I love Alice Clayton’s style. Supremely witty dialogue, quirky characters I want to hang out with, and stories I want to live in. Ms. Clayton coaxes you into the story, gradually revealing tasty bits of info that may not seem extraordinary at first glance, but you can bet your cookies she’s leading up to a full meal of fun, hilarity, and sexy times. See what I’m doing here…using goofy foodie phrases in homage to her latest book, Nuts. A book that had me smacking my hand over my mouth in glee, giggling, laughing out loud, and enjoying the ever loving F out of each and every word. I’m a sucker for stories about food, cooking, and restaurants. Add in sexy farmers with impressive walnuts and giant sized zucchini and it’s a winner. Read Nuts and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

In Los Angeles the B-word isn’t bitch. It’s Butter. Use it, and your reputation as a private chef to the rich, whether famous or not, and you’re tossed out on your toque blanche. Which is exactly what happens when Roxie Callahan accidentally over whips the cream for Mitzi St. Renee’s one and only indulgence; a measly teaspoon of whipped cream for her daily 4 oz. of Kona coffee. With no extra in the fridge to right the wrong, Roxie gets the boot. Good riddance, right? Just one problem. Cruella de Mitzi spreads the word and, in the blink of an eye, Roxie finds herself private chef to no one.

So when Roxie’s mom begs her to come home to upstate New York and run the family diner for three months (Aunt Cheryl and I are going to be on Amazing Race!) Roxie reluctantly agrees. She also makes it VERY clear that at the end of summer she’s heading back to LA. She didn’t attend the American Culinary Institute in Santa Barbara with the intention of returning to Bailey Falls to run a diner. Nope. She’s not getting sucked into that small town again. She never fit in. And she is determined never to be Wallflower Roxie again.

I’d been a shy kid, embarrassingly so. Belonging to neither the jocks nor the geeks, the freaks or the brains, I lived in a kind of interstitial no-man’s-land. It’s not like there’s a high school clique comprised of food snobs. It’s not like there’s tons of kids spending their weekends perfecting goat cheese tartlets, or holding olive oil tastings in their backyard. I did both.

Once she pulls up to her mom’s rather ramshackle house, Roxie realizes she’s kind of missed the chaos that was home. The house and the diner may be the same but there’s a new look to Bailey Falls. The rich offerings of the Hudson Valley have transformed into a plethora of artisanal food shops. A small town butcher, a cheese shop, a bakery with glorious breads. Everything that calls to her as a chef. The summer may not be as bad as she thought. Especially after what happens on her first day at the diner.

Leo Maxwell and Roxie meet in a most hilarious scene involving sugar snap peas (she was cleaning them) and walnuts (he was carrying a basket of them). One misstep after another results in snap peas, walnuts, Leo, and Roxie in a heap on the floor, Leo’s head buried in her lap. Hello! Roxie just might have found her summer lovin’ crush.

This guy was exactly the kind of guy I normally went for—easygoing, good-looking, funny. But he made me . . . nervous. In a way that I hadn’t been in a long time.

Roxie is delightfully adorable. The geeky girl from high school is still there, as evidenced by the sugar snap pea incident, and many more, but she’s come into her own as a pretty damn phenomenal chef and baker. She has also vowed to keep relationships casual. Forever. Seeing her Romantic dreamer of a mother get her heart broken on a regular basis made a lasting impression. However that vow is sorely challenged as she and Leo get to know each other. Leo, of the old money Maxwell family, is downright gorgeous, sexy, and irresistible. He’s not only hot in a rough, works-the-land kind of way, but he’s beyond intelligent, having taken the run down Maxwell “farm” and turned it into a highly successful organic and sustainable farming operation. The flirting between these two made me swoon. And when they finally get down to business…it’s Katy Perry-sized fireworks sex.

As the days fly by and Roxie settles into running the diner, adding menu items of her own to rave reviews, she begins to rethink Bailey Falls. Leo is slowly but surely burrowing into her heart whether she wants to admit it or not. Her old high school crush, Chad of the football team, and his husband (Wow, she never saw that coming!) are fast becoming her new best friends, convincing her to teach classes on making pickles and jam. Roxie is having fun. She’s happy. She’s thinking “Who needs LA?” more and more. She just might be falling in love, and it’s not as scary as she thought it would be. Of course, life loves to throw curve balls. And life throws Roxie a curve ball that knocks her off her feet.

Nuts is a wonderfully witty, sexy, and must-read romance! I can’t wait for book two in The Hudson Valley Series.

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