November 7, 2025

B- Reviews / Book Reviews / C+ Reviewscontemporary m/m / food

When it comes to love, Farzan Alavi is a disaster. After his most recent heartbreak, he’s drowning his sorrows at Kansas City’s newest wine bar. Only instead of being crowded between strangers, he’s escorted to a VIP table for one. There, the hot sommelier does more than treat him to the meal of his life. The way he flirts with Farzan ignites instant sparks.

There’s just one problem: David Curtis thinks Farzan is Frank Allen, Kansas City’s most influential food critic. The truth only comes out after the two spend an unforgettably hot night together. Good news—both think the mix-up is hilarious. Bad news—David is studying to become a master sommelier and has no interest in a relationship.

Neither expects their paths to cross again . . . until Farzan inherits his family’s bistro and needs David’s restaurant knowledge. The two agree to an exchange: David will answer Farzan’s questions, and Farzan will help David study for his test. Only business turns to pleasure when neither can ignore the attraction still sizzling between them. But with David set on moving after his test, and Farzan committed to his family’s restaurant, how can their relationship last past the expiration date?

Review:

Dear Adib Khorram,

I picked up your book after seeing a review on Goodreads (or more specifically I had the book and forgot that I did and the review reminded me of it) that said that both main characters were thirty seven and felt thirty seven.

I always appreciate older characters in romance or any genre. Of course thirty seven is still young to me, but the character who is thirty seven has to feel different than the guy in his early twenties and I was eager to experience that. I agree that both men felt *older* in the beginning of the book, but I would argue unfortunately that somewhere in the middle – closer to the end they sort of regressed a bit for some time and that annoyed me.

Of course, of course in romance the characters are going to have relationship issues, but with them having other issues in their personal and professional lives it still should give a different vibe in my opinion than the twenty something character would.

As the blurb tells you, David and Farzan’s meet cute was a misunderstanding; David mistook Farzan for a restaurant critic in the establishment where David worked and of course David decided to vine and dine Farzan and in the meantime they both decided they want a one night stand.

The one night stand went so well that Farzan would not mind continuing their meetings and David would not mind either. But David is studying for the final test to be a sommelier and literally gives it his all free time. He is also sure that after he passes the test he wants to leave Kansas again (he moved back presumably temporarily) and work in a fancy restaurant so he can save enough money to take care not only of himself but his parents who are divorced, so David dreams about being able to eventually buy houses for both his mom and his dad. This right here to me absolutely rang true how someone who is pushing forty and who loves his family would think – he is thinking of financial safety.

Farzan grew up in a loving family of Iranian immigrants. He is a wonderful cook and a substitute teacher and he eventually decides that he wants to take over running a restaurant that his parents own because they decided to retire. Farzan loves his family, but has a lot of insecurity about him being less financially successful than his other family members. Of course Farzan’s insecurities are mostly in his head, his family loves him and do not think he is a screw up, but we cannot always tell ourselves to stop thinking insecure things, so I got this part of Farzan.

After the two men meet and have a one night stand, their immediate problem is that they both want more but David does not think that he can do more than casual since he will leave anyway and Farzan does not usually do casual. They are both attracted to each other, so they compromise and do casual which is fine if that’s both of them wanted. I thought they were very cute together and it was nice to see how passionate they were about things they wanted in life, but then it got weird and that’s when I started to feel that the characters sort of regressed, especially David actually. I do not want to talk spoilers about how their relationship progressed and developed. It IS a romance obviously – we do have good ending, but a little whiplash when characters stopped feeling their proclaimed age is why I ended up lowering my grade.

Also, another reason for the lower grade is that I just did not enjoy most of the sex scenes in the book.

I also had to note that the book has such a nice setting – I felt as if I got to visit some Kansas restaurants, especially Farzan’s and his folks restaurant was so lovely and I wanted to eat the dishes Farzan cooked.

Grade: C+/B-

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Sirius

Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.

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