FOR BUTTER OR WORSE

A celebrity chef and the owner of a restaurant chain clash as co-hosts of a television cooking show but are required to fake date to save their reputations.

Nina Lyon is a James Beard Award–winning chef who's well known in the Los Angeles food world. Leo O’Donnell, who has an MBA, is the owner of Vinny’s, a chain of family-friendly restaurants started by his father. Both signed on to become hosts of The Next Cooking Champ! to help boost the visibility of their restaurants. But over the past three seasons, Nina’s honest critiques have earned her the nickname “Nasty Nina,” and her falling popularity has caused her to close two of her restaurants. Despite Leo’s genial persona, their acrimonious TV exchanges are not endearing them to anyone, and Leo’s businesses are also shuttering. Nina’s publicist advises them to conduct a showmance, fake date each other to boost their popularity. But enemies pretending to be lovers is difficult to pull off convincingly, and their online fans alternately laud them and savage them. Trust is slow to grow between them, but eventually it is only with each other that they can relax and truly be themselves. Their acceptance of each other as they truly are allows them to give each other space to be their best selves. After his father’s death, Leo took charge of growing the business and took on the emotional burden as head of family so zealously that it has become his life and has given him low self-esteem, crippling anxiety, and panic attacks. La Rosa sensitively shows Leo’s work on his mental health recovery. Nina has lost her focus as an innovative chef, and the closure of her last restaurant is inevitable. La Rosa convincingly shows how Nina recovers her passion for food and the story she wants to tell as a chef while finding a way to empower other women in the culinary world.

A heartwarming tale of trust and absolution from a skilled novelist.