#BlogTour: A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Cana

For this blog tour, we’re looking at the spicy second entry in Natalie Cana’s series of family, friends,… and a meddling grandfather. For this blog tour, we’re looking at A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Cana.

Here’s what I had to say on the review sites (Hardcover.app, TheStoryGraph, BookHype, Goodreads):

Slow Burn Second Chance Romance With Quite A Bit Of Political Commentary Baked In. Straight up, just from the nature of the work of our female MC in particular, this book has *quite* a bit of left leaning politics baked in. That noted, if you can accept that this is simply this character… it actually isn’t overly preachy. I’ve certainly seen *far* more preachy books given similar characters in other works by other authors before, so, truly – don’t let that scare you too much, just know your eyes may roll a bit if you disagree with the politics being espoused.

Beyond that though, this really is a solid and remarkably deep second chance/ single dad romance showing the power of love… and meddling grandfathers and saccharine sweet young daughters. But it *is* a *very* slow burn, almost with more focus on everything *other* than the romance itself. Like, our MCs met in HS and had this instant chemistry, broke it off, went their separate ways, and yet the flame never died… so it is never really *shown* in the book so much as *told* that it is there (with the *occasional* view of it, often seeming more to remind the reader that this *is* intended to be a romance novel).

And yet… the story really does work quite well. There’s nothing definitively *wrong* with it, and the world created here is remarkably “real” and one of the more fully fleshed out communities I’ve encountered in all of my reading. It just may not be *exactly* the kind of book various readers are looking for for various reasons. Including pissing off the sweet/ clean crowd with its in-the-room sex scenes.

Still, ultimately this *was* a really good book. I *am* looking forward to Book 3. And this *is* very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book excerpt, book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Cana”

#BookReview: Gucci Girls Don’t Date Cowboys

Solid Single Dad Meets City Girl Romance. This is the second book in the new O’Sullivan Sisters Series, and as such contains at least minor spoilers from the book before (that are obvious due to it being a romance book, nothing really more than that). And yet, while it does contain the overall series mythos to a certain degree… it doesn’t really do much to advance it other than a surprising moment at the end to rather blatantly set up the next book. Ultimately this one is mostly concerned with telling a standalone (though set in a common world) romance… and that absolutely works here. It has enough length so that growth doesn’t appear sudden, even as it mentions months passing by in single sentences to show time progressing that way as well. In the end, a satisfying romance that does just enough to continue the series. Very much recommended.

This review of Gucci Girls Don’t Date Cowboys by Sophia Quinn was originally written on February 14, 2022.