Too Darn Hot: In Spite of Ourselves Series

Rule Number One: Never mix business with pleasure. Restaurant reviewer Lina Holland learned that lesson by watching her beloved mentor self-destruct, and she's not about to make a similar mistake, even if the chef and owner of the restaurant she's secretly reviewing is the most sexalicious hunk who ever seared a T-bone. It's not enough to be scrupulously impartial, she must avoid even the merest whiff of favoritism. Date a restaurateur? She can't allow herself to even think about it. Okay, she thinks about it, but that's all. Really!

Chef Eric Reid is a widower struggling to raise twin boys and keep his fledgling restaurant afloat long enough for word of mouth to lift it out of the red. Little does he suspect that the intriguing new customer groaning in ecstasy over his bourbon pecan tart is none other than the legendary Lina Holland, the reviewer whose thumbs-up could spell the difference between colossal success and the extermination of his lifelong dream. No one in the industry knows what Lina looks like, but he's convinced she's a brash, zaftig shrew who applies her makeup with a putty knife. When he finds out how wrong he is, the fun really starts!

Throw in a buttinsky roommate, a lecherous ex-husband, bribery by chocolate, and the fishing excursion from hell, and the result is, well, too darn hot!

Originally published by Zebra books, a division of Kensington Publishing Corp. This book is part of the four-book In Spite of Ourselves series of stand-alone romance novels, which can be read in any order.