Book Review: Nuts by Alice Clayton! (@alice_clayton)

Nuts (Hudson Valley #1)
Author: Alice Clayton
Publication Date: October 20, 2015
Published: Gallery Books

My Rating:

From New York Times bestselling author Alice Clayton, the first in a brand-new romance series telling the humorously sexy tale of Roxie, a private chef who gets a taste of love—but is it to stay, or to go?
After losing almost all of her clients in one fell swoop following an accident involving whipped cream, private chef to Hollywood’s elite Roxie Callahan gets a call from her flighty mother, saying she’s needed home in upstate New York to run the family diner. Once she's back in the Hudson Valley, local organic farmer Leo delivers Roxie a lovely bunch of walnuts, and soon sparks—and clothing—begin to fly. Leo believes that everything worth doing is worth doing slowly…and how! But will Roxie stay upstate, or will the lure of West Coast redemption tempt her back to Tinseltown?

Leave it to Alice Clayton to give me a funny, sexy book with a bunch of food in it. When I first heard about Nuts, I knew I was going to love it. Even if it was horrible (not possible), I was going to find something in it to love. Enter Roxie and Farmer Leo (and his nuts!).

Roxie is a private chef in L.A. who comes from a small town in New York. The girl who always had her eyes on bigger things and better food, she left home and tried to make something of herself. Mostly, she didn’t want to turn into her mother. Her mother who has called her back home to run the family diner as she goes on the Amazing Race.

I first knew that this book was something awesome when her mother popped up. She was quirky and out there and all around hilarious. The way she and Roxie just flew off the page to me is saying something about Alice’s writing. I couldn’t stop laughing out loud at how larger than life Roxie’s mom was. The hippie mom with the almost uptight daughter who didn’t want any kind of commitment. Recipe for fun times.

Speaking of fun times, there is Farmer Leo. Talk about raising the heat in the kitchen. Farmer Leo runs the local farm and is also an heir to the Maxwell fortune. But his pedigree means nothing to Roxie. Through hilarity and a lot of spilled nuts and sugar snap peas, the attraction between the two of them is insane. Of course Roxie would choose Farmer Leo to be her summer fling before her mother returned from her trip around the world.

With all the sexy times, including one hot session on the front porch of her childhood home, Roxie wasn’t one to want to lay down roots in a small town. All of this was temporary for her. She would go back to L.A. and fix her business, become everything she planned on becoming. What she didn’t plan on is actually liking being back home and making those people who knew her as the awkward girl, happy through her food. Even more, she didn’t expect to catch feelings. 

Nuts felt like the comfort food on a cold day. Alice always has a way of weaving humor and romance in a way that doesn’t feel over the top or corny. I found myself laughing and swooning at all the right places. I loved Roxie’s independence and Leo was a great counterpart to her. After reading this, not only was I hungry as hell, but I definitely will be putting farmers on my list of sexy professions.