For the month of February, I wanted to read through many of the romances I had sitting around, and for a food loving reader like me, what could be more appealing than a romance with a chef and a food critic as the main characters? Louisa Edwards' Can't Stand the Heat fit the bill on the surface but unfortunately it had so many issues that it ended up just making me cranky.

Miranda Wake is the food critic for Delicieux magazine and when she gets drunk at a party introducing the food world to Chef Adam Temple's new restaurant, Market, she gets into a confrontation with the good looking chef which ends with him challenging her to spend a day in his kitchen and her agreeing. Negotiations with his primary financial backer extend the time to a month, which horrifies Adam and delights Miranda. She has been trying to pitch a book proposal about the food world but she keeps getting turned down because she has no actual restaurant experience and this gift of a month should solve that problem. Her other issue is that her 19 year old brother has moved home and doesn't want to go back to college. Adam, in the midst of opening a much anticipated restaurant, is suddenly saddled with a hostile restaurant critic in his kitchen, a place where almost everyone has worked together and with him before and is a tight and familiar team. Of course, these two antagonists are attracted to each other and find themselves unable to keep their hands off of each other. Miranda's younger brother Jess, who is hired on as a waiter, and sous chef Frankie are also falling for each other.

Miranda's character was awful. It wasn't a pleasure to spend time with her. The way she treated her brother, which the text excuses because she raised him after their parents' death 9 years prior to the story, was ridiculous. I have a 19 year old son I've raised for his entire life and I wouldn't treat him the ways she does her brother. Her infantilizing him is only part of the problem though because her reaction to him being honest about who he is and what he wants is hateful rather than loving and accepting. Adam saving her from her worst impulses was lovely but not earned on her part. But this is not the only time she lashed out like a selfish brat and that made it hard to want her to have a happy ending with Adam. The major catalyst for the girl loses boy part of the story was completely outlandish and the resolution to correct it was easy and too quick.

The timeline in the book is nonsense in all ways. It is hard to believe that Adam and Miranda could overcome their extreme antagonism in only about a day. It is beyond belief that Miranda could pitch a salacious and dirty tell-all book, have it accepted by a publisher (and given an advance large enough to pay for her brother's college), write all 150 pages of it (this, btw, is not generally considered book length, especially for a new author), and have portions of it leaked on some editorial assistant's blog online the day after she hit the send button on the manuscript all in about two weeks' time. It was all I could do not to throw the book across the room at this point. If I wasn't incapable of abandoning a book unfinished, I probably would have. Before the major plot issues, I already didn't like Miranda's character, there were too many forced food and cooking similies, and I wished the book centered on Jess and Frankie rather than Miranda and Adam (although Adam was fine if too forgiving). This was definitely not the book I'd been hoping it was. ( )

On the eve of the grand opening his own restaurant, self-taught chef Adam Temple tangles with acid-tongued food critic Miranda Wake. Certain she's all mouth and no substance, he dares her to spend a day in the heat of his kitchen. Thrilled at the thought of its top critic embedded in a trendy new Manhattan eatery, Miranda's employer (Delicieux Magazine) agrees and goes a step beyond, striking a deal with Adam's financial backer to extend the period to a month. Neither is happy about being stuck with the other for an extended period, but both decide to make the best of it. For Adam it's simple; he'll teach a know-nothing critic how to really cook. But for Amanda, it's the opportunity to write that cooking book she's always dreamed of, only this time it will be a tell-all about the behind-the-scenes goings-on of one of the city's new and popular restaurants. It will mean big money, enough money to fund tuition at NYU for her younger brother (whom she's cared for since the death of their parents years before).

As her time in the kitchen passes, and her admiration for hunky Chef Temple grows, she develops an appreciation for the hard work it takes to run a successful restaurant. On the fringe, however, are stories of lies and promiscuity told by one of its own. When her younger brother becomes involved with one of the sous-chefs (a man), Miranda must choose which "truth" to tell, the one she sees with her eyes (the one that will sell more), or the one she feels in her heart?

I love stories that teach me something, so I loved the cooking lessons in this book. (I now know, at least in theory, how to poach an egg!) And I really like this author's voice, the way she puts words together. What tempered my enjoyment of this story a bit was the development of the romance between the main heroine and hero. Or more accurately, it didn't feel like there was a development, just a flip of a switch from nearly hating each other to wanting to jump each other. I understand that hate is a passionate emotion, and I understand that you can hate and want physically at the same time, but the transition felt forced to me.

Ms. Edwards writes a great love scene too. The heat in the bedroom/kitchen/pantry scenes is definitely enough to poach those eggs, and more. :-) (There are some m/m scenes, but not overly graphic, for those who might not be into reading that type of scene.) If I were able to add an extra half star, I would, so my real rating would be 3.5 stars. Nice job. ( )

I found the main couple interesting, but was equally interested in the secondary romance and all the other characters in and around the kitchen. The only thing I did not like as much was the public grovel by the heroine and the quick acceptance of the hero. Personally I thought she was forgiven too easily for what she had done. Overall a great debut and I'm really looking forward to reading more books by Louisa Edwards.
Grade: B ( )

This is a fun book that I enjoyed reading.

For sharp-tongued food critic Miranda Wake, the chance to spend a month in Adam Temple’s kitchen to write an exposé is a journalistic dream come true. Surely Miranda can find a way to cut the hotshot chef down to size once she learns what really goes on at his trendy Manhattan restaurant. But she never expected Adam to find out her most embarrassing secret: she has no idea how to cook.

Adam’s not about to have his reputation burned by a critic who doesn’t even know the difference between poaching and paring. He’ll just have to give the tempting redhead a few private lessons of his own—teaching her what it means to cook with passion…and doing more with his hands than simply preparing sumptuous food. ( )

I'm still processing my thoughts about this book, as I just finished it a few minutes ago, but I will say the heroine infuriated me. I'm not sure I'll be able to most past her actions. I need to think about it some.

I adored the hero and the secondary characters quite a bit, and the overall premise of the story was good. I just can't decide if the heroine killed it for me. ( )