A Taste of Desire by Chloe Blake

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I have big reading goals for April so hopefully a lot of reviews will be posted this month. I've just been in  a big romance reading mood this past month. And I've been taking the time to go through backlist Black romance and let my mood decided what I want to read. This one was on Hoopla and the cover was pretty so I had to read. And if you don't have access to Hoopla through your library you can get the ebook online.

This story takes place in Brazil in a less tourist heavy area. And this humid and lush setting is perfect for a sexy romance. Lawyer Nicole works for a real estate firm that deals with selling high stakes international property. She's hoping this sale will help her get the big promotion she's craving that will put her one step closer to building a family of her own. She really wants to adopt but her job being one consisting of heavy travel is preventing her from being approved.

Destin is vintner still recovering from the tragic fire that took his wife's life and he cannot let go of hope that he can rebuild the property. Unfortunately his father is in debt and believes the only way he can get out is to sell the land to the highest bidder. He also is fighting his father for the rights to produce the wine he created under the family business label.

Destin doesn't plan on making Nicole's job easy as he sabotages her attempts to sell the property during viewings. This hit all the rights notes of a destination romance. Beautiful location, whirlwind romance, scenes where they explored the town. I like that Nicole was a different kind of character than I usually read. She had a job she truly enjoyed and a unique taste palette with a knack for being able to detect the notes in wine. Destin was a caring man who truly loved the town he lives in and has a great group of friends. He showed a lot of vulnerability when it came to his family which I appreciated.

The one downside of this book for me is that it didn't describe how the heroine or even hero looked well and I like to be able to have a clear picture of what my book characters look like. They were coming across as colorless people most of the time. Which was something my romance reading aunt mentioned to me about her reads from a few years ago not having enough description of what people looked like. Destin sure wasn't giving me the man on the cover with constant references to his icy blue eyes and raking his hands through his hair. And unlike Nicole who was described as brown his skin tone was never mentioned. I was wondering if he was written with a white guy in mind and race changed at the last minute or if he was supposed to be biracial. Since he was from a French family who had owned wineries for generations it added to the confusion. 

This was a quick and easy read and Chloe Blake wrote the romance very believable. Their chemistry was hot without feeling too forced. I felt like I was reading the story version of a movie.