If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Derek Dunne is a Cordon Bleu-trained food critic for the prestigious New York Monitor, whose scathing review of a popular Italian bistro has driven away all but the most loyal neighborhood patrons. Lucrezia Serafina DiCicco is a clumsy business school drop-out, working as a chef and scrambling to keep her family’s restaurant afloat, after her father develops diabetes and is banned from his kitchen for his own good. Now, with The Monitor folding, Derek is searching for his next career path and longing to get back to his first love-cooking-while Lu is desperate for an influx of cash to save the struggling restaurant…even as her father puts his foot down about non-family employees. Derek and Lu embark on a marriage of inconvenience to save the restaurant. But can Lu ever really trust the man who nearly destroyed her family, who once noted her initials spelled LSD, and her food was like a bad trip? Or will it be their hearts on the chopping block?