About the book
Priya Raman has run her family’s diner in Hollis Point, Michigan for nine years without missing a morning.
Then a food critic from Detroit spends twenty minutes at her counter and writes four sentences about her mother’s cherry pie. The paragraph reaches ninety thousand people in a week. By Saturday her forty-two seat dining room is serving six, and by June the bank wants twenty-four thousand six hundred dollars on the eighth of September.
Marcus Vale wrote those four sentences. Every word was true, none of it was fair, and he is the only person alive who knows why he wrote it. So he rents the one apartment in town, which happens to be the room over Priya’s kitchen, under a name that will not show up in a search.
She finds out in nine days. She cannot throw him out, because his rent is already in her payroll account. So she tapes five rules to the stairwell door, and the first one says he does not write about this town or one single person in it.
One summer. One dark back room with twenty-four seats in it. And a man who is very good at deciding what a place is worth, finding out what that costs.
The Cherry Pie Review is a small town enemies to lovers romance with a slow burn, a closed door, and a happily ever after. It is book one of the Hollis Point series and reads well on its own.
Who this book is for
Readers who want enemies to lovers where the grudge is real and earned, not a misunderstanding cleared up in one conversation
Fans of slow burn romance who would rather wait for it than be rushed
Anyone who likes a clean, closed-door love story with strong feeling and no explicit scenes
Readers who enjoy small town life with a whole street of opinions, a retired English teacher at the window table, and a best friend with a drive-in
People who like food in a book done properly, from the smell of a kitchen at five in the morning to the eight seconds a room goes quiet when the plates land
Anyone who reads with a pencil in their head and wants the money to actually add up
Why you'll love it
The hate is honest. He really did write it, no editor changed a word, and the review is printed in full inside the book. There is no misunderstanding to clear up, only a thing to be forgiven.
You can count along. Twenty-four thousand six hundred dollars, due the eighth of September. Every dinner, every deposit, and every Saturday total is on the page, so you always know exactly how close she is.
Two points of view. Chapters alternate between Priya and Marcus, and each of them notices what the other cannot.
A kitchen that works. Written by somebody who cares about a dead compressor, a smoking hood, and what a full dining room sounds like through a floor.
A whole town, not scenery. A hardware store that runs out of dowels on purpose, a waitress who has not written down an order since 2000, and a twenty-four-year-old line cook you will want to see win.
A quiet ending. No rescue from outside, no surprise inheritance. She buys her time with a room she already owned.
Enemies to Lovers · Forced Proximity · Slow Burn · Heartwarming · Funny
Contents
Questions readers ask
Is The Cherry Pie Review a clean romance?
Yes. It is a closed-door romance with no explicit scenes. There are two kissing scenes, one on a wet staircase in July and one in the snow in December, and a great deal of feeling in between. Nothing in it would embarrass you on a train.
Do I need to read Last Show at Hollis Point first?
No. This book stands completely on its own. Last Show at Hollis Point is a free novella set in the same town the summer before, and Priya appears in it as the best friend, so reading it first adds a little warmth to Hattie and Theo’s scenes here. Either order works.
How long is the book?
About 68,000 words across 26 chapters, which the site puts at just under five hours of reading. Chapters alternate between Priya’s and Marcus’s points of view and run around 2,600 words each, so it is easy to read one or two at a time.
Is there a happily ever after?
Yes, and it is a quiet one. Nobody is rescued by a cheque from outside. The deadline in the story is real and it is answered on the page, and the last chapter is set in December with snow on Main Street.
Does it have any content warnings?
The story deals with money trouble throughout, including the possible loss of a family business, and with a long estrangement between an adult son and his mother. There is no violence and there are no explicit scenes. One character’s father had a heart problem some years before the story begins.
You might also like
