Narrated by Shayna Thibodeaux, with Sebastian York in epilogue
Having loved the first in Clayton’s Cocktail series, Wallbanger, I was pretty excited to see she has a new series, Hudson Valley, starting with Nuts. Hollywood chef Roxie Callahan finds herself motoring across the country to her hometown in upstate New York following an unfortunate whipping cream incident in California. At 18, she left home, where her flaky mother still runs the family diner, to practice culinary arts, and stayed for several years. Now that she’s jobless, and her mom has a gig on a reality show, she plans to spend the summer running the diner and getting back on her feet. Local Slow Food Farmer Leo makes a delivery of walnuts, which clumsy Roxie manages to throw all over the kitchen… and a relationship is ignited.
Roxie is determined to have an end date to this temporary situation – both the running of the diner and the potential summer fling with the area’s most eligible bachelor. As time goes by, and she branches out at the diner as well as with Leo, the end date of her hometown gig looms and decisions have to be made.
It’s a pretty well-used trope – local girl leaves the small town, makes good in the city (until things go bad), and heads back to the small town. No sheriffs in this plot, though (if I had a nickel for every one of those…) Leo is not only NOT your run-of-the-mill hero stereotype, he’s got a couple of secrets up his sleeve that throw Roxie for a loop, starting with his last name. But she’s willing to make the most of her time back in New York before heading back to Hollywood. I enjoyed the banter and the humor – quite a few laugh-out-loud moments and feel-good ones too.
The story is told in Roxie’s first person point-of-view, narrated entirely by Shayna Thibodeaux. I think this might be my first experience with this narrator, and she did a terrific job. Her delivery is a titch fast – maybe it’s a New York thing – but clear and easy to follow. Her character differentiation was also good, even though she doesn’t use much change in pitch for Leo, and none at all for some of the other male characters in the story. Her attitude matched the text at all times – snarky, funny, emotional at times, angry occasionally.
Sebastian York delivers only the epilogue, written from Leo’s point of view. He’s a good narrator and he did a good job, but it was only a few minutes so it’s difficult to come up with much to say about it! Since I’m a big proponent of using the correct gender for narrating in first person, I’m glad the publisher (or whoever) chose to use York!
All in all, I’m giving a big thumbs up – fans of contemporary romantic comedies will enjoy this well-written, funny story.
Melinda
Narration: B+
Book Content: B+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: None
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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