Recipes, Rivals & Rough Water: A Delaney Novel

At Salt & Honey, Tessa Flynn has built the kind of bakery people trust. Her pastries are excellent, her customers are loyal, and her life runs best when no one suggests she should "dream bigger." Then Juliet Mercer arrives. Once a celebrated chef with a very public downfall, Juliet is in Delaney for eight inconvenient weeks to help Tessa launch dinner service-and from the moment she walks into the kitchen, it is clear they disagree on almost everything. Tessa believes in comfort, instinct, and feeding people well. Juliet believes in precision, pressure, and pushing everything further than feels safe. What begins as rivalry turns into a collaboration neither woman wants to admit is working. As the menu evolves, so does the tension between them. In the heat of a busy kitchen, over plated desserts and hard-won trust, attraction becomes impossible to ignore. But rebuilding a business is one thing. Rebuilding a life-and risking your heart with someone who knows exactly how sharp the edges can be-is something else entirely. Set in the harbor town of Delaney, Recipes, Rivals & Rough Water is a warm, emotionally layered sapphic small-town romance about ambition, second chances, and discovering that the right person may arrive in exactly the wrong kitchen.

Pages: 310, Paperback, Independently published