While some of the recovery from injury stuff happened quite quickly (in my experience, no matter how diligent you are with exercise stiffness renovation takes time and a lot of effort) this story of two people who have a meet cute and then end up married later was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Marguerite Kaye is a great writer and the characters really sparked for me. ( )

Good book. This is the second in a series about three sisters and their aunt. We met Phoebe in the first book, The Earl's Countess ofConvenience, as the younger sister who loves to cook. In this book, Phoebe has gone against the advice and wishes of her sisters and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a chef. We first see her at a café where she is waiting for that chef, who is also her lover and trying to fend off some unwanted advances. She is rescued by a fellow Englishman, who joins her for a drink and conversation while she waits. Owen is traveling, taking time for himself before honoring a commitment made for him by his late father. He's a lighthearted and charming young man who looks forward to the adventure ahead of him.

I liked that first meeting between Phoebe and Owen. Both are full of hopes and dreams for their futures, and they share that enthusiasm with each other. Owen is a little envious of Phoebe's knowledge of what she wants, as he feels he is just drifting through his adventure. Before they part, they make plans to meet again in two years to see how well they have succeeded in their goals.

Oh, the changes that two years can bring. Phoebe discovered that her chef and lover was not the man she thought he was. He used and abused her, crushing her dreams before leaving her destitute. Determined not to return to her sisters as a failure, Phoebe returned to London, showing up at Owen's townhouse. He hadn't shown up at their planned two-year meeting, and Phoebe can only hope that he remembers her. But Owen is no longer the carefree young man she met in Paris. A tragic accident has left him with physical and mental scars, barely able to walk and haunted by what he experienced.

Phoebe's arrival is like a breath of fresh air and hope to the now reclusive Owen. I loved seeing him perk up and make an effort to see her and listen to her story. Owen wants to help her, but Phoebe won't accept charity. As Owen needs help extricating himself from an awkward situation, he proposes a marriage of convenience with Phoebe. It will be business only, as Owen has no intention of inflicting his broken mind and body on anyone. I loved seeing Owen start to come back to life as he helps Phoebe make and carry out her plans for her restaurant. There are many beautiful scenes of them as they work together to make her dream a reality. The more time they spent together, the closer they became, and feelings began to change. I loved the way that Owen supported Phoebe, listening to her, and taking her seriously. The events in Paris did a number on Phoebe's confidence in herself, and Owen works hard to rebuild her belief in herself. Meanwhile, Phoebe's presence and faith in him motivates Owen to take charge of his recovery. I loved seeing the changes in him as his health improves, and his feelings for Phoebe grow stronger. But Owen is still haunted by what happened to him, and the mental anguish causes him to push her away. I ached for Phoebe, whose feelings for Owen ran deep, but she loved him enough to let him heal in his own way. I loved the ending and Owen's heartfelt exposure of his feelings and fears, and Phoebe's growth into a woman strong enough to love him as he is. ( )

A welcome return to form for Ms. Kaye!

One of the nice things about ordering directly from Harlequin is being able to get books before their street date. It is always worth it to get my hands on an auto-buy author, and its a special treat when I enjoy the book as much as I did this one!

Phoebe Brannagh, an aspiring chef, and Owen Harrington, a restless wanderer, have a chance encounter in a Parisian cafe, sharing a spark of interest. They agree to meet there again two years later, but Owen doesn't show up. Phoebe's life has turned upside down in the meanwhile, and she has nothing to lose, so she decides to seek him out in London.

As it turns out, both of their lives have changed irrevocably in the two years since their first meeting: Phoebe has lost all of her money and her dream of being a chef, and Owen suffered a horrible accident that left him with an injured hip, scars all over his body, and a deep depression that's threatening to become outright despair. He's closed himself off from the world, but he agrees to see her, much to everyone's surprise (including his own).

They share their stories with each other, and come up with a plan to help each other. Owen is willing to back Phoebe's dream of cooking professionally by investing in a restaurant for her, but she doesn't want to take his money (or have the implication that she is his kept woman), so he offers her a second choice: marry him, instead. A marriage of convenience, for he has more or less lost his will to live, much less be a proper husband. Phoebe, recently betrayed by a lover, is only too happy to accept his terms.

They marry, and set about putting together her dream restaurant. They visit the markets together, and scour properties, and discuss her ideas and likes and dislikes. Owen puts himself into a new training regime to regain his physical strength, and as he does so, he realizes that more than his physicality is returning: his emotions are, too, and that are a double-edged sword. He is falling in love with his wife, but he is also starting to remember the accident that he'd otherwise blocked from his memory.

I loved Owen 😍 He is a beautiful, complicated soul who is healing from a horror few people ever face. He'd given up on ever regaining full use of his leg; bored with the exercises his doctors had recommended, he decided instead to take up gymnastics again. He'd learned these exercises as a teen, and he was far more interested in doing them than anything else in order to regain his strength. I found the idea of a gymnast hero very appealing, I must say 😍 😍 😍

As he falls in love with Phoebe and indulges in their passion, he begins to remember more about the accident that left him physically and emotionally scarred in the first place. He experiences classic symptoms of PTSD, and it's not pretty. When the memories come back altogether, he has something of a breakdown. I thought this was portrayed very nicely - I felt so much sympathy for him and what he was dealing with, and I found his road to redemption very sensible.

I had a harder time liking Phoebe. Owen sees her as brave and kind and selfless, but I rather had a different idea of her, personally: I found her incredibly insecure and self-absorbed. While Owen is suffering with the return of his memories (which, granted, he kept to himself), she thinks its because he doesn't love her like she loves him. Not that she's told him that she loves him, but she thinks its obvious - and just as obvious that he doesn't return her feelings.

I hate this, when characters are bound and determined to believe the worst about someone just because they don't put into words what they convey with actions. These two loved each other, and it was obvious from their behavior towards each other. Her blindness to that, and her piteous self-absorption (after all, how could anything he's dealing with have absolutely nothing to do with her??) made me want to throttle her at times. I found her very immature next to Owen, and sometimes had a hard time understanding what he saw in her. Yes, she was brave for going to Paris in the first place, and brave in trying to stand on her own two feet, but otherwise I found none of her actions brave. She also labors under the deluded belief that her sisters are hyper-critical of her, and she distances herself from them for the entire novel. That was of her own doing, and I felt no sympathy for her.

Still - for a book where I didn't particularly care for the heroine, I still really enjoyed the story. It was fun to read about the world of restaurants and famous chefs and food, and think about how different it was back then as compared to today. I loved that Owen was so encouraging to Phoebe, believing in her when she could barely believe in herself, and always knowing she'd make a success of things. But that we could all have such a person in our lives =)

I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series, about Phoebe's twin sister Estelle. The two are estranged in this book and I'm curious to see Estelle's side of that story, as well as her own romance 💖 ( )