Synopsis
The New York Times bestselling author of Wallbanger and Rusty Nailed is back withNuts, the first in a brand new series set in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley.
Roxie Callahan is a private chef to some of Hollywood’s wealthiest, and nastiest, calorie-counting wives. After a dairy disaster implodes her carefully crafted career in one fell ploop, she finds herself back home in upstate New York, bailing out her hippie mother and running the family diner.
When gorgeous local farmer Leo Maxwell delivers her a lovely bunch of organic walnuts, Roxie wonders if a summer back home isn’t such a bad idea after all. Leo is heavily involved in the sustainable slow food movement, and he likes to take his time. In all things. Roxie is determined to head back to the west coast as soon as summer ends, but will the pull of lazy fireflies and her very own Almanzo Wilder be enough to keep her home for good?
Salty. Spicy. Sweet. Nuts. Go on, grab a handful
Review
Oh how I missed Alice Clayton’s writing – it’s witty, humorous, and illustrates the heroine’s thought process so well that it’s so easy to understand her idiosyncrasies and learn to love them instead of be annoyed by them.
Sugar Snap and Farmer Boy have fantastic chemistry, and while their summer fling was supposed to be just that – with each encounter, cooking lesson and phenomenal naked time, they’re both feeling more. But can Roxie’s old home town be enough for the new California Roxie or will her career send her back to Hollywood and leave her feeling incomplete?
I’ll admit…I’m not really a foodie, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get into all of the discussion of food and farming and the process of creating and producing it. But, to me, that’s what made the story come to life even more because I could tell the passion Roxie and Leo had for their professions and what it gave to those they served. It’s clear from the onset that Clayton did her research because the smallest details are included to truly visualize the special recipes and the ways of sustaining and distributing homegrown produce and supplies. I would actually love to be a part of something like Leo offers to the people in Bailey Falls!
Nuts was exactly the light hearted, low angst romantic story that I needed to break up the darkness that I had been ensconced in due to so many heavy reads. I had forgotten how much I adored Alice Clayton’s writing and the ease in which I found myself smiling at Roxie and Leo’s exchanges and Roxie’s self analysis.
If there was one thing I would have liked a bit more insight into it would be Leo’s backstory and the reasons he seems so guarded with Roxie at the beginning. But that didn’t prevent me from adoring every part of this story – the steam, the humor, the inappropriate food analogies and the realistic feeling of the small town characters and the appreciation they have for the place that they live and what the land provides for them.
I’m so glad to have a new Alice Clayton series to get my romantic comedy fix, and with the title of book 2, Cream, I can only imagine what Clayton has in store for us and her characters!
A complimentary copy was provided by the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 Poison Apples
About the Author
Alice Clayton is a novelist with an unholy love for her KitchenAid mixer. Making her home in St Louis, she enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up afterwards, and is trying desperately to get her long time boyfriend to make her an honest woman. Hi sweetie!!
After working for years in the cosmetics industry as a makeup artist, esthetician, and national educator for a major cosmetics company, Alice picked up a pen (read laptop) for the first time at 33 to begin a new career, writer. Combining her love of storytelling with a sense of silly, she was shocked and awed to be nominated for a Goodreads Author award in 2010 for her debut novels, The Redhead Series.
Alice has penned three novels, The Unidentified Redhead,The Redhead Revealed, and coming soon in November 2012, Wallbanger. She thinks you should purchase them immediately. She’s not kidding, not even a little bit. Everyone needs some comedic erotica in their lives. She is hard at work on the third book in The Redhead Series, set to release in Spring of 2013, continuing the saucy and sexual escapades of everyone’s favorite couple, Jack and Grace.
Additionally, Alice loves spending time with her besties on Not Your Mother’s Podcast, make sure you check them out at notyourmotherspodcast.com or over on iTunes. 3 women rushing towards their forties still acting like teenagers. A saucy little mix of sex, love, relationships, pop cultural, celebrity gossip and All Things Jake Ryan.
Alice enjoys pickles, Bloody Mary’s, 8 hours of sleep, and a good pounding.
Finally Alice would also like all her readers and listeners to help her convince Mt. Alice that the only other thing that would make her truly happy is finally bringing home a Bernese Mountain Dog. She is totally serious. And done talking about herself in the third person…
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