A TASTE OF PASSION (Sweet Temptation #1) by Ashley Lister-a review
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About the book: Release Date June 26, 2014
When baking entrepreneur Trudy Cole falls for celebrity chef Bill Hart, all is far from sweetness and light. Instead passion, betrayal and ambition makes for an explosive mix in the high stakes game of gourmet dining.
Trudy Cole is an aspiring chef with ambitions to own her own patisserie. When she encounters celebrity chef Bill Hart she finds the older man antagonistic but disconcertingly attractive. Sexual chemistry soon boils to an unbearable temperature and they become lovers.
But Trudy’s affair and ambitions for her own business become too hot to handle when she discovers that Bill has a wife. To make matters worse, her business partner and ardent admirer, Donny, threatens to destroy her patisserie and Bill Hart’s reputation.
At a stately home where Trudy wants to woo investors with her culinary masterpieces, the paths of all three players cross again and the heat is turned up to a much higher setting…
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REVIEW: A TASTE OF PASSION is the first instalment in Ashley Lister’s new, contemporary, adult Sweet Temptation erotic romance series focusing on celebrity chef William (Bill) Hart and culinary school graduate Trudy Cole. The storyline follows many of the more popular older, wealthy man/younger, naïve woman formulas. The D/s relationship begins when Trudy demands an audience with Chef Hart not realizing that Hart has been asked to invest in Trudy and her friend’s pastry shop-Sweet Temptations.
The focus of the storyline follows Trudy as she is pulled into the world of Bill Hart. Several years Trudy’s senior, Bill is a celebrity chef with a book and a television show in the works but a man who hides many secrets and many affairs. As their relationship builds Trudy quickly finds herself the new sous chef at Bill’s restaurant but jealousy and revenge will pit the staff and Bill against one another as Trudy and Bill become the pawns in a game of vengeance and reprisal. Harsh words and even harsher punishment will be meted out and Trudy must make a decision whether to remain under Bill’s dominance both in and out of the bedroom.
The relationship between Trudy and Bill is one of Dominance and submission. There is no denying that Trudy has entered into the relationship wholly aware of her role and what it is she wants. But saying that, I did not feel the connection between our leading couple other than the D/s relationship. Their’s is a case of insta-lust and wanting something they shouldn’t have. Trudy’s need to escape from her crazy friends pushes her into a situation that is volatile and compromising.
The secondary characters are colorful, angry, aggressive and drive a good portion of the storyline. Trudy’s former best friends border the line between sane and psychotic, and the staff at the restaurant make sure that Trudy knows exactly where it is she stands.
The world building pulls the reader behind the scenes of high end dining, exclusivity and the celebrity of a world famous chef, and the notoriety and fall out of an affair that is about to crash and burn.
If you are a fan of the light BDSM storylines and like the world of the rich and famous, then A TASTE OF PASSION is for you. The story ends rather abruptly on a bit of a cliffhanger where the reader is left wondering what happened and where it will go. Because this is the first in the series, there are several issues unanswered and not addressed.
Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.
Reviewed by Sandy
