Review: Hot Under Pressure by Louisa Edwards

Prepare to turn up the heat with the final book in the sizzling "Rising Star Chef" trilogy from romance author Louisa Edwards.

Henry Beck thought he’d already faced the toughest kitchen challenge of his life. After all, what could top sweating it out as a Navy cook on a submarine? But when he learns his competition for the title of Rising Star Chef is the sweet hippie girl he married…and left…ten years ago, the heat is on.

Now Beck and Skye Gladwell are going head to head in the finals…and sparking up old flames every time they touch. But Skye wants more than a win over the man who abandoned her when she needed him most—she wants a divorce! Then her sexy almost-ex makes a deliciously dangerous proposition. He’ll give in to her demands, but if his team wins the RSC, he has a demand of his own…one last taste of the only woman he ever loved.

Picking up immediately where Some Like it Hot left off, Hot Under Pressure completes the Rising Star Chef trilogy on a romantic high note.   

Henry Beck, known simply as Beck to his fellow Lunden's Restaurant employees, is the newest member of the Lunden family.  He keeps things close to the vest and has secrets in his past he's never shared with his co-workers, so they are all in for a shock when Beck's wife, Skye Gladwell, is a competitor in the Rising Star competition.  

While I loved Beck and Skye's reconnection, I'm not sure I completely bought the reasons behind their ten-year estrangement, especially when we see via their reminiscences how in love their younger selves were.  I was happy to see Beck fully realize he is the kind of man he has always wanted to be, someone who felt worthy of love in general and of Skye's love specifically.  

I'm sorry to say good-bye to these characters, but I feel they've come full circle in wonderful ways.  Thank you, Ms. Edwards.