Customer Reviews

Delicious

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Story Brief:
Verity is a lady who for unknown reasons has run away from her family. She keeps her identity a secret and works as a cook for Bertie. Her cooking skills are famous in England. She and Bertie have a brief love affair which ends. She goes to London to meet Bertie's brother Stuart. She does not tell Stuart her name or connection to Bertie. She leaves the next day, and he can't find her. She continues to cook for Bertie. Ten years later Bertie dies. Stuart inherits and arrives at Bertie's home. Stuart doesn't recognize Verity, but starts to develop feelings for her.

Reviewer's Opinion:
I wanted it to be over. During most of the book the couple is miserable and apart. They meet, fall immediately in love, he asks her to marry him, she runs away. Ten years later they meet again but cannot be together because he is engaged to another woman. Finally, during the last few pages of the book, they are happy together. I don't like spending most of the book being miserable and sad. Most romance novels spend more time with couple meeting and developing an emotional connection, with a short separation period. Not so with this book. Most of the book is separation.

I was pleased with and enjoyed the relationship between Will and Lizzy. There were some surprises, and I liked what was happening with them. The more I read, the more I liked Will's character and what he did. It's too bad that it was a minor subplot, because it was the best part of the book. Initially, Will didn't tell Lizzy about his potential inheritance. When she learned about it later and confronted Will, the reasons he gave her were good. I liked his reasons and was a little surprised by them. Well done author.

CAUTION SPOILERS:

A major problem with this book was too many conflicts based on inaccurate assumptions and vague communication (my pet peeve). The major plot conflict was Verity leaving her wealthy family and working as a cook. Verity was pregnant. Her Aunt told her she would be locked away for the rest of her life. The Aunt didn't mean it but was trying to scare Verity into better behavior in the future. Verity believed the Aunt's threat and ran away. The Aunt lies to her husband and says Verity died. Later when the Aunt learns where Verity is, the Aunt doesn't make things right, because she believes her husband will be mad at her for lying about Verity's death. Therefore, the Aunt monitors Verity from afar for the next ten plus years. When Stuart tells the Aunt he loves Verity and wants to marry her, the Aunt is happy to accept Verity back into the family and sponsors a big wedding for her. What??? After years of watching Verity suffer, the Aunt makes things nice? I also don't understand why Verity felt the need to keep her relationship to the Aunt a secret. This was too "cooked up" for me. I want something more believable.

Another miscommunication was Verity's lie to Michael for years, which was due to a promise made to Mrs. Robbins. Mrs. Robbins adopted Michael. A few years later Verity arrives to live nearby, and Mrs. Robbins is afraid Verity will take Michael away. Verity tells her no, that she just wants to be around him. Verity promises not to tell Michael that she is his biological mother. I think Verity and Mrs. Robbins could have and should have come to an agreement to tell Michael the truth much sooner than they did. Michael had guessed the truth long before it was told to him. Finally, Verity tells Michael that she is his biological mother, but she doesn't tell him who his grandparents are. This continued lie annoyed me.

Further, I didn't like Verity's lies to Stuart. When they first meet, he asks her to marry him. She is not honest about who she is and runs away. Ten years later, he asks her to marry him again. The same secrets exist, but she says yes this time. Her turnabout didn't make sense, her circumstances hadn't changed. I prefer true intrigue, not this keeping of secrets for illogical reasons. Also, why did she hide from Stuart for ten years? She loved him. If she was going to do this turnabout, why did it have to be so many years later? This was unfulfilling.

Story length: 404 pages. Sexual language: mild. Number of sex scenes: 7. Length of sex scenes: 1 short scene (1 paragraph) and 6 long scenes (1.6 to 6.9 pages). Total number of sex scene pages: 25. Setting 1882 and 1892 England. Copyright: 2008. Genre: historical romance.

DELICIOUS "should" be a five-star book, but "should" is a pointless word: In the end, it is what it is.

That author Sherry Thomas is one of the best talents writing today is indisputable. Her prose practically sings.

Her research, without question, is thorough and definitive. And she evokes the era of the late Victorian period in England as successfully as anyone could do, blending sociology, politics and manners.

Obviously, however, there is a problem with DELICIOUS. And that problem is the plot; in a novel, however, plot is all-important. Yet the story that Thomas has chosen to tell is implausible, impossible, preposterous.

According to DELICIOUS, roughly one-third of the British peerage has been born on the "wrong side of the blanket," as the expression goes. Certainly, it defies belief that every other character here is illegitimate, or the parent of an illegitimate child.

Second, the young women of that era had to follow a firmly set code of morality. Did some of them stray? Definitely. Yet both the author's primary and secondary heroines are women who would have beeen construed at that time as being of easy virtue, "no better than she should be," as they used to like to say. Again, this seems to be unreasonable, even statistically unlikely.

Additionally, Thomas bestows powers and knowledge on some of the era's Grande Dames that not only are evil and unimaginable but also seem to cross the invisible line to magical in their impact. It's hard to believe in society hostesses, even the most important of the ladies, being as omnipotent and controlling as Thomas needs them to be for her story to move forward to its conclusion.

Finally, in an important plot point, it is difficult to imagine a servant using the private bath tub of the employers in their absence.

The political background clearly is interesting. More significantly, the descriptions of food, involving a character who is a cook, are magnificent, authoritative, detailed -- actually mouthwatering.

There is quite a bit of the real-life Rosa Lewis, the famous "Duchess of Duke Street" written into this character. Rosa's "Cavendish Hotel," with its renowned kitchen, was the favorite of the aristocracy and the true gourmets of that period. Rosa was reputed to have had affairs with several of her regulars including, possibly, even the Prince of Wales. (Later, Edward VII.)

Thomas hammers the fairytale theme, but there is no fairytale quality to the book, no sweetness, and the happy endings--all romances end happily--seem so strained that these are stupid.

Nonetheless, it bears repeating: Sherry Thomas writes exquisite prose ... she does wonderful research ... and she re-creates upper class late Victorian England as well as I've ever seen it done. And these are the reasons to read DELICIOUS.

I thoroughly enjoyed Private Arrangements, her first book, and was eager to read this one. It starts out wonderfully, with mouthwatering descriptions of food and an interesting situation. It's paced quickly, I read the book easily in an afternoon, but about half-way through I started feeling frustrated and by the book's end, felt that the book had so much potential, but should have been better than it was. My main complaint was the plot was just ridiculous, mostly the fact that it took so long for Stuart to recognize Verity...ridiculous that he wouldn't see her, one instance I could buy, but repeatedly was too over the top. Also wasn't interested in Lizzy and Will's romance, and ended up skipping those pages to get to the main story.

I do like the author's writing, and will likely buy her next book, I just hope she makes the next plot a little more believable.

The review by HeyJudy is spot on and normally I wouldn't write an additional review but for her rating and I wanted to mention a few specific points. I liked her previous book "Private Arrangements" very much (easily one of the best this year) and looked forward to this work but was sadly disappointed. If this was the first book I had read by the author, I would give it a single star but wrestled my way up to two because of the prose and the benefit of the doubt about her "intentions". The plot was awful and the reader does not grow to care enough about any of the characters to make up for this lack. [spoilers ahead] The silly ways the author uses in preventing Stuart from catching a glimpse of Verity's face (wash cloth, darkness, fog, back light, etc.) was irritating and contrived. The forced resolution on the question mistress or wife and the unbelievable dowager duchess character just added to the disappointment. [spoilers end]

The prose is excellent and her ability to place the reader in the historical time is very good. Before this, I would have bought a new book by the author without hesitation. Now, I'll have to read the reviews to decide. A fine point perhaps, but I wish I would have done so before I bought "Delicious".

Difficult book to follow, I suspect I might like it better on second reading, but on first reading it really didn't work - and yet, I finished it, didn't I...

Set in 1892, so Victorian rather than Regency, it tells the tale of Verity, a woman who 3 times loved when she shouldn't. At 16 she loved a stable boy (who frankly wasn't given enough story or personality for her to have done what she did) and fell pregnant. At 22 she fell in love with an earl who rejects her and forces/permits (? wasn't clear which) to remain as his cook once the affair was over. And she also fell in love with her lover's hated cousin. We meet at the second lover's death when the hated cousin inherits everything, including the cook. They have this game where he doesn't see her for nearly 2/3 of the book, she's in shadow or with a mask on, but when he does see her, he still doesn't recognize her.

Not very explicit though with one great bath scene, I liked the lovers but I never could suspend my disbelief and sink into the book, too many jarring things kept happening. The book was very disjointed to start, but got better, but the end was just ridiculous - the duchess completely changed character for no reason at all.

* Some Plot Spoilers *
I enjoyed the romance of Stuart and Verity, but hated the ending with the Dowager Duchess. The reader is supposed to believe that this woman who terrorized her niece, Verity for years, was only trying to look out for her? Not offering her a scrap of help, only contacting her in order to blackmail her by intimidation--that's family love?? You could tell that a woman like that could have easily helped her niece without her husband knowing about it. What she did was absolutely evil, and the reasons given are preposterous!! What she did to Verity would have made some sense (based on wanting to avoid family scandal), if her character had actually been as malevolent as she seemed to be. And Stuart, how much dumber could his character be that he couldn't recognize the woman he loves, over and over, especially since she never gave him a valid reason why he couldn't look at her. Also, the reason Stuart believed he couldn't marry before hadn't changed, so why did he suddenly think that it was OK to marry Verity when talking to the Duchess? The book would have been so much better just letting the Duchess be as evil as she obviously appeared to be and not having Stuart be so dense. The author suspended logic too much, IMHO. And how would they explain Verity/Vera's resurrection from the dead, they buried her after all!? However, overall it was still a good read until the ending. Having said all that, Sherry Thomas really is an exceptional writer--I could almost taste the food from reading the descriptions. She just needs to work on her plot devices a little more.

Just a few quick impressions upon reading this book...

I found this book hard going at first. The skipping around in flashbacks to present day chapter to chapter, while interesting, made it very confusing as to who was who, what happened when to whom, and what the motivations of the characters were, and what the actual timeline of events was. I don't feel like I really caught on until 3/4's through the book. So be warned...this book is not an easy read, but it is well worth your time.

I actually found the romance between the secondary characters richer and more satisfying. The main characters, although with compelling stories, seemed unsympathetic to me. I didn't really grow to like the H/H any more by the end of the novel.

What I like about Sherry Thomas's books is the way she shows how two people can misunderstand and hurt each other then come together again. She is great at showing both sides of the conflict. I only wish I found the main characters in this book a little more sympathetic and compelling, but that's just me. As others have mentioned her writing is beautiful! Her books are unique and her voice is unusual. The food sounds correct to the period. I would have liked more descriptions about what the dishes' ingredients included/what they smelled like/looked like/how they were prepared. But I can always research that on my own time or go re-read MFK Fisher. And I do enjoy the Victorian time period for a change! (It's nice to see someone step away from the Regency world.)

Not anything to do with Thomas, of course, but this cover is really bad! The color of the dress is not authentic to the period and the corsetry & petticoats seem off to me as well. Artist, go do your research first puh-leeze!

The plot of Thomas's next book looks intriguing and I am looking forward to it!

There are such mixed reviews for this book that I'm wondering if I read the same book. The prose and food imagery is just plain delicious. Yes, you are asked to suspend some disbelief but it in no way takes away from the enjoyment of the story or the reading experience. It's a pseudo fairytale and can lure you into it's fantasy if you let it. Ms. Thomas is an accomplished author and this book is a gem.

Would it be too easy/awful of a pun to say that I devoured this book? It is, but I did - or at least most of it. With a title like Delicious and a prefatory quote from M. F. K. Fisher about hunger and love, I should have realized what the book would be like. But even if I had anticipated food to be the theme of this romance, nothing could have quite prepared me for how Sherry Thomas writes about food, love, desire, and hunger - all mixed up in a sensual, sensuous concoction in which I was delighted to indulge. I love how Thomas writes, and when such technical skill is paired with a story that surpasses her debut effort, I'm a very happy customer.

Now for the "but's". Even though I liked this story better than Private Arrangements, I still found the construction and execution of the plot here awkward, particularly near the end, when false notes start clanging everywhere. The hero, Stuart Somerset, is engaged to another woman, a Lizzy Bessler, for much of the story. I thought this obstacle between Stuart and the heroine Verity Duran, what with all the other things that stand between them, was superfluous. Stuart's anguished resistance to Verity on the grounds of his promise to Lizzy seemed exaggerated and unconvincing. When he suddenly gives up on his flimsy excuse of "honor," and returns to Verity after angrily and dramatically tossing her to the curb a mere few pages earlier, he sounds trite and wooden in his easy declarations of love and devotion, and I wasn't as excited to see them finally together as I should have been. Nor was I all that interested in the secondary romance between Lizzy and Stuart's secretary Will Marsden. But the plot really stumbled in the final pages of the book, when we're treated to a lengthy and awkward exposition on the mystery (that wasn't really that mysterious) concerning Verity's past and identity. At this point the already limping pace of the book was brought to a staggering halt. I thought this aspect of the book could have been handled a lot more smoothly and gone that extra length to really get at the heart of Stuart and Verity's love for each other. As it stood, though, I felt something lacking in their romance.

Besides these complaints, it was still a very well written book. I've got to love an author who can come up with a line like: "what was the taste of falling off a cliff?" (93) If you just go with how important food is in this book, its artistry and eroticism, then you'll mostly likely enjoy Delicious. And I really liked the characters. This book returns to the format of Private Arrangements, jumping back and forth in time, building up a sense of history and character development infused with lyric, fairy tale cadences that are enthralling - the opening sentence sets you up for a Cinderella story that plays with the familiar tropes without being derivative in the least. Thomas recreates late Victorian society so vividly here. Verity and Stuart are products of their time and circumstances as much as they are individuals who have suffered and/or been punished for their nonconformity, be it inherited stigmas or more active transgressions. Not the stuff of fairy tales, surely. I just wish Delicious could have maintained its momentum in the end and fulfilled its promise. The author provides a couple of very interesting characters, but the way in which she brings them together could have used some fleshing out. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

I've never rated a book a 1, but after reading a quarter of the book, I didn't like the characters. Everything was too shaded in mystery. I struggled to keep up with the three different time frames. There just wasn't enough to keep me turning the page. So I'm afraid I gave up. My suggestion would be to give the heroine some more humanity so we as the reader can like her. If I liked her I would have kept reading.