Customer Reviews

With a Twist

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

She's a beautiful French woman who dreams of managing an upscale restaurant in New York City. He's the best reporter in New York City whose only dream has been scooping the next big story. Until, that is, he meets Natalie, after which the only story he wants to write involves Natalie, him, and happily ever after.
Natalie Bocuse loves her sister, Vivi, but rather than waiting tables in her sister's quaint bistro, she dreams of managing a classy, chic Manhattan restaurant. When newspaper reporter Quinn O'Brien offers her a position waiting tables in his family's Irish pub, it isn't the position she envisions for herself, but it is in the city, so she'll be one step closer. As Natalie gets to know (and love) Quinn, his family, and the quirky assortment of regulars at the pub, she soon realizes that class and sophistication come in all shapes and sizes and aren't limited to upscale, pricey eateries.
Quinn has admired Natalie at her sister's bistro and regularly eats there just to be near her, despite her snooty attitude and frequent insults. When he learns that she has moved to the city and is looking for a job, he is quick to recommend her for the waitress position at his parents' pub. He tries to fit himself into Natalie's mold of the perfect man, but he's finding it an extremely uncomfortable fit. Quinn simply isn't cut out for fancy, expensive restaurants and the opera, not to mention the pinch he's feeling in his wallet. It isn't long before the uptight Natalie has relaxed and is enjoying herself with their zany customers, and surprisingly, trying very hard to make a positive impression on his family.
Natalie and Quinn are excellently written as total opposites who are helpless against the attraction between them. As their relationship intensifies and becomes more serious, Natalie is very concerned. She has made serious adjustments in her attitude and expectations, and while she knows that Quinn cares deeply for her, she's beginning to question whether she will ever come first before the next story. Add touches of intrigue and suspense, secondary characters whose own backgrounds and lives are a priceless complement to Natalie and Quinn's story, and WITH A TWIST is a first-class contemporary romance; I give it a very high recommendation.
COURTESY LAURIE/ROMANCE JUNKIES

Okay, she's the sister of a character in an earlier book and the sister was French. Fine. The problem is that Natalie Bocuse doesn't seem particularly French, and other than a few random phrases here and there, doesn't sound very French, either. The author fills the book with sterotypes: terrible Irish food, French snobbery about culture/clothes/food, a heavyset Italian guy named Porco (I kid you not), and more. New Yorkers are New Yawkers ('cause we talk funny). Subways are dirty and dangerous, cabs are too expensive - but the author seems to have overlooked buses as a form of mass transport in NYC. The relationship between the two main characters was the only thing that kept me reading to the end, otherwise it was pretty annoying. I kept hoping Quinn would dump Natalie and find someone nicer...but alas, that was not to be. If she had done this without the sterotypes and made Natalie more likeable (or at least more sympathetic)it would have been much more enjoyable - it felt more like a class assignment.

With a Twist by Deirdre Martin is the story of Natalie Bocuse and Quinn O'Brien. Natalie has emigrated from France and is a waitress in her sister Vivi's bistro in Bensonhurst. Quinn, a reporter for the New York Sentinel, lunches at the bistro about twice a week where they trade insults. Natalie has been working with her sister because she is a recovering shopaholic and is looking for a manager's job at an upscale restaurant. Natalie decides she must move back to Manhattan because Bensonhurst is too small for her and has nothing to offer her for nightlife or the job of her dreams. Because Natalie and Vivi's father was a diplomat, they have ties to the diplomatic community and one of them offers Natalie his apartment when he returns to France. Quinn's family owns an Irish pub in Hell's Kitchen and Quinn helps Natalie to get a witnessing job there while she is looking for a manager's job. As Natalie waits tables, Quinn's job at the Sentinel is on the line with a new owner. The new owner wants to change it from a hard news paper to a gossip rag. Quinn is always butting heads with the new editor. When the editor begins to come to the pub and starts romancing Natalie, Quinn gets jealous and stakes his claim.
As the changes occur at the Sentinel, Quinn begins researching a story about real estate purchases and changes coming to Hell's Kitchen as well as building owners being given offers they can't refuse, being torched, or being beaten up. His brother Liam looks like he may be involved in the violence occurring. As Quinn goes further into the story his brother is threatened if Quinn doesn't quit working on the story. Liam tells him to continue.

Natalie also continues to look for manager's jobs. She and Quinn fall in love. Natalie decides she will be different from the previous woman in Quinn's life and allow him to put his work first in the relationship. Finally, however, she has enough of him putting his work first and they split. But are their lives complete without the other? Can Natalie accept him as he is? Can Quinn change to make his relationship work with Natalie?

I couldn't put With a Twist down. I thoroughly enjoyed the character development and plot developments. Because there were two main subplots, Quinn's investigation and Natalie's job search, I felt I got to know the characters and how they would react and think. There was depth in Natalie and Quinn. I could feel Natalie's pain when she dumped Quinn and her anger as he tries to talk his way back into her life. I could feel Quinn's desperation when he realizes he could wind up alone like many of his friends in the newspaper business. As the two work their way through their problems and start to compromise and see what's best for their relationship, I loved how Deirdre didn't have either one cave into the other. The relationship rang true to me with the arguing, the hard work involved in staying together and getting back together, and the compromise needed to make the relationship work.
Their love scenes were rare and not graphic but were not gratuitous to the story. They worked well in the story. I could tell they loved each other and were committed to each other although it might not have worked out in the end.

I also loved the secondary characters on the story especially the regulars at the pub. They added humor. Natalie's sister and her fiance, the subject of Deidre's previous book, Just a Taste, are planning their wedding in this story and are a contrast to Natalie and Quinn's relationship. As Natalie and Quinn are beginning to fall in love and work out a relationship, Vivi and Anthony are fighting about the wedding and Vivi is offering advice to Natalie about how to conduct her relationship while it looks like hers may be falling apart.
I will definitely read more of Deirdre Martin. I now have to go and get her back list. She is so readable, and if the rest of her back list is as well written as this one, I'm in for a wonderful run of reading.

Having been raised in Paris and deciding that waitressing in Bensonhurst at her half-sister's bistro Vivi's is too provincial and keeping her from her dream to manage a top quality Manhattan restaurant, Natalie Bocuse quits her job. However, she finds it nearly impossible to obtain new work so with the help of her most persistent flirty customer Quinn O'Brien she accepts a waitress job at their Midtown family pub.

New York reporter Quinn has wanted Natalie since he first flirted with her in Brooklyn, but she showed no reciprocity as she sees him as an uncouth hunk. However, as Natalie dates his boss, Quinn needs to prove to her he is a man about the town even if he will earn an Oscar taking her to ballet or opera.

Deirdre Martin provides a fun contemporary restaurant romance that through the secondary characters is a direct tie to the wonderful JUST A TASTE. The story line is lighthearted and amusing as Natalie, unlike Vivi who gave up her taste of Paris for Brooklyn, feels in exile amidst the barbarians. Fans will enjoy Quinn's efforts with the support of both their families to win the heart of the sophisticated snob he loves.

Harriet Klausner

I am a huge fan of all of her other books but this one just didn't cut it for me. There was never any real chemistry between the main characters and no plot to keep me reading. She needs to go back to concentrating on the sports stars.

Deirdre Martin delivers with another book that fits like a glove. We drop in again on chef extraordinaire Vivi and her sister Natalie AND get to sample the combination of their world and that of Quinn O'Brien and his equally vibrant Irish brood. Martin is expert at creating a world that you can see, feel, taste, root for and fall in love with all at once. FIVE STARS!!

As a big fan of Martin's NY Blades series I was wondering how I'd like the shift in her books to a new location...an Irish pub in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. I shouldn't have worried. This new locale is just as funny, warm and interesting, and it's so closely linked to the world of the Blades and Dante's Ristorante that the transition is seamless. I loved the way she created a heroine and a hero who are real people...not cardboard cut outs. And, as always, the book was filled with great humor. This is another winner and I'm looking forward to reading more about the characters who frequent the Wild Hart.

Deirdre Martin delivers another fast-paced romance novel in With A Twist. Her ear for dialogue and attention to detail set her apart from other romance writers -- the dialogue is always smart and often sassy, and in this book she branches out and we enter into the newsroom of a big paper and get a peek at the quirky characters who inhabit that space. Whether we're in the newsroom, an Irish pub, a French restuarant, or someone's apartment, Martin always lets the reader see and often, smell, the place. Keep cranking them out . . .

I received this book quickly from when I placed my order and it was perfect!

Natalie Bocuse dreams of one day owning her own café. Working for her sister is okay for the moment, but Natalie is beginning to feel the city's pull. When a friend allows her to stay in his apartment, Natalie jumps at the chance to move to Manhattan. There is a small problem though - Natalie will need money and a job in order to fulfill her dream. Learning of Natalie's predicament, newspaper reporter and bane of Natalie's existence, Quinn O'Brien, steps in and offers her a job at his family's Irish pub. These two completely opposite people clash every single time they meet, but Natalie is willing to try in order to make her dream a reality.

Deirdre Martin's With a Twist has a great plot and premise. Natalie and Quinn separately were good characters. Together I found them unbearable. Natalie's spoiled temperament was over the top annoying and had I been Quinn, she would have been given her walking papers a long time ago. I thought she was rude, hateful, and just plain standoffish. I wanted to shake Quinn more than once for the way he allowed Natalie to treat him. I wanted him to grab her, swat her butt, and send her to bed without supper. She was just that childish. I would definitely skip With a Twist. It just does not achieve the great story promised in the blurb on the back cover.

Talia
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed