Item: Love in the Morning
Rating: 4.5
Author: Marlene Harris

Review: Love in the Morning by Meg Benjamin

Love in the Morning by Meg Benjamin
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Salt Box #2
Pages: 320
Published by Samhain Publishing on January 5th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

"Breakfast with benefits "
"The Salt Box Trilogy," Book 2
The reality show "Lovely Ladies of L.A." should have launched Lizzy Apodaca s catering company into solvency. Instead, when her carefully prepared appetizers mysteriously gave the cast on-camera food poisoning, she lost everything.
To make matters worse, her car breaks down in Salt Box, Colorado, a town not much bigger than a salt shaker. But maybe her luck is changing the handsome owner of Praeger House, the town s premier hotel, needs a kitchen assistant.
Clark Denham realizes his diamond in the rough is a polished gem when Lizzy steps up to save the hotel s breakfast buffet after his temperamental head chef quits. It isn t long before she s winning his heart as smoothly and efficiently as she runs his kitchen.
Their relationship goes from simmer to rolling boil with the speed of a short order cook. But when a bevy of not-so-lovely ladies shows up in Salt Box, Lizzy s past disaster threatens to flatten her happily ever after faster than a falling souffle.
"Warning: Contains salty dialogue, several servings of high-carb cooking, and a big platter of screaming-hot bedroom delights.""

My Review:

Love in the Morning is the perfect antidote (pun definitely intended) to the first book in this series, Finding Mr. Right Now (reviewed here).

It’s also a lovely reward for having suffered through that first book, but it is not necessary to read the first one in order to get into this second one. There is more than enough background provided to transport readers to Salt Box without having to go through the production of Finding Mr. Right, which is awesome for those of us who are not into reality TV shows.

Not that a different reality TV show doesn’t rear its ugly head in Love in the Morning, but in this case, the heroine, and the readers, get their revenge on the industry. And it feels every bit as marvelous as the romance in this book.

In Love in the Morning, the heroine is Lizzy Apocada, She’s a chef, or she was. Unfortunately for Lizzy, her cousin Teresa the family diva is one of the Lovely Ladies of L.A., which is an even shoutier version of The Real Housewives of Wherever. And Teresa ropied her cousin Lizzy the chef into catering a party at her house during the filming of an episode of the not-so-lovely Ladies.

Someone poisoned the food, and the episode ends in a whole lot of overdressed people barfing on camera. Lizzy’s reputation was ruined, her business went bankrupt, and those lovely Ladies rehashed her supposed dastardly deed for weeks.

It was a big ratings boost for the series, and it completely ended Lizzy’s life as she knew it. So she takes her crappy car and heads East from L.A., hoping to outrun her problems. She runs out of gas just as she reaches Salt Box, Colorado, so that’s where she stays.

And that’s where the fun begins. She lucks into a kitchen’s assistant job in the best bed and breakfast in town, the Praeger House. And when the temperamental chef suddenly takes herself off to a better job in Aspen, Lizzy finds herself in charge of a kitchen again, and finally back in her element.

She’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to recognize that Lizzy Apodaca and Annalisa Antonio one and the same person – the person who gave the cast of Lovely Ladies food poisoning. Then she’ll have to move on.

But not before the hunky owner of Praeger House, Clark Denham, makes a move on her. One that she has been secretly hoping for and is happy to reciprocate. Now that she’s involved with Clark, she has two reasons for hoping that her past takes a long time to catch up with her.

Then the Lovely Ladies come to town to film an episode at the nearby resort, and Lizzy is certain that her days in Salt Box are numbered.

Escape Rating A-: I think I liked this one so much because it fulfills a revenge fantasy. Not just Lizzy’s revenge on the production of the Lovely Ladies, but also my personal revenge fantasy at just how much I hated the setup for Finding Mr. Right Now. (I liked the hero and heroine, I just wanted to get them out of their toxic jobs ASAP)

It is lucky for Lizzy that she lucks into that kitchen assistant’s job, but it isn’t too far out of the realms of possibility. Having lived somewhere with that kind of issue, that people skilled in a particular field may be thin on the ground, I can see it happening all too easily. Especially in this situation, where the person who could have been training people is a jerk looking for a way out of smalltown-ville.

The main story is two-fold. One part of it is the development of Lizzy’s romance with Clark. They start out as boss and employee, but just barely. Clark is not exactly a traditional boss, and he’s as bowled over by his reaction to Lizzy as she is to him. Neither of them is looking for a relationship, and it knocks them both sideways when it happens. While this situation could have been skeevy, it just so isn’t. Especially since Lizzy figures that she can’t possibly stay in Salt Box, no matter how much she likes it.

But the bigger story, at least for this reader, is the re-growth of Lizzy’s confidence. She starts at the lowest possible point, as she says at the beginning, “this may not be the bottom, but you can see it from here”. While her life seemingly has no where to go but up, it is Lizzy’s willingness to reach for the opportunities presented to her that lift up the story. Each time there’s a chance to advance or retreat, Lizzy keeps moving forward. With some trepidation, but always forward.

Lizzy finds happiness and professional satisfaction because she reaches out and grabs them with both hands, and she deserves them.

The last part of the story is the revenge fantasy. Lovely Ladies of L.A. is produced by the same cheesy production company as Finding Mr. Right. They had a “great time” at the resort up the road from Salt Box, so they decide to come back, with the Lovely Ladies this time. The stage is set for a showdown between Lizzy and her diva cousin Teresa. The result is surprising, and surprisingly awesome.

Review: Finding Mr. Right Now by Meg Benjamin

Finding Mr. Right Now by Meg Benjamin
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Salt Box #1
Pages: 324
Published by Samhain Publishing on June 2nd 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Reality can be hotter than fiction.
"The Salt Box Trilogy, Book 1"
Monica McKellar, associate producer of "Finding Mr. Right," is desperate. One of the show s bachelors has bailed one week before shooting starts. She not only needs a replacement ASAP, he has to get the temperamental bachelorette s stamp of approval.
Fortunately there s a hot guy right under her nose who s a perfect fit. Unfortunately, he pushes all "her" hot buttons. Until the show s over, her hands and every other part of her body are tied.
When Paul Dewitt signed on to write for the reality show, Bachelor #10 wasn t supposed to be in his job description. He fully expects to be cut early on, which will free him to focus on the real object of his attraction. Monica.
Instead, he s a finalist, and they re all packed in an SUV climbing the Continental Divide, headed for Salt Box, Colorado. Where stampeding horses, vindictive tabloid editors, and one capricious bachelorette s waffling over suitors may conspire to end Paul and Monica s romance before it even starts.
Warning: Contains hot sex on the sly, cold nights, creaking wicker couches, and a gypsy wagon that gives a whole new appreciation for the pioneers."

My Review:

I picked this up because I really enjoyed the author’s Ramos Family Trilogy (Medium Well, Medium Rare and Happy Medium) and was hoping that lightning would strike twice.

Nope.

Instead, I have an entire SUV-load full of mixed feelings and reactions. As you’ll read in a minute.

The love story here takes place on the disaster-prone set of a reality TV show. As many things as go wrong, you’d think this was on a Survivor-clone, but it isn’t. Instead, this is an alternate version of The Bachelor, where one of the photogenic losing bachelorettes becomes the star of the first series of The Bachelorette. Although I think this kind of happened.

In any case, in the book, the shows are produced by a fairly downmarket cable production company, and everything is on a shoestring. That might make good comedy, and probably did for some readers.

But the story here isn’t about the starring bachelorette finding true love through the show. Instead, that starring bachelorette loses her original starry-eyed belief in true love. It’s the long-suffering assistant producer who finds the love of her life.

Unfortunately for both of them, she finds that love with one of the erstwhile bachelors. Which is where a good chunk (hunk?) of the sexual tension comes in. Both Monica and Paul are single and unattached, and would normally be free to explore whatever is happening between them.

But they can’t until the show is over, because it will ruin an illusion that no one is really buying into. And they can’t seem to hang on to their pants for the six weeks needed to complete the show.

Escape Rating C+: It’s hard to rate this one. I found the scenario behind the book incredibly contrived. That could be because I’m not a fan of reality TV.

I liked the two protagonists quite a bit. Monica is incredibly put upon as the assistant producer, but she keeps taking the hard knocks and doing her job. She’s self-aware enough to know that jobs in show business are hard to find, and that this is what she expected when she decided to be in the business. But it isn’t until she meets Paul Dewitt that she starts looking for the next phase in her life. Not just that it would be great to have someone to come home to, but that she has learned all she can where she is, and it’s time to move up the ladder. Or on to a less dysfunctional production company. Or both.

I also liked Paul, although the situation he finds himself in seems as contrived as the TV show. He was not a contestant to be one of the bachelors. He’s a writer for the show who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and got dragooned into the bachelor pool by the self-absorbed bachelorette and the tyrannical producer.

And that’s where things kind of go off the rails for this reader. A big part of this story is all about Monica becoming the “babysitter” for the self-absorbed sweetheart diva of a bachelorette. Little Ronnie probably isn’t half as dumb as she acts, but she comes off as a combination of wide-eyed innocence, total vapidity, and utter self-absorption that made me clench my teeth every time she appeared. She’s also incredibly manipulative, but you’re never quite sure just how deliberate she is in that manipulation.

Except for Monica and Paul, all of the other producers and writers involved with this production company are at best totally overwhelmed and completely oblivious to everything outside their own sphere of crises to solve, and at worst, and this is most of them, they are actively vile. There doesn’t seem to be anyone likable in the company except for Paul and Monica. The photographer on the shoot with them isn’t actively awful, but that’s as high a bar as anyone else in the company manages to reach.

So it feels like the show is toxic, which means that their work environment is toxic. One understands why they both want to escape, but one questions their sanity at being involved at all. It wouldn’t be fun to work in, and it isn’t fun to read about, either.

On that other hand, I liked the town of Salt Box where they get stranded for a couple of days. It’s a quirky place, but it feels more real. Or at least more nuanced in its insanity. While one of the locals is often called “Dick the dick”, when we (and Monica) get to know him a little better, we discover that while he is the curmudgeon that he appears, he isn’t really quite that big of an asshat. He just doesn’t suffer fools, and tests everyone in his orbit to make sure they are not before he lets them in.

At the end of this story, I feel more than a bit of sympathy for Dick. He discovers that Paul and Monica are not fools, and lets them into his circle and out of the circle of Hell they are currently working in. And he makes sure that the rest of the cast and crew of that show all stay OUT.

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