Breakfast in Bed: Innkeepers, Book 2

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. (Sept.)