A Taste of Sage

Score: 3/5 Bookmarks

Steam Rating: 🍆🍆 /5

Thank you to Harper Publishing for gifting me a review copy of A Taste of Sage by Yaffa Santos.

I wanted so badly to like this book, the idea of being able to perceive a person’s emotions by eating their cooking had so much potential. Unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me.

The main character, Lumi, was pretty great. She was strong and scrappy and worked hard towards her dreams. But her leading man felt a little lackluster and I just didn’t buy their chemistry. Plus there wasn’t enough tension build-up between them, for my liking at least.

And yes, most romances are predictable in that they often include an initial attraction, then some sort of hardship or misunderstanding to be overcome, and then there’s generally a happy ending for the main characters. But you’ve got to have some sort of unique hook or a twist you didn’t see coming. This book lacked that something special. I thought Lumi’s special ability would be it, but it was too predictable and held no surprises.

There are quite a few recipes in the book, which might have been charming in a physical book but were a bit tedious on audio. However, I liked the narration by Inés del Castillo and Jonathan Todd Ross.

It does still get three stars from me because I liked Lumi a lot, I just wanted more from this book, it had potential. Click the link below to get the physical book for yourself, or click here to check out the audiobook.

Synopsis:

Lumi Santana is a chef with a gift: she can perceive a person’s emotions by tasting their cooking. Despite being raised by a mother who taught her that dreams and true love were silly fairy tales, she puts her heart and savings into opening her own fusion restaurant in Upper Manhattan. The restaurant offers a mix of the Dominican cuisine she grew up with and other world cuisines she is inspired by.

When her eclectic venture fails, she is forced to take a position as sous chef at a staid, traditional French restaurant owned by Julien Dax, a celebrated chef known for his acid tongue as well as his brilliant smile. After he goes out of his way to bake a tart to prove her wrong in a dispute, she is so irritated by his smug attitude that she vows to herself never to taste his cooking.

But after she succumbs to the temptation and takes a bite one day and is overcome with shocking emotion, she finds herself beginning to crave his cooking and struggling to stay on task with her plan to save up and move on as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Julien’s obsessed secretary watches with gnashed teeth as they grow closer and becomes determined to get Lumi out of her way permanently.