Black Truffle & Spice by Mathis Bailey

Zola Washington and her gay roommate, Pierre Jackson, are cooking up to open a café after recovering from unsavory relationships. Tension flares when a French-fusion bistro catches smells of the upcoming restaurant.

Darshan Singh is a food critic for Gourmet magazine. His job jet-sets him to all corners of the world, tasting extravagant dishes at Michelin-starred restaurants. Then he meets Zola. Will his review send her knives packing or set their relationship simmering?

Black Truffle & Spice is a witty commentary on a multi-cultural society and exploration of food, family, culture and love.

My Review

 Anushka loves French things, including Darshan. Well, maybe not his reviews and attitude. She seems pretty twitter-patted by this food critic /chef. Darshan, on the other hand, is calm and collected.

Then the book jumps to Pierre and Zola, owners of Hip Toronto cafe just opening near the Bistro. Pierre is quite the character and has some very dirty thoughts. Zola is determined but shy. 

Then the book jumps again back to Anushka and the Bistro. I’m not sure where this is going as it keeps jumping between so many characters. We meet Mrs. Singh and Godiva, two more characters in this story. Mrs. Singh is the owner of the French-Indio Bistro. She is a force to be reckoned with and quite fussy. Godiva seems to be a manager of some sort. Now we are back to Zola and her cafe opening. It seems Anushka and Mr. Singh are in some kind of an arranged marriage. 

Somehow this very small world seems to interconnect the characters and restaurants they keep jumping around in. Pierre’s portion of the story is quite steamy. This book continues to bounce back and forth between characters. Most of this story includes some restaurant sabotage, a little forbidden love, and a whole helping of up to no good. 

This book has a lot of twists and turns and some juicy family drama. As for the love triangle, someone is bound to get hurt. I kinda hope it isn’t Zola, but then again, the way this book started with Anushka, it is tough to tell. Okay, so this book does make more sense once everything is revealed. 

Yes, the multiple characters were hard to follow at first; however, each is important to the storyline in the book. The main characters are Darshan and Zola. Their story is genuinely fast-paced and filled with yummy food. However, the rest of the story was kinda a mess at the beginning. Thru the middle, so many are fighting for something, and then they kinda give up by the end. It took me till the end of the book to understand it all. I did love the Paris part of the book as this starts to read like an actual romance book. I love that author combined food, family, and fun to make a unique story. He also was very diligent in including heritage information and ethnic traditions for the reader to better understand the food and the characters. I’m not a big food lover, but some of the descriptions and meals did make my stomach growl. This was an interesting romance read. 

If you would like to read Black Truffles & Spice by Mathis Bailey you can find this book on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn on qualifying purchases.