Boozy Bookgasms - Mon Dieu, is that a KNIFE?

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Shades of Red by Willow Prescott Join the cousins on this dark culinary kink journey with all sorts of strange and often cringe worthy moments. Warning there are lots of triggers and this one is not for the faint of heart or stomach.    Signature Cocktail: The Chef's Kiss Ingredients:  1 ounce gin 2 ounces Lambrusco 1 ounce lemon juice ½ ounce cinnamon syrup (Combine 1 cup each of water and sugar with 2 cinnamon sticks in a small saucepan and heat until sugar has fully dissolved. Allow to cool, 15-20 minutes. Taste for sufficient cinnamon infusion. If there’s not enough cinnamon to your liking, continue to steep. Remove cinnamon sticks and enjoy!) Directions Combine all cocktail ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well to chill and mix. Fine-strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel or cinnamon stick.   

This experience has shown me how sort of quirky you can be sometimes. Quirky? That's a nice way to say it. Book of literature fans. We're in for some boozy bookgasms today. Join three cousins creating a titillating headspace where steamy romance novels collide with strong cocktails. So sit back, sip slow, and enjoy the ride.

Welcome back. literature fans, I'm Jen. I'm Lynn. I'm Kim. And tonight we are discussing Shades of Red by Willow Prescott. But before we retell this cozy little love story, what are we drinking tonight? Is it cozy? That's a interesting. Is it a lot? Many thoughts. Okay. So many thoughts. Okay. So today's drink is called the chef's kiss. To keep the theme with our book this week, this drink is a little bit of sweetness, a touch of spice, but honestly, the color is why I went with it

because it's got this really dark, reddish purple color to it. And it reminded me of the last three chapters, plus the epilogue. So that's why I'm with this. So the drink looks like bruises. Or blood. Hang along those lines. So anyway, you've got some gin and you've got some Lombisco, which is so funny to me because that was like my first wine ever. It was a big joke of it. Some lemon juice and... Macaroni grill wine.

Yeah, yeah, like table wine, nasty. Oh, nice. You can buy in the jug. Some cinnamon syrup, which is like easy made, but I put the recipe on the website so everybody can get to it. But it's kind of sweet, but you still have that like cinnamon spice to it. Perfect. Drink up. Yeah.

Well, I won't go through the list of 200 triggers. that are... You kind of, I mean, yeah. When I read this on Kendall, it was at the end of the book. So I was kind of glad because it does give you a lot of spoilers. I do want to give our listeners a heads up. This one is a little bit more gory and graphic than we typically recap and review. If you're easily triggered by BDSM, cannibalism, and or murder, graphic murder,

then you may want to check out the triggers before listening to this episode. I'm going to keep it pretty PG-13. but, you know, we're definitely going to cover her. She's going to try. I'm going to do my best. And we are going to ruin it. And we're going to ruin it. Lindsay will screw me. Just see it coming.

But yes. But yes, just a heads up. So our main male character is Gavin Grayson, who goes by the name of Gray. And we open in a sex club and he's doing his BDSM thing with a young lady. He apparently has a rotation of 12 women that he does this with. But this one has caught feelings. And she tells him she loves him when he's putting ointment on her flesh wound that he just gave her with a bullwhip. And this makes him angry.

And he tells her she's out of line. He says, you are here to serve me. Your feelings have nothing to do with me. So keep them to yourself. And she asks why he's so heartless. And he says, because a pretty girl like you ripped it out a long time ago. And that is our prolog. So then we flash back to 10 years.

And I have a feeling we're going to learn about the pretty little thing that ripped his heart out. Good connecting of the dots there. Yeah. Yeah. Solid. Yeah. Thank you. Ten years ago, he's an American, but he was in France.

And he's an aspiring chef. Not classically trained. He started at the bottom making croissants with a woman named Sophie, who's sort of a mentor to him. She's in her 70s. He's visiting her at the opening of the book. But he's worked his way up from there and trained under several chefs and progressively more impressive restaurants and Michelin Stars and things like that. He is now in a cooking competition for a restaurant called Dix. D.I.X was how it was spelled.

Did anyone else think that was very funny that it was called Dix? I was like, you can spell it all different ways, baby, but it's the same thing. And this guy does not lack for. confidence. He is very confident in himself, like his abilities, but you did say like not classly trained. So I think there's also some like imposter syndrome that he deals with here, like as much confidence as he has. He is worried that he doesn't know all of the French techniques, like kind of, coming up from behind. He wasn't great at pastries, things like that. So you do get the sense that he can hold his own. But when you start to get into that that little higher end group, I think he he loses

He doesn't have any. He doesn't have their recipes. He's got some moments of insecurity, for sure. This restaurant's like a creative chef's dream. There's no set menu. It's locally sourced ingredients. He wants this job really bad. So they have 10 chefs that are competing for one spot as sous chef. The head chef of this competition does not call them by their names. He just calls them by numbers. And Gray is number nine. And number 10 happens to be running late on day. one and she runs in after they've already started and it really annoys the head chef and she's really embarrassed. And number 10 is a French haughty named Ralee and Gray is immediately attracted to her. He'll several times in the book is going to talk about how she smells like jerry's and vanilla.

And I don't know if you guys will be picked up on that too, but just no, he brings it up every time she enters the room. Totally. I won't mention it anymore, but he talks about it all. a lot. But anyway, they bicker a lot. He makes her feel bad about being late and she makes fun of his French. Apparently, he has horrible French. And they're kind of bicker back and forth that miss a lot of the instructions. But it's kind of for play. I mean, it's so obviously for play. Yeah. I guess I was missing because sometimes when you got a book where it's like enemies to lover did a thing, you feel the romance or you feel the sexual tension. And this just felt like they You didn't like you.

I guess I wasn't picking up. Oh, you didn't think so. I picked up that it was that for play. It was that banter. And it was fun for a minute. And then it turned sour. Like almost every time it turns sour. It didn't feel playful to me.

Right. I think it starts out playful. And then it just like went gross. They're mean. Yeah. Well, and they're competitors, right, too, in this competition to basically get a job at this restaurant. Right. So there's 10 aspiring chefs trying to get a job at this restaurant.

And the head chef is putting. them through their paces. I mean, you guys probably recognize this too, but like she's always also, like, okay, so she's in a kitchen with a chef's jacket on, but she's always in some sort of elegant dress and like Lubitin shoes every day, which I'm like, holy crap, I mean, like all day long on your feet and Lubitin's like cooking, like, why? But, you know, you kind of ruined like her she is always to the nines, like, and her makeup's perfect and her hair is perfect. She is very polished. Except the first day when her knees were scraped up. Yeah, that's true. When she got there, she had fallen.

So their first dish, and forgive me, because I have not, I haven't taken French since, like, second grade. But it's boshi a la rain, which is a puff pastry dish. And he is not, Gray is not a pastry chef. And so she begrudgingly carries them through the round. They get partnered together a lot. The very next day, now he's the one running late, and she's kind of giving him a hard time. and they get paired up again for another challenge where they have to source their own ingredients in markets around the city to make Coca-Vin, which is a French chicken stew. This is a dish that Gray knows how to make, and he's really bossy with her because he knows how to source the ingredients. He knows where to find the best prices. And she has other ideas.

Arly wants to go to this really expensive supplier for the meat, and he says she's a spoiled Parisian and calls her princess, and she says, has a visceral reaction to this because that's what her dad called her. And you're starting to get the feeling like her home life isn't so great and that she's implying that she has a bad relationship with her father. He admits that he Googled her name and knows that it means golden. They land on Goldie as a nickname for her. And he calls her that throughout the book. She's got blonde hair, too. Yeah. And he talks about her hair a lot as well as what's like the smells, right? But this competition is that they have to make this dish, he has to impress the chef on the taste and get it for the cheapest amount.

So he really wants to like go in hard on getting like the cheapest ingredients and she wants to go to these expensive places. But she is kind of a snobby, high and, you know, person. It's almost like you're kind of curious like what brought her to this competition even. She clearly has money. As the day goes on and they're getting ingredients, she keeps arguing with him about where to buy the meat. and he says, you see that pretty red dress you're wearing? Keep testing me and I'll take you to the back of one of these alleys, push you against the hard stone wall,

lift up your dress and spank you until your ass matches that pretty shade of red. That pisses her off. Shocking. Yeah, I don't know why that bothered her. It felt weird. Weird reaction. I don't know that it did. So she storms off to the expensive meat place.

And he catches her in the alley, shoves her against the wall and says, listen, do not screw up my chances because I don't have Daddy's money and I need this job. He walks away from her and he's going to the place he wants to buy the meat and she stays on the wall in the alley and tells him she's waiting for her spanking. He can't believe his ears. He's like the best day of his life. She lifts her dress up above her waist. And so he does spank her over and over until she's the perfect shade of her. red. We're going to hear a lot about the color red in the book. It's an ongoing theme. She wears a lot of red in the book. She wears a lot of red dresses and red undergarments. Lipstick. There's lipstick. There's blood. There's all

kinds of hints to red and talk about the color of red. After the spanking, he asks if he can give her oral sex in the alley. And she says, mandu. Yes, which means what my God, yes. The cool thing about reading this on Kendall is you could highlight the French words and get translation because there was a lot of French in the book. And sometimes I didn't know what they were talking about. So he gives her oral sex and she has an orgasm. And afterwards, he's standing over her and she says, stop looking at me like I'm the first girl. You've ever spanked and tongue fucked in an alley. And he's like, you are. And now he's in love. Yes. I mean. Yeah. He got everything he wants. it in one alleyway.

She's his type. Yeah. But does he know what his type is? Because I don't feel like, I felt like he was so inexperienced through this that like Lynn was saying about his imposter syndrome. He was not super confident in his cooking skills. He was not super confident when he was with her. Like after this, he's like, he totally questions everything he did.

Should I have said that? Did I mess it up? Maybe I hit her too hard. They have this incredible moment and then she kind of goes back to being the ice queen. And he doesn't really know what to do with that. And like I said, he's a confident guy. Like, you can tell he's confident. But then he has these moments of insecurity with her and with his cooking that it's such a conundrum of like who this guy is.

It's obviously something he wanted to do, but he'd never. Never acted on it. Yeah. Exactly. Experiments it with that. After this happened, she kind of freaks out and makes him promise that no one can know and her voice is trembling a little bit. He can see she's scared of something. and he promises, no, okay, I'm not going to tell anybody.

They go back to the restaurant, and they end up getting second place on their dish. But like Lindsay said, she starts getting a little icy again and standoffish. And the next day, she's barely speaking to him. She's also put her makeup on really thick, and she looks a little different, and he comments on it. And she's just, like, snapping at him and just wants him to leave her alone. And he's like, what is your deal? And she says, we're distracting each other. He's like, hey, what's wrong with a little workplace fuckery?

And she says, if you win a challenge, I'll think about letting you touch me again. They're making soup that day, and he wins the challenge. No problem. And the other chefs want to celebrate with him. And it's like a Friday night. And so they invite them out for drinks to celebrate. And she says, we'd love to come. So she's stalling on their deal.

So when they get to the bar, though, he's not having it. He's like, open your legs, take off your panties. And, okay. I thought this was hot. I'm going to tell you right now. This is not my thing. Like, he drank his drink and then spit it in her mouth. Like, I thought he was so degrading.

The rest of it, like in the restaurant with everybody sitting there. He put his finger down her throat. Okay. That was weird. You're missing the hotness of it. You're missing the hotness of it. You're missing the hot. Help me out.

I'm getting drunk. I agree. I thought it was hot too. I mean, it's the fear of getting caught and doing something you're not supposed to do and very taboo. And I thought she wrote it really, really well. I was here for it. Am I a fan of the spitting in your mouth? No.

That's not my thing. Am I a fan of taking the ice cubes and jamming them down your throat? No, not my thing. But the idea of sitting in a booth with people around you and you're in the middle of this passionate throw and nobody knows but you, that's like one of those, oh, what if I get caught? It's so hot. It's hot. Agreed.

And she was here for it too. Yeah. Like you said it's degrading. Like, I mean, they are very equally matched in like the sex department. She wants everything he's giving her. That's true. And is there for it. So to me, like that it didn't bother me at all.

Like that's just their foreplay. Throughout the book when they're about to do something intense, he makes her beg for it. And I think that's like, I'm getting consent. And again, I'm not feeling the same connection that you guys, and this, look, I think we can just say right now, this is not my kind of. This is not my genre. You are not into BDSM and that we've only said that like every episode. Every episode. I feel like to a degree, I am not into the degrading piece of it. But I mean, some BDSM ropes, things like that, they're hot. And the way that they are presented. makes it hot. The gross degrading things like that, I don't like. That put me off on this book so quickly on certain pieces. Yeah. And I get where you're coming from. It can be done better. And I don't feel their connection. I mean, he likes her. That's clear. But I, there wasn't enough of a build of the

relationship to me. I can't tell that she likes him or not. But I will say, Kim, you've said before, like with BDSM, the sub is always in control. And she was. I mean, she was a hundred percent in control of him. He wanted to make her happy. And I don't disagree. I mean, I think there were hot sex things in this, but I also struggled with this book. I like BDSM and it doesn't usually doesn't bother me. But she was a bit of a flat character for me. Like you never really understood her backstory. I mean, I'm sure that that's part of it, right? That's part of the story. But she was just flat. Like, I couldn't I couldn't like her throughout this thing because you really only get his and he's obsessed with her and you can't really get a The whole book is his point of view. So that's part of it. I can't get a read on her, which I really struggled with. And then I think the prolog where he is, you know, it's 10 years later and he's basically like whipping it causing blood. Like that I think that that as a starting point really made me struggle like with the book. It sets the mood for sure. Yeah, totally. And in a way that like wasn't that.

pleasant. When I think BDSM and I think whips chains, whatever, whatever you're into, that's all well and good. You have a threshold as a sub. Great, I get it. But then, like, there are points in the prolog where he's, like, actually putting his finger into, to hurt the sub more. And I don't like that. And I think you, you instantly don't want to like him. To like him. There are parts where you do like him and he banters a little bit, like with the old lady who's, who's the patient. chef or... He can be kind of endearing. He can be endearing. He can be charming. And vulnerable. Yeah. You get this other character introduced and you're like, she's kind of a bit. She's very cold. And maybe they wrote her that way to be like the superficial French woman. Very French. Yeah. Right. Very

French style. I get what I want. I do what I want. You're below me. She's been pushing him off, right? Like, she can't stop wanting him, but she does try and push him away. He's not. taking her up on that, right? Like, he just keeps chasing her. But knowing what you know now, after, like, reading the whole book, do you think she could not stay away from him? Or do you think it was planned and strategic? I don't think it was planned. I think she was trying. I think it was strategic. Oh, I don't think so. Oh, interesting. No, I think she was trying to keep him in arms leeks. And I think that's why she was icy. I also think knowing what we know now, right, and we'll keep going to book. But, like, I also think that she's,

She needed something good in her. That's true. She needed something good and he wasn't giving her the out. And so she finally just gave in. And I think she saw an American coming a mile away. And I think it was strategic. I disagree. Okay.

All right. Okay. We'll discuss later. So he does give her an orgasm with ice cubes under the table. And so Kim and Len thought it was super hot. And then he thinks the following to himself, that he could devour her for eternity, drink in her arousal, lick the sweat from her skin, suck the blood from her veins. So this is when I'm like, okay, he might be a little in-hitch. Like he thinks differently than me.

So after her orgasm, though, she's rushing out of there. And she's like, ah, thanks for the, oh, I got to go. So she, like, quick goes to the bathroom. She waits in there hoping he'll just leave, but he doesn't. He wants to walk her home and she's trying to shake him. He won't leave. He's confused. This is one of those moments of insecurity.

Like, I did all that to her at the bar. Did she not like it? She seemed like she liked it. And she does ask her. Yeah, but this is not the first time she's rushing home. She got to go. She has to be home by a certain time. Like, and so, I mean, this I'm like, is she living with her parents?

Is it like her, is it like, yeah, it sounded like her dad at the time. And it does leave you questioning, like, who is this woman and where is she going? Because she has a curfew essentially. Yeah. Basically, yeah, she has to be home by, she kept saying midnight and he was like, all right. He does say, like, did I not, did you not like what we just did there? Like, I feel like you're running away and she slows down. She kisses him.

No, I liked it. I just have to go. She keeps him on the hook, basically. So, just according to Kim's, but potentially strategically. But she no-shows at Dix the whole next week. She does not come in. And he gets really frustrated because she owes him. They had a deal.

He won the competition and they were supposed to hook up. And then she just didn't show up. And so he got really frustrated. And someone called in and said she was sick. But he doesn't believe she's actually sick. So when she does show up, he's really nasty. nasty to her and says, oh, I hope you're feeling better, but she shows up looking like a million bucks. And so he's like, she doesn't look like she's been sick. So he's still kind of not picking up

on some of the clues that we're kind of picking up on, which is this woman does not have a great home life. Something's going on with her. So the next challenge is a pastry called, egg in there with me, croquembush. It's a croak and bush. It's a croak and bush. It's a Oh, broken bush. It's a tree. So, which is a, it's a tall pastry tower with filling. And as we know, this is not Gray's strength. He's not a pastry guy.

So he does one and it looks like shit. And he burned it. I mean, he did everything wrong and he would turn it in. Plus he's distracted by her and he's not good at it. And so he basically won't ask her for help and just tries to fake it until he makes it. This is a super difficult pastry to make. It's super hard to build. It takes a lot of technique to get it to be exactly how it's supposed to.

Essentially, you're taking a bunch of very small cream puff donuts and aligning them in a triangle format like a tree. And they have to stick. Oh, I've seen those. I mean, it is a tricky, tricky thing. They slide off. They don't stick right. Kim could probably do it. I have done it.

But it's very different. It's very difficult to get it right and make sure it's filled correctly. And there shouldn't be, like, you shouldn't have to ice the holes between the pastries. It should just all be one piece. And so it is like super difficult technique. And again, he couldn't do the flat pastry. So here we go again. He sucks at it.

And he sucks at it. And she has the best one. She turns in a masterpiece. and it's like visually beautiful and it tastes great. And so the head chef, I think punishing her for being out the week before, tells them both, you have to stay until Gray gets this right. So you guys aren't leaving this place tonight until he has mastered this and he's going to learn it from you because you have the best one.

And she's like, why the hell am I being punished? Like I won the competition. And he's like, too fucking bad. Here's the keys lock up when you're done. It's going to be a long night because I guess they've been. take at least four hours to make them. She's pissed off and she's back to her icy self, right? They've been arguing all day and she does not want to help him.

And she's like, I want to get the hell out of here. And he basically says, I'll make a deal with you. I know you don't want to be around me. So I will give you 10 minutes to hide from me or leave, get away from me. I'll spend 10 seconds looking for you. if I don't find you, I'll quit this whole competition and I'll disappear from your life forever. And she says, you got yourself a deal. So he locks the restaurant door and hides the keys so she can't get out. And it's not that big of a restaurant from what I could tell. So it's not complete yet. There's no way.

It's not even like the restaurant's not even complete. So there's no way she's going to went. I mean, he's got this thing in the bag. Right. So he gives her time to hide. while she's hiding, he jerks off into a bowl of cream that he's going to be using to fill his croken bush. I did not like that part. It's so gross. Really? You didn't? Yeah, it was disgusting. And so he finds her to the surprise of no one and drags her out and he's holding a knife the whole time.

So she's fighting him and he tells her to stay still or he will shove the knife inside of her. her and use her blood as lube to have sex with her. Also gross. And I'm like, struggling with this being hot. Right? That was not hot. It was not hot. It was not hot. It was creepy. I'm glad. Okay. There's hope for the two of you because I'm like, how do you like this stuff? It was creepy. This must be like a new thing. I don't know in these books, but like the using of the weapons, like in the sexual escapades. We've had a couple of books like that. Yeah, I think I brought that up or a couple of episodes before because we're seeing it more and more. And I don't know if authors are reading other authors and going, ooh, that's hot. And then redoing it. I'm here to tell you it isn't.

It's not. I don't like it. We don't like it. No. But he ties her on this table, basically ties her to the table, takes the knife and cuts her dress off her body. And am I the only one that's like, how is this woman going to get home? How she getting his home? With no clothes? And they actually don't. They don't. I think he gives her his shirt, but they never say how she got home.

No, and it happens a couple times. So how pissed would you be? Like, expensive clothes are expensive clothes. You know it's expensive. But he's going right at the middle. No, but she doesn't care. But she doesn't care. Like, it's ruined.

It's not like, oh, I love a couple buttons. It's like, I got nothing. No. I got a wrap around. He tears it down the middle. Yeah, and her underwear, too. He's very, he's very. rough with her and she ends up bleeding. And he asks her if she's a virgin. And she laughs and says,

oh my God, of course not. He feels really bad because he made her bleed. And he says he's sorry. And she says, um, you just chase me in the dark with a knife, strapped me to a table, ruined my clothes and cut my skin. Because by the way, while he was having sex with her, he had a knife to her throat and accidentally nicked her neck. And she says, but you're sorry for giving me the the best petite mort, which means orgasm after the last of my life. She says, untimmy so we can make this pastry and then she kisses him and says if he wins another challenge, she'll go home with him. This is his dream girl. This isn't, look, I'm not enjoying this much, but he sure is. And like, they have the same pink and he's falling. Oh, for sure. But you still don't know what her

situation is. He does whip the cream with his comment. Also, can we? Can we just take a moment because you know how I like to like really reflect on some of this. One, because I'm reading it going, would it actually whip up like that? Because did someone try that? Yes, they had to of. Did they? Who figured that out? Kim's wondering if it would really, like would the cream actually whip? Like, it's almost like a meringue kind of. Could you get the peak? Or would it just be the valley? It's a good question. Like, who thought of this? One, who fucking thought of this? Two, like, did someone do the research enough to test this model out? Also disgusting.

I want to know. I'm just going to go with. I'm going to go with it did. They just made it up. What it needed to do. Oh. They don't really talk about it, though. It does turn into whipped cream. And he makes her taste it. She asked him, like, what did you put in this? Did you add salt to that? And I'm like, oh, gross. At least warn someone, you know? And then he said, it's just my secret ingredients.

No, girl. Hey, Jen, I happened to have some extra funk. I whipped it up, some juice, as we like to say. I had some extra jizz. I put it in the walk-in until it was nice and thick and cold. And then I whipped it for you and put it in this cream puff. I thought you'd like to try it. Would you be like, thank you for telling me.

I'll take two. No. No. You'd be like, well. But she shares his kink. Hey, later on, she does do that. She does eat. She doesn't know.

Off the ice cream. She doesn't know she's blindfolded. Right. She spit it on to the ice cream. Oh. We're coming to it. I forgot about that part. Yeah.

She's disgusting too. They do are made for each other. So the next challenge is Ratatooey, which I did know how to say because of the cartoon. Solid research. Thank you. So he does a deconstructed version and the head chef calls it perfection. So he wins the challenge, which that was their deal. She said if he won, you know, she'd stay the night. He tells R. Ali that hers is a bowl of mush and he won't even taste it. So she's pretty embarrassed and kind of devastated. And she's standing there just trying to gain her composure and gray comes over to her and he's like, are you okay? And she's like, I'm not supposed

to cry. And he's like, who the fuck told you you can't cry? It's okay to cry. And then we're seeing like, this is where I was like, ooh, there's a little heart in there. Like, he does have feelings for her. But then he says, I love your tears because they give me a heart on. And then I'm like, I really don't like this book. That's fair. We were so close to having a moment, right? And then you said that. So they go back to his place and he wants to cook for her, which is kind of hot. Like if you're dating a chef, you hope they want to cook for you. Yeah, but he had like nothing in his refrigerator. Like, he has all these ingredients. But he doesn't have sweets and she loves dessert and he hates dessert and he doesn't know how to make desserts clearly. And she knows that. And she says, if you make me the best dessert I've ever tasted in my life, then I'll give you a blowout. job, essentially. It was a little more graphic in the book. But then again, it's like, does she really want him? Because she picked the hardest thing for him to do. She's a challenge. She's a challenge. I didn't love their games, I guess. So she's stressing him out, so he makes her lay down on his

kitchen table, and he cuts her dress open again with his knife and blindfolds her because he tells or she lost the privilege of vision because she was smarting off to him. So, okay. Here we go. So he wants to make an ice cream Sunday. And so there's a couple things that happen. So he's doing the cherries and bourbon. It sounds really good.

And he's feeding her the cherries. She's starving. Right. Then he tricks her and feeds her a chili pepper. She thinks she's getting a cherry. and he feeds, what an asshole. I mean, what a total asshole. Like, that's so mean.

That's the part. And it's like, I thought you want to her. Totally. Well, there's others. But anyway, he builds the Sunday on her body. And he's pouring hot chocolate sauce and caramel sauce and burning her. But he does give her a very forceable, like she gives him a blowjob, but he feels like forced, you know.

And I did not get forced. I didn't get forced. It didn't look like fun of me. So anyway, he makes her hold his cum in her mouth. And then she spits it on the ice cream for their Sunday. I could puke right now. Like, this is disgusting. And they eat it together.

Ew. So gross. That's why I'm like, I think if he'd told her about the whipped cream, she would have eaten it. I'm a texture girl. And that would not do it for me. There's like, there's too much going on there. You got, you got the slimyness, you got the ice creamy, you got the chocolate, you got bitter, you got salt. I mean, I couldn't do it.

The texture alone. I'm just, oh, yeah. Nope. Well, and it's all over her body. She's covered in sticky ice cream. So they do go take a shower and they have sex in the shower. But this is when he sees, she's got bruises all over her ass. Like her, she's covered in like purple and yellow bruises.

And he's like, oh my gosh, what happened? And again, there's this moment of kindness and caring where he's worried about her. And you're like, ooh, ooh, maybe he is. I don't know why you keep following, Lori. There's some love there. I feel like, oh, okay, no. They have an interesting kink, but I don't think, at least at this point, right, he's not a bad person. They have these interesting kinks, but he does care about her.

I think you're right. He cares, but I think he cares more than somebody else has given her, Spankins and it's not him. Oh, I, well, that's... He thinks it's her dad. He thinks she's being abused. So this is, this part's important because he thinks to himself that this is her dad abusing her.

And he says he might have to pay a visit to her dad. And if her dad's treating her badly, he'll have the same sort of accident that his own dad had when he was abusive. So here's where we realize he murdered his dad. That's good to know. His dad was an abuser. Good. He deserved it.

Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, but I mean. Bye. I'm struggling. All right. MC romances are not going to be your thing. No, no. The only thing we're missing is the mafia.

Yeah, totally. Although this guy could be in the mafia. Ooh. Oh, yeah. I mean, he would have been great for them. As a chef. They start sleeping together every night for three weeks. She falls asleep at his bed every night, but every morning he wakes up and she's gone.

So he's thinking, oh, she really has some commitment issues, but he's falling for her nonetheless. And one morning, he rushes to the restaurant because they're supposed to do inventory together at 6 a.m. And he's like three minutes late. And he walks in and she's bent over the table with her panties around her ankles. And there's a man behind her with his hand between her legs. and he freaks out and he's like, what the fuck is going on? And our release says, this is my husband, Blaze. And so Gray just has this, like, slow-mo moment.

Yeah, like she's lied to me the entire summer and everything starts kind of falling into place. We find out her husband is an abusive. abusive, arrogant asshole. Who travels a lot. Yeah. Well, yeah, which is convenient. Well, that's why she's able to be in this cooking program because he has no interest in her being a chef, but she wanted the diversion while he was going to be a way on business for most of the summer. So that's why she even got to do it really because he wasn't going to be around.

And he's financing. He's the investor. So, yeah, he's financing dicks. But she took someone else's spot. That's right. Which actually Gray was a little bit off put by that. Like she kicked someone else out so she could take the spot because our husband was the financer.

And the head chef didn't like it, but he didn't have a choice. Yeah. So that was kind of despicable. So she does ask Gray if he hates her now and he says he's trying to hate her, but he just really feels devastated. And he tells her it would be a lot easier to hate you if I didn't already love you. So. I know.

It was kind of sad. There is a heart in there. No, it's gone. But he asked her to leave her husband and choose him. And she says, this line in the bottle. This was ice cold. Yeah. She says, you're just a small chef with big dreams, no money, few prospects and the most beautiful cock I've ever seen. I mean, it was, it was kind of, it wasn't even like a sandwich insult. It was like, no. She saved the only. positive part of it for the end. And I felt like she knows herself because he's like, we'll quit the program now. We'll go to America. Oh, you'll take you to America. Like, get you away from this guy and be together. And like, she knows that that lifestyle would not be for her.

She's like, no. I feel. No. And she. And she's saying it's strategic. She signed on for this marriage knowing this man abuses is going to abuse me, but then he's going to give me a present after. And she explains that.

And like their first, like when they were dating. First date in a restaurant in front of everybody. He slaps her. And then the next day she got a tennis bracelet. And she was like, okay. And so she's like, so she knows. Like she walks in open eye into this relationship with this man who is abusive. And she knows that.

That's why I think it's strategic. I'm sorry. I hold that it is strategic. I'm interested. Gray decides he's going to have sex with her one last time. And he uses his knife to spank her and cut her. And then he pours truffle oil all over her cuts so that they don't scar, which I guess was nice. And then he, but then he uses it as lube to have anal sex.

And he's really, really rough. And then she's crying when it's over. He's hate fucking her for sure. Yeah. And he's kind of saying that. And she's crying and she says she's sorry. and he tells her to shove that apology up the ass he just fucked. Solid.

There you go. Yeah, that's one way to wrap up a relationship. So this next part is a little unhinged. I didn't see this coming. Really dark. He lures her husband Blaze to a butcher shop with a photo of Arley cheating on him and basically threatening to expose the cheating and exploit them and embarrass them. Blaze comes into the butcher's shop and Gray attacks him from behind and knocks him out with, I think it was a mallet or some sort of hammer.

Yeah, it's a meat hammer. Yeah. Like he's like hiding in the back and like Blaze comes in and there's this very kind of, I don't know, mafia type feeling that you get right. Like Blaze is going to be there to fuck this guy over. Like I'm going to basically kill you because you're doing this and then not so much. Blaze does say a couple things like this isn't the first time my wife's been a cheating whore. Yeah. We're like, oh, okay.

But he comes in saying, I'm going to kill Gray. Like, I felt like he came in thinking. He brought a gun. Yeah. He brought a gun. To a knife fight. To a knife fight. Yeah.

It didn't do him much good. So Gray knocks him out with the hammer and then strings them up in the meat locker next to the other meat locker. Pigs. Pigs. Pigs. It was very specific. Pigs. Yeah.

You're hung up. Big giant pigs. Pigs. To bleed him out. Because that's what he was threatened. to do it to his own way. Yeah. I don't want to go into too much detail around what happened, but he does slice pieces of... He fillets him. Yeah. He phalae. Yeah, it's really, really graphic. Most importantly here, he keeps a quart of the blood. He keeps a portion of the meat from this man's thigh

and a pound of meat that he carved from him while he was still alive. That's how he died. Also, he keeps his penis. Yes, that's right. I wasn't going to go there. Oh, no. Oh, no, we said. We will pull you off that train. Because Budan. You did. Yeah.

Yeah. So then he does it. He burns the body in an incinerator to get rid of the evidence. He meets Aralee at a cafe and tells her Blaze is dead. And she is not sad. Not emotional in any way. She's not scared. She doesn't blink, guys.

What does that tell you? How many times she had these affairs like, hope. being someone would kill the husband. I firmly believe it was strategic. I would love the author to let us know that I think she set him up. I did not get that, but I can see where... Now that you say that, like that, interesting. But she says, you did it.

We can be together. Yeah, she's like, great. And he's like, fucky too. And he's like, that's never going to happen. You had a chance to choose me and you didn't. And now I'm not going to be with you because I'm your only choice. He is like, fuck you very much. He's done. I'm out of here.

But he was able to turn his love off. Off very quickly. Quickly and easily. She says you're heartless and he says you would know because you still have the blood under your nails from ripping out my heart. Drama. Yeah. If you had your hopes up, dear listener for a reunion after the second act breakup, you're going to be disappointed. This was not an H-E-A.

No. Well, and in the trigger warnings at the beginning of the. book, it tells you this is a happy for now. So it's like you know that going in if you read the trigger warnings. But yeah, it was like quite surprising that the killing of the husband, but also the fact that like she wants to be with him now and he turns her off and says no-up. Goodbye. Well, you find out, okay, he killed his dad. He killed the husband. He's a little unhinged too. He kept a vial of blood. He kept body parts to do what? So Kim, yeah, do you want to tell us how he won sushi?

Like, I wasn't going to go into these details, but it sounds like you're excited. They were able to cook their own unique dish. And they could use whatever ingredients they wanted. So he worked really hard making boudan and all these other things. He went through all the chef tools to make the perfect meal out of this guy's body parts. And he won. And it was the best, the layers. of flavor that were there.

We're just in pep of, I mean, just like, you're just sitting here going, oh, my God. Yeah. What a monster. Yeah. What a monster. And you think this is where it ends. But it doesn't.

No. It doesn't end here. No, there's more. This is the crazy part, right? Okay, so he essentially wins the competition. Yeah. But he goes to his 70-year-old grandma mentor to talk with her. And he doesn't tell her what's happening.

she just knows. And so she gives him the card to a BDSM club for him to basically take out his aggression. Yeah. She notices that he's like, he's very pent up, right? All this time he was having sex and he was doing stuff and he was very laid back. And now he's very pent up and he's angry. But yet he has his dream job. So she's like, hmm.

Basically you need to get laid. There's a kink here. Here's this card. Go. She doesn't tell him what it is. She just gives him an address and says, go here. But he kind of, I think he'd heard of it. Kind of figures it out. And then, and then the madam that runs the place kind of takes him under her wing because as crazy and

fucked up as he is in the bedroom, he's never done this before. So he's a little, a little sex club novice. He's a fast learner. He's quick. He's quick. Yeah. Yeah. So he, he does have sex with a young man at the club using the vial of blood from his murder. to lube up for the act. And then he whips a woman so hard she's bleeding. So he took to the BDSM pretty quickly. He jumped right on both feet. And then that's when you kind of realized, right, the very first in the prolog, he's whipping a woman. And so this is the beginning of his journey, right? And then the prolog is, you know, 10 years later and he's taken it that much further. But I don't know if you guys read the jacket for the next book. So this is a duet. And there's the next book. And there's the next book. And And the woman, the interest is a Colombian pastry chef. And we might remember that our leading lady took the spot of a Colombian pastry chef. That's so interesting. I did not put that together.

So I think that she's the woman that Orally, how are not her name, lost her spot. Lost her spot to this woman. And so now, 10 years later, he's the executive chef of a big restaurant. He's a big fucking deal. and he's going to the sex clubs and then the pastry chef will come on the scene. I mean, it's just like he fully embraced it in a matter of minutes. He was in. Yeah.

Jumped right in. And he's obviously still in the lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely made him happy. This is not my kink, but it's his and he's enjoying it and good for him. We're not shaming. We're not shaming. No, not shaming.

Maybe lay off the murder and the cannibalism without telling people. Forced. The murder doesn't bother me at all. Murder doesn't bother me. The cutting off body parts, eating them, and then using the blood in a sexual act with someone. Problematic. It's weird. Yeah.

But the murder itself is not bothersome. Well, that guy had it coming. He did. He did. But we do end with him saying his name is Master Grayson. So he's fully embracing this lifestyle at the end of this book. And then, like we said, we flash forward to 10 years. But like Lindsay said, there's a second book that tells the rest of the story it's coming out this year.

I'm in a pass. Shocking. What? But will you guys read it? I don't think it. I don't know. I might let Lynn read it and then get up to this. But there were too many weird things for me with the blood.

I'm just, I'm not a weapon. And the knife. The knife is too much. A lot of knives. I'm not, not weapons and I'm not into the blood. It's just not my thing. Fair enough. Yeah.

So I don't know if I could sit there. And I need the feelings to be more out in the open. You know, like these two hated each other half the time. I don't know. It was four-play. And I don't mind an enemies to lover, but eventually, like, you want to have. They need to be lovers. Yeah. Do you need to have the love?

Do you need to have the love? Because they were basically helping each other realize their kinks. That's all they were doing. For me to enjoy the book, yes. He was falling for her. And the three weeks that they were sleeping together, they breeze right past that. Like, that's like not even like it's like a... And then they were sleeping together for three weeks.

Ding, ting, ting. Now her husband's going to... And he was in love by the end of that. Yeah. But you don't see the falling in love part. Yeah. Exactly. And considering that this is like a book talk favorite, I was like not expecting this.

It did not resonate with me. It's a novella, I would say. It's a 200-page-ish book. Yeah, it's fast. And I could not, I was telling you guys earlier, I did not want to pick it up. I just, I would read a few chapters and I'd put it down and be like, oh, it's such a slog for me just because I just didn't enjoy it. But so many people love it. I mean, if this is your thing, you're going to get what you go there for.

I also feel like you should put the triggers in the front of the book because I happen to open. Oh, there are spoilers, though. I know, but I happened to open it. When I opened it and I took a picture. And I was like, well, this ought to be interesting. Let's see where we go with this. Yeah. You know, the trigger running should always be in the front because it's supposed to be in the front.

They should be in the front. But, I mean, I guess if you are highly triggered, it's probably something you're seeking out. You're looking for. For, yeah. So, like, why? But, I mean, that's how I knew it wasn't a happily ever after because I read the trigger page and it tells you it's a happily happy for now. So, yeah, this book was not, is not rate high on my. on my list of books that turned me on.

So let's do ratings. Do you want to start, Lynn? Sure. So I personally gave this book like a two and a half from like a star rating standpoint. Because of that, like I, it was, she was very flat to me. Their relationship was really hard to like root for. Like you couldn't figure out like what the situation was. And I think I mentioned it earlier, but that opening scene of him whipping her,

putting his finger, making her hurt more. like no emotion, right? Like, it really kind of set the rest of the book up where I just wasn't that, you know, excited. I read it. I wanted to get to the end. I wanted to figure it out. But yeah, not my favorite. Kim? When I first read the first, the prolog, I was just like, oh, I'm not going to like this. But then I saw it differently. I started seeing it from that strategic. She's plotting this. She's playing him. This is her goal. So for me, I probably give it a three. Wow. One sex scene was hot to me, and then they tarnished it with the spit and all the other stuff.

So everything else wasn't hot to me. I wanted to root for him, but I couldn't. And then, like, it went so dark. At the end. Like, it was like you're going through and it's very, it's very vanilla-ish in the beginning. You've got little spots of that spice. And then all of a sudden, it is black, dark, dark. dark romance in like the last three and a half chapters.

And I felt like there wasn't a buildup. There wasn't a warning. It just happened. And now I'm eating someone. No, thank you. Yeah. So I'd say three for the way that they portrayed that character for the strategy. I wouldn't give it a two.

I feel like there was a lot of creativity in here. Yeah. And also still questioning the research behind several. The scenes. So for that, three. Yeah, I mean. I've ever made boo Dan. I know.

That's so impressive if you can do it that way. So impressive. I totally get what you're saying. Like, it doesn't resonate with me, but I did think it kept me engaged. I mean, I blew through this book really fast. So that's why it's two and a half for me. It wasn't like my type of book. I wouldn't pick this up again.

There was something there. And I am eager to see like how she addresses this next relationship with the pastry shop. And I am super eager for you to see that. And then let me tell you. And then we're back. Got you. So excited about that. You've been reading like crazy lately.

I can squeeze this one in. Just because this wasn't my genre. So it's a two for me. I will say she can write a landscape. I felt like we were in Paris. I loved the French part of it. And I actually liked the food part minus the cannibalism. And the jizz.

Yeah. Yeah. But I like to the kitchen setting. And I think she's a great writer. This just wasn't. My subject. Fair enough. And it's hard because when we rate spice, because I don't want to say it's like two chili peppers because there's so much spice in it. And it's very graphic. If I'm reading like Kim writes it where it's like, well, it's just not my kind of spice, then it's a one.

But how much spice is in it? Probably a four. It's really, really spicy. Yeah. I agree. I'm probably at like a three and a half on the spice for that reason. There was a lot of spice in there. There was some good spice. Like I actually didn't mind some of the spice. But I think there was enough that took away from like the enjoyment with like the knife and the cutting and the yeah, the jizz cream and whatever. I just like so, so gross. The blood at the end when he was screwing the God. Like there was some of that just was just takes away from it because I agree. I think you could have rated it higher and there was some good sex but just didn't turn me on in a way that would I could get anything higher than that. Yeah.

So for me, I'm going to rate it kind of like Lindsay does something. Sometimes where can you see yourself in this scene? Would you want to be in the scene? No. There was not one scene I wanted to be in. Not one scene. I'm going to give it a low spice. I'm going to give it like a 1.5. Because it's not your kind of spice. It's not my kind of spice. It was definitely there, but it's kind of like. It's spicy. I don't like it. It's not my thing. It's not. It smells great when you're cooking it, but I don't want it. I don't know. Fair enough. Well, thanks for getting through this one with me and supporting me. You know, this one was tough. I did not care for this. But we did it. We did it.

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