, readers are cheering for her as she steps up to take the sous chef position beside Alexander. As the book progresses, we learn more about both Eden and Alex's (Shang's) culinary history and just how intertwined their stories are. Eden is quick to put Shang in his place time and time again, teaching him exactly what it means to be a head chef his kitchen staff can be proud to work with. In turn, Shang provides Eden with the tools and guidance to grow as a chef and as a person, helping her figure out exactly what how she got to be second in command and La Rogue and where she can go from there.

Author Katrina Kwan did a fantastic job with her debut romance. The storyline flowed nicely, and even though we did not have a formal time line with months and dates, it was easy to tell how long Eden and Shang spent working and growing together, and how their interactions impacted those around them.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Katrina Kwan for providing me with this read. I am excited to see what Kwan writes next!

This was a cute read. I enjoyed the romance. I tend to not read romance much, but couldn’t resist one set in a restaurant kitchen setting. I found this entertaining and enjoyable all throughout.

Meh. None of this really worked for me. The lead constantly adding sweetheart onto every statement was odd and uncomfortable. Like a creepy old man. The sex scenes were more cringe inducing than hot. I’m not sure how Eden went to culinary school 10ish years ago but her parents disappeared when she was 5 and that was “nearly 20 years ago”. The math didn’t work. At one point it’s stated that Eden makes “her mother’s mac and cheese” but her mother left when she was 5 and didn’t seem like the kind of mother to make homemade mac and cheese. Then Eden proudly states how she’s on birth control, but surprisingly ends up pregnant. Just lots of other inconsistencies too that took me out of the story.

*Review posted on Goodreads on 11/9/23

<b>RATING:</b> 4.25✨
<b>SPICE:</b> 🌶️🌶️
<b>Trope/Setting Highlights:</b>
#️⃣ ~370 page contemporary romance
📖 Chef MCs
📖 Kind of second-chance if you squint and close your eyes like 99.7%?
📖 Chinese-American rep (MMC + family)
📖 Grumpy (MMC) x sunshine (FMC) dynamic
📖 MMC only soft for the FMC
📖 Emotional and sensitive family matters
📖 HEA (with 5+ year epilogue)
🌶️He may be a chef, but MMC loves to eat out (turnabout is very much mutual)
🌶️Some dirty talk, some general (wanted) roughness

<b>Review:</b>

<b>This is an arc review – thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher as always, extremely grateful for these opportunities!</b>

<i>Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love</i> is Katrina Kwan’s debut novel and tells the contemporary romance tale of Alexander (Shang) and Eden, largely set in the fast-paced and demanding kitchen of La Rouge, a French fine dining darling.

Eden, our FMC, was abandoned as a child by her parents, which has led to a life of trust issues and endless searching, the latter of which is costing her exactly $15,000, since that’s how much it takes to hire one of the best private investigators in the country. Her love of food has been one of the only constants in her life, even though she wasn’t able to complete her time in a prestigious culinary school after a foster parent stole her scholarship money. See? She’s got reasons for trust issues.

When a sudden sous chef replacement opportunity pops up at La Rouge, Eden swallows her pride and embellishes her resume enough to secure the job, and a pretty decent salary. She’ll just have to prove she can make it, and hide her secret, in chef Alexander Chen’s kitchen.

Alexander has not only fought through blood, sweat, and tears for his Michelin stars, but also to be taken seriously as a chef at all. He was forced to change his own birthname, Shang, to attempt this. Proving himself at La Rogue, under a nefariously sketchy supervisor, is Alexander’s only goal, a goal that has far surpassed even the love of food that originally made him pursue being a chef at all. Does he even love it anymore at all?

Alexander is another side of the same coin, like Eden, in terms of trust. While Eden has a hard time placing and keeping her trust in others, trust that they won’t abandon her, Alexander has a hard time trusting his coworkers and employees, trusting his own ingenuity and passion, and even trusting the path he followed to get here.

Maybe that’s why Eden and Alexander work so well together.

How to explain their dynamic? There’s was definitely touches of grumpy x sunshine, with Alexander being the grump, or in this case, the overly stern and sometimes outright mean boss, and Eden being the sun, or rather, a ray of warmth that tempers Alexander’s outward coldness. It’s by working together in the kitchen that a sort of family begins to form, everyone seeing each other in new lights. We also get complementary trope to grumpy x sunshine, which is the MMC only being soft or vulnerable with the FMC.

Something that made the main couple so genuinely sweet to watch was that they had shared familial trauma, and helped each other through it (although initially pushing each other away of course), bringing unique and common perspectives to each other’s experiences. Eden was the first to open up, and it was kind of not by choice, since Alexander found out her secret, but Alexander was way more hesitant, which was one of, if not the, main cause of the third-act conflict. Both Eden and Alexander have deeply emotional stories with their families, in different ways, and I’m glad we got to see a resolution for both of them. It really made the story feel full circle, feel complete.

I’m not always a fan of tying up everything with a neat little bow at the end, or rather, having it end with marriage and children immediately in an epilogue, but because the sentiment of family was so prevalent and emotionally relevant to the plot, it really worked here, and felt earned with love.

Spice was great, and Kwan certainly didn’t shy away from adding an extra scene or three, and I for one THANK HER for that.

Also something I want to mention, I was impressed and refreshed by the way Kwan handled the display of male/masculine emotion and vulnerable. It was touching, and wasn’t either glorified and/or underwhelmed. It was just there, normalized, embraced, allowed, returned, and helped. Really love that.

This would’ve been much closer to 5 stars; however, I was a little underwhelmed at Eden’s family conflict resolution. I understand she wanted complete closure, but the resolution was predictable, and kind of obvious. But it’s fine, more of a me problem.

I really recommend this book if you’re looking for a light contemporary romance between chefs with surprising emotional depth. It was heartwarming, a little heartbreaking, but so very worth it in the end. Maybe this hit at just the right time, something sweet to sweep away some soul sadness, but I’m more convinced this was just a plain good story.

Katrina Kwan is an author to watch! ❤️ 🧡 💛

It was a nice story and it kept me entertained BUT i hate when i gen OW/OM action in books, I absolutely despise it and this is probably why I lowered my rating
But i did enjoy the story and how it progressed
Thank you netgalley for the arc🫶🏻

I'm a little sad - this book expired while I was reading it. I got about 50% through it and was absolutely loving every minute of it.

This is like a behind the scenes look at the restaurant biz and a slow-burn romance between the head chef and the sous chef. It was well written, well paced and super easy to read.

Definitely going to need to pick this up and finish reading it.

i had really wished that i could have enjoyed this one more! however, there was some instances that irked me (the constant mentions of size difference) etc. but overall, it was still cute and fun to read!

This was a cute debut novel. It was an easy and fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Country Press & Review for the E-ARC

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

I AM OBSESSED! 😭 this was one of the cutest contemporary romances I’ve ever read! I love the plot, I love the MCs, I love the LOVE! Second chance romance with a cavity sweet HEA.

Alexander was a grumpy dream boat the whole book. Eden is a strong, feisty sunshine. Shang is the sweetest romantic 🥹🥹 snd The SPICE 🥵🥵 so well written and it came from a natural build - quick attraction but not insta-love.

Easy 5 stars from the beginning!

Definitely a spicy restaurant romance. I enjoyed the banter between the characters but did think the protagonists' issues were a little too quickly dealt with.

This was a really sweet romance and I really had a great time reading it! I loved Eden and Alexander both as individual characters and together, and I think the author did such a good job at bringing these two to life! I also really enjoyed the restaurant setting and loved how the author described the cooking process and the food. Pretty sure my mouth watered a few times reading the description of the food Eden and Alexander made.

However, I'm not a fan of insta love and I think this was the case with Eden and Alexander. I think their story would've been even sweeter if it was developed more carefully and slowly? I enjoyed seeing how Alexander warmed up to Eden and their dynamic as co-workers and then friends so I thought them ending up together not even a half book in was a bit rushed. I also thought the subplot of Eden could've been handled a little bit better but I loved Alexander's one a lot!

If you’ve caught yourself saying ‘yes, chef’ since The Bear came out, or even if you contemplated committing a crime while playing Overcooked with your friends: this is the book you need.

Also pack snacks! I can’t remember the last time I was so hungry reading a book.

Alexander Chen is the best of the best, and he expects his kitchen to follow suit. Eden is his new Sous Chef who lied on her resume to get the job. He’s used to people cowering under his gaze, she refuses to give him the satisfaction.

Eden is the sunshine to Alexander’s grump and their chemistry is delicious. The building tension until it boils over is so good. The cast of characters beyond Alexander and Eden are full of life and their banter was excellent.

There’s so much going on in this story, in the best way possible. You come for the romance, but stay for the compelling and relatable challenges the characters are facing. Also Alexander is down bad for Eden before he even realizes it, and it’s so fun to watch that man be an idiot for her.

Check the trigger warnings, but all issues were handled with grace and care and in a way that makes you feel seen and loved if you’re in the same boat as any of the characters.

Thank you to Lake Country Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

I was very excited to read this one, as I'm a huge supporter of Reylo authors. This one was unfortunately a miss for me, and I ended up DNF'ing around 75%. I loved the setting and the supporting characters, but Eden was a bit of a Mary Sue (she has no formal culinary education and barely any experience but immediately knows how to run a kitchen and learns culinary techinques instantly). I also didn't love how little lead up there was to the romance -- it felt like instalove.

That said, I think the main issue was the writing style was just not for me. Everything is narrated so matter-of-factly, there's very little metaphor or nuance to the descriptions. It made the POVs of the characters feel robotic rather than organic. I think if the characters had more of an interior life, or there was a bit more world-building (even though it's a contemporary romance), I would have gotten through it.

I was also a bit confused towards the end -- I thought the story took place in Seattle, but then it sounded like Alexander/Shang's parents actually lived in Chicago (even though he described going to see them as 'upstate'). I'm not sure if that was a typo or a plot point I would have gotten to later, but it jumped out at me.

Regardless, I appreciate the opportunity to read and review this book in advance!

Funny and swoony it was everything I was expecting it to be and then some more, Kwan really had a wonderful debut and I cannot wait to read whatever she publishes next

thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review

Meet Alexander Chen, one of the most talented chefs to ever grace the culinary world. Now meet Eden Monroe, his newly hired sous chef who may or may not have (definitely) embellished a lot on her resumé to land herself the job. Alexander rules his kitchen with an iron fist and fiery temper. Mistakes simply won't be tolerated. It's no secret that if you can't handle the heat, he'll gladly toss you out with the trash. As one of the very first Chinese-American chefs to claw his way to the top of the world of French haute cuisine, he has a lot to prove and a massive chip on his shoulder.

But he wasn't always like this. Eden knew him back when he still went by his real name, Shang. He used to be sweet and helpful and definitely not the second coming of the devil himself. Eden won't say anything, though, no matter how hot her curiosity burns. Especially not if it could cost her this job. She needs to save as much as she can if she wants any hope of hiring a private detective to find something she lost long ago. All she needs to do is fly under the radar. It's just a shame that she and her new boss butt heads more often than they fulfill orders. What will happen when things finally boil over, and they discover that things between them are spicier than they first ordered?

I love foodie romances. Things heat up between and Alexander and never simmer down! This was a super fun read. I loved the dynamic between the two, from the beginning to the end. Some of my favorite tropes, beautifully written. This is a gem! 🌶️❤️

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital reader's copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review!

I loved this book. It does not hide the fact that it is a Reylo book. This is the story of world-renowned chef, Alexander Chen. Who runs the restaurant La Rouge like a tight ship and had recently hired Eden Monroe who had impeccable resume due to her embellishments. Eden is forced to do this in order to get a good paying job so that she can save as much money as possible to hire a private detective.

Eden is a gifted cook but was formally trained for a short amount of time and was forced to drop out due to financial reasons, which means she never graduated. As soon as Eden starts working a La Rogue she befriends the majority of her colleagues and earns their respect as a team player and sunny disposition towards everyone which encourages the rest of the staff to work harder. Despite being the restaurant sweetheart and earning Alexanders esteem, someone starts sabotaging her, and threatens to expose the truth about her resume which would set her back in trying to hire that private detective.

This story is a grumpy / sunshine romance as well as workplace romance. I love how you slowly get invested in Kwan’s characters, how each character layers get peeled back and see their complexity and reasoning of why they do what they do. This was a quick enjoyable read which often made me quite hungry. I honestly think Kwan should consider putting out a few recipes that would complement the dishes mentioned in this book.

The evolution of Alexanders and Eden's’ relationship is so much fun to watch and the smut is top tier. I also love the dual POV which makes you explore the main characters feelings and struggles even more.

Overall, I recommend this book and it deserves five solid stars. It was a fun entertaining experience that I would not hesitate to repeat. The HEA of this book is incredibly satisfying and loved reading this ARC so much, I bought a physical copy to add to my personal library.

Thank you NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a debut novel, so I don't want to be super rude but the author could use some more work on their plot.

The writing was actually well done but the plot was copy-pasted from kdramas. The rich guy x poor girl trope has so much potential but here, it was just exhausting to read about. The characters fell in love immediately, and there is also this one scene which grated my nerves. It happens in the first few chapters but MMC has physical intimacy with another woman and he thinks about the FMC. Like dude, if you think about her so much then don't do the nasty with the other girl. Anyways, it was one of the most uncomfortable scenes I have read about in a long while.

Hopefully, the author can work more on her craft and plot.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!