All Stirred Up by Brianne Moore
Inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion. She returned to save her family’s dying legacy–but found the ghosts of her past alive and well.
Susan Napier's family once lived on the success of the high-end restaurants founded by her late grandfather. But bad luck and worse management has brought the business to the edge of financial ruin. Now it's up to Susan to save the last remaining restaurant: Elliot's, the flagship in Edinburgh.
But what awaits Susan in the charming city of Auld Reekie is more than she bargained for. Chris Baker, her grandfather's former protégé--and her ex-boyfriend--is also heading to the Scottish capital. After finding fame in New York as a chef and judge of a popular TV cooking competition, Chris is returning to his native Scotland to open his own restaurant. Although the storms have cleared after their intense and rocky breakup, Susan and Chris are re-drawn into each other's orbit--and their simmering attraction inevitably boils over.
As Chris's restaurant opens to great acclaim and Susan tries to haul Elliot's back from the brink, the future brims with new promise. But darkness looms as they find themselves in the crosshairs of a gossip blogger eager for a juicy story--and willing to do anything to get it. Can Susan and Chris reclaim their lost love, or will the tangled past ruin their last hope for happiness?
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Persuasion is my second favorite Austen novel after Pride and Prejudice! Though I love Austen retellings, I try to not go in with any expectations while reading them. And I was pleasantly surprised by this one!
All Stirred Up follows the story of Susan Napier, who has come to Edinburgh to save the only Elliot's restaurant that remains standing, the one that was started by her grandfather. All the others have been closed down due to financial mismanagement and other issues. It's upto Susan to hold on to what's left of her grandfather's legacy.
But it's not just Susan who has come to Edinburgh. Her ex-boyfriend Chris, who's now a famous celebrity chef is back here as well and he plans to open his new restaurant. And he's not too pleased to see her, with the way she broke things off between them after her mother's death. Though she tries her best to avoid meeting him, circumstances keep throwing them into each other's paths. But will these two acknowledge their past mistakes and give into the attraction that still simmers between them or will they end up hurting each other more than before?
This was a lovely second chance romance with such amazing food descriptions! I think this is the second book that I've read this month that is centered around food, and it managed to make me hungry once again lol!
It took a while for me to get used to the writing (as the book is written in present tense) but I was quickly immersed in Susan and Chris' story!
And to be honest, I didn't really like most of the secondary characters at first. Susan's family seemed quite self-absorbed and I was prepared to hate all of them as they always expected Susan to deal with everything.
It was quite hard to like them when literally everyone from Susan's family to her friends expects her to fix things for them(and this kinda goes on till the very end). But the further I read, the more I learnt about them and it was pretty hard to dislike them completely.
We could see how Susan and her sisters were affected by her mother's death. I also liked the fact that Susan was no pushover. She bent for her family and made some concessions, but she was also wily and clever enough to maneuver them too! And I couldn't really dislike her aunt Kay for her role in Susan and Chris' break-up either, as she had cause for concern.
Chris was a great love interest (totally imagined him as Sam Heughan in my head, as it's mentioned that he looks like him) and he was pretty balanced too! He was hurt by Susan's actions and though he tries to hold onto the resentment, it's not easy to forget the good moments that they had either. And though he's a little rude at times, he was nowhere close to behaving like an ass, so it was hard not to fall for him.
And though the way Susan had handled things in the past might not have been great, it was quite refreshing to find that both of them were equally responsible for their mistakes. I loved watching them slowly let of their regrets and resentment while they grew closer to each other.
“Strange world.” Susan shakes her head. “Maybe that’s the blessing and curse of being a woman: we’re allowed— encouraged, even—to feel and express our feelings. We can get them out, but sometimes I think we get stuck in them too. We think about them so much that we just keep turning over and over all the things we did wrong and should have done differently, and how things could be so different and maybe better if we’d just . . .”
Though some might find the pacing a little slow, I think it suits this book and gives time for the characters to grow and learn more things. And the food descriptions made up for the lack of steamy scenes(which I was a little disappointed by).
In the end, this was a super-cute read with memorable and well-developed characters that I ended up loving! Can't wait to read more from this author!
*I was provided with an ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*
Born into a family of chefs, Brianne grew up baking, spinning tales of bold princesses and gutsy ladies, and developing a deep love for British history and authors. After receiving a degree in English Literature from Macalester College, she embarked on a career in journalism and web publishing.
Nearly 10 years ago, she moved to the history-soaked city of Edinburgh and felt like she'd finally come home. She now lives by the sea in East Lothian with her husband, sons, and crazy bulldog.
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