Reinventing Ruby

by Deborah Blake

The author of the “wonderful” (Tamora Pierce) Baba Yaga novels and Dangerously Charming is back with something completely different, but totally enchanting. Ruby Tate is a cautious and controlled woman; her only passions are cooking and her restaurant, Jewels. Unless you count the uncharacteristic one-night stand she had with a charming stranger the night of her sister’s bachelorette party. And she doesn’t. After all, she got out of his bed the next morning and returned to her real life—dealing with a failing restaurant, a not-so-silent silent partner, and a difficult family. And now there’s this new problem, like a ticking time bomb hiding beneath her white chef’s jacket. Jonathan Gautier is a rising star in the culinary world. With three successful restaurants, a best-selling cookbook, and a new television show, he should be happy, but after six months on the road filming Seven Worth Saving and working in everyone’s kitchens but his own, Jonathan is burned-out and uninspired. The closest thing he’s had to a social life was one amazing night with a woman whose name he isn’t even sure of. All he wants is to wrap up this last episode and get back to his own kitchen. Maybe there he’ll be able to recapture his love of cooking, because if he can’t, he doesn’t know what on earth he’ll do with his life. When Jonathan walks into Jewels, Ruby is horrified. She can’t believe that the famous chef who is her only hope for saving her restaurant is the man who gave her the best night of her life, and a little something extra. All she wants now is for him to help her save her dreams—and then go away. But Jonathan has other ideas. Lots of other ideas; most of which involve Ruby, food, and nakedness. And Jonathan didn’t get to be the success that he is by taking “no” for an answer. Together, they must find a way to save Jewels, even if that means completely Reinventing Ruby.

Genres: Romance

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 17, 2017

About the author

Deborah is the author of over a dozen non-fiction books on modern witchcraft and a tarot and oracle decks from Llewellyn. Her fiction includes the Baba Yaga series, The Broken Rider series, and the Veiled Magic series, and her cozy mysteries The Catskill Pet Rescue series (mostly from Berkley) as well as a few stand-alone novels.

Deborah lives in a 130 year old farmhouse in upstate NY with multiple cats. She believes in magic, laughter, chocolate, and wine. The order may change depending on the day.

Reviews

[Ann Marie Augustino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully steamy

I love the romance, angst and growth of the characters it held my interest from start to finish. Just enough twists and turns. There is a good set up for a series.

[Bunny McFoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this were really cute. Parts of this were really infuriating. Parts of this were -- well, restaurants don't work like that.

The pregnancy storyline was totally unnecessary and I actually had flames come out my ears when the doctor at Planned Parenthood tried to give a twenty eight year old a "pregnancy gets harder as you get older, are you sure about terminating" talk. Like. I've had an abortion through PP. They don't do that - like, with anyone - but they most certainly 100% would not be doing that particular talk with a twenty fucking eight year old. For fuck's sake, the average age of women having their first child in the United States is twenty six goddamn years old!

Speaking of ages, I had a hard time buying Ruby's age being 28. She was supposed to have helped raise her sisters, right? At one point in the book she talks about one of her sisters being wild in her teens and early twenties - which implies that she's at least 25. That doesn't jive. I kept mentally recasting her as being in the 32 to 34 years old range, which would have made a lot more sense overall. It also would have made Jonathan into a more believable character to tack another four to six years onto his age - go turn on the TV and look at the celebrity chefs on it. None of them are in their late twenties. Hell, Gordon Ramsay - who Jonathan is clearly based off of - is 51 having opened his first restaurant at 32 and getting his own tv show at 38.

Other things that fried me: restaurants don't close on Sundays. They just don't. I mean, they might if the owners are crazy fundies but other than that, they don't. Serving brunch on Saturday and closing on Sunday is literally insane and should havbeen one of the things that was called out by Jonathan as being a contributing factor to the restaurant's issues. That menu and restaurant decor are the farthest thing from high end you can imagine (I literally said "TACKY" out loud when the sign was described) and short of a theme restaurant you're not going to get servers wearing little gold aprons. Oh, and in high end establishments the GM doesn't wear a nametag.

Oh, and crepes are not pancakes and I would have very serious concerns about a restaurant that confused the two. I mean, hell, even IHOP knows that one!


What I did like: Meg. Meg was great. I liked Ruby. I didn't dislike Jonathan.

Overall it wasn't the worst way to spend a couple of hours, but you could definitely tell that this was self published. It could have used a much more thorough editing - hell, even a more thorough beta reading! - and that would probably have helped pull some of the loose strings together.

Two point five stars because of Meg.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yum, yum, yum! This is Blake's first published romance and it's pretty good. Add in the food descriptions and it's just delicious. Self-published, but well-designed and well edited. Good story, good characters and I could see a sequel featuring Meg. Plus, there are recipes in the back!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was a cute love story, yes, even without witches :-D

[Skye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this made me incredibly hungry. And kind of sleepy to be honest. Because I just couldn’t put it down and so I didn’t go to sleep like a normal person.

I’m a bit disappointed that I read the blurb before this story though. It hinted at Ruby’s secret and she doesn’t even find out until about halfway through the story. Talk about a spoiler alert! But that didn’t truly ruin the story. It was so simply romantic and sweet. The combination of Ruby and Jonathan’s budding romance, and the cooking and the risk of her restaurant… it gave the story just enough spice and risk, but not enough that my heart was completely pounding throughout.

I can’t quite explain why, but on completing this book, I was completely relaxed, happy and ready to jump into the kitchen and try out some different recipes again. Although I don’t ever want to be a chef, I do love cooking, and this, combined with the romance of the story just worked so completely. Plus, there are recipes in the back of the story that I really, really, really want to try!

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful descriptions of food that made me want to taste everything and I am not fan of pomegranate. The author wisely chose to include recipes. Books with cooking settings and no recipes bug me.