The Wrong Heat: A Novel

A chef. The wrong man. The cost of choosing both. Eight months after losing her restaurant, Nora Vásquez is rebuilding in the only way she knows: in other people's kitchens, cooking food that's better than the rooms it's served in, saving money toward a plan she hasn't made yet. When Declan Shaw approaches her at the Ferry Building on a Saturday morning, she already knows his reputation. The most demanding chef in San Francisco. A Michelin star held for five years. A kitchen that has broken people she respects. He offers her a job - culinary director, new concept, real money - and she takes it. She takes everything else he offers too. The problem is Marco. Marco has been there for six years - steady, present, the best cook she has ever trusted, the man who came when the restaurant closed and helped her pack without being asked and never once demanded to be chosen. He finds out about Declan from a line cook at a pop-up. Not from her. The Wrong Heat is a novel about desire and grief and the difference between what feels right and what is right. About a woman who mistakes electricity for meaning, and the man who loves her correctly, and what it costs all three of them. Set against the restaurant world of San Francisco - its kitchens, its farmers markets, its fog and its impossible rent - it is a story about the choices we make with open eyes and the weight of carrying them.