Title: Delicious

Author: Sherry Thomas

Publisher: Bantam Books

Publishing Date: August 2008

I had thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Thomas’ first book, “Private Arrangements”, so I was looking forward to her second effort. “Delicious” not only lived up to my expectations.. it exceeded them.

In this book the author uses food and epicurean delights.. as a backdrop for a complex story of love and longing and sacrifice with a “Cinderalla” theme. The main characters are not your usual ones found in historical romances. Verity Durant is a mature woman in her 30’s who works “below stairs” as a cook, albeit an exceptional cook! Stuart Somerset is the bastard son from a prominent family. He has risen high in the world of law and politics and has an even more promising future.

I love to read a book where the characters have much going on “below the surface”. It adds to the complexity of the story and makes it interesting for the reader to figure out motivations and possible conclusions, without having said conclusions be too obvious as often happens in traditional romances.

Even the secondary characters in this book have complicated backgrounds and personalities that make you just as interested in them as you are in Verity and Stuart.

The book is written with flashbacks to ten years prior in alternate chapters. Sometimes I find this confusing, but in this book it wasn’t that way. The situation was “different” enough that you didn’t lose track of which time frame you were in. It also allowed you to not know the “full” background story until almost the end of the book.

While the final scenes are somewhat expected as the only possibly conclusion that will result in a happy ending for all, there are still interesting twists and turns to how it all comes about. Some characters surprise you right up to the last minute.

If you are looking for a period piece romance with a few different twists, I highly recommend this book!