Review: With a Twist by Deirdre Martin

This book falls into my Contemporary Reading Challenge.

This was the first Deirdre Martin book I read, and I wish I'd read it in order with the Hockey books. This is not a hockey story, but it's set in that world and a few of the characters do make brief appearances.

Natalie Bocuse is a young French woman living just outside New York City. Her sister owns a restaurant and Natalie is a waitress there but she wants to be a manager. She loves her sister but moves to the city and to see what opportunities she can find there. One of the regulars at her sister's restaurant, Quinn, offers her a job at his family's Irish pub/restaurant just until she can get a job managing a (preferably French) restaurant. Natalie and Quinn have a very strange relationship - they're friends (sort of) but they live to annoy the crap out of each other. Once Natalie takes the job at the pub, Quinn is delighted he'll be seeing more of her. The problem is, his new editor begins frequenting the pub too - and hitting on Natalie.

Quinn asks her out and they start dating, but his job is quickly becoming the biggest obstable in their relationship. Quinn is one of the city's top reporters, and he is dedicated to getting The Story. Then he sniffs out the story of a lifetime, and he has to decide if he wants Natalie or the Pulitzer Prize.

I enjoyed this book, but both Quinn and Natalie annoyed me to some extent. Natalie was kind of whiny; it seemed like she wanted to be "big time" without doing the work necessary to get there. Quinn was kind of an ass - case in point: He took Natalie to the opera and got a call about a story while he was there. He left her there - no explanation, he just told her he had to leave! But, personality issues aside, it was an intersting story. I give With a Twist 3 out of 5 stars.

The next book in this series, Straight Up, is about Quinn's brother, Liam. I think this book is going to be good - I liked Liam in With a Twist and was hoping for more of him.