Breakfast in Bed

July 10, 2017
Alers’s second Innkeepers contemporary (after The Inheritance) is slow and stodgy. After being laid off as an assistant chef, 50-year-old Tonya Martin moves from New York to New Orleans. High school music teacher and part-time chef Gage Toussaint is overwhelmed with his duties, so he’s relieved when Tonya becomes a temporary volunteer sous chef at his family’s restaurant. The two bond over their love of cooking, but due to past relationships they find it difficult to trust each other. Tonya is a walking contradiction whose rudeness is disguised as strength: she “admires directness in a person” but is “past placating anyone who openly verbalizes their negativity” even though she herself “has no filter when it comes to speaking her mind.” There’s no chemistry between the lovers. A meet-cute that falls flat, a chef who’s willing to share secret recipes with the competition, dialogue that’s more like interrogation, excessive depictions of every character and food item, and a belligerent ex-wife who shows up just long enough to reveal a secret all combine to drag down this overly detailed, unromantic cookbook.

September 15, 2017
Tonya is looking forward to a fresh start as a restaurant owner in New Orleans after her friend Hannah opens a bed-and-breakfast. Despite her being a lifelong New Yorker, the culture and food of the Big Easy appeal to her. To learn traditional Cajun recipes, Tonya works at a restaurant owned by a relative of Hannah's and gets to know Gage, a musician and chef. While Tonya can't see how she can fit dating into her busy new life as she prepares to open a cafe and supper club at her friend's inn, she finds herself cooking delicious dinners and going to clubs with Gage. He enjoys being a part-time chef and a high-school music teacher, while playing in a jazz group on the weekends. Gage also looks forward to his weekly dates with Tonya. Alers skillfully brings together two confident, middle-aged lead characters, a rare feat for the romance genre. Their banter and the mouth-watering food descriptions will have readers dreaming of having their own adventures in New Orleans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)