When Susan’s family’s chain of restaurants must close due to subpar management she is put in charge of the business and keeping the first and now final restaurant open. At the same time, her ex Chris is also returning to Edinburgh to open his restaurant. Reading the book description for All Stirred Up I went into this audiobook expecting a second chance romance filled with family drama, secrets, reconnecting, healing, and good food. Although the elements were there I felt it was high in family drama and food and low in everything else.

Thoughts on Susan and her family:
Something I did appreciate about this story was Susan’s passion for the business her grandfather created and the love for food instilled by her grandfather and mother. I was thankful for her confidence in her role in managing the business and taking no nonsense from others.

Susan spends most of her time throughout the story with her kitchen staff or her family. I wasn’t a fan of the fam. They had many quirks that I would say I wasn’t a fan of and were a bit snobby/unhelpful. Here Susan was trying to keep them afloat by making sure the family business survived and they either didn’t want to make sacrifices or could not be bothered to care what went on.

On Chris:
This book was highly centered on Susan with a handful of shifts into Chris’s perspective. The glimpses into Chris’ backstory and current life were intriguing. I actually would have preferred to get to have more of his life than all the time spent with Susan’s family. He’s doing some pretty cool stuff with his business and that was nice to begin to explore.

On Susan and Chris:
Oh my, where do I start. For me, their potential chemistry was just not believable. The two hadn’t seen each other in 10 years and don’t have a face to face interaction until about 40% into the book and even then they didn’t fill me with any new information. I could have lived with this if we at least got to know them as a couple through some flashbacks. Any of Susan’s free time outside of the kitchen or with family are with Phillip which didn’t seem to add to the story.

Besides a brief recount of Susan leaving Chris early in the story, I felt like everything regarding their relationship and breakup is just sprung on you at the end without really any build-up.

There was much potential for a juicy and exciting story but In the end, this book was much too slow and I wasn’t invested in the outcome of Susan and Chris. All the focus was really on reopening and updating the restaurant which in itself is not a bad thing. As mentioned it helped me appreciate Susan and I loved the talk about food but I found myself asking “where’s the balance”?

On the romance/steam:
I found this in the romance section but don’t know that I’d classify it as such. I just really didn’t find any romantic moments within. I tend to read a lot of books with a range of steam levels and know I lot of the other readers I interact with do also. I don’t need all my books to be extra explicit or anything but just wanted to give a heads up that there are no sexy times in this book and just one, maybe two kisses.

On the food:
The gem of this book. Susan and Chris’s love for food is so clear! So many drool-worthy meals & treats mentioned throughout. It definitely made me hungry.

On the narrator:
It took me a long time to get into audiobooks because the first few I tried the narrator's voice was just unpleasant to me. It is still a hit and miss but I enjoyed listening to this narrator and her shift from being Susan to Chris.

Thank you @netgalley for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.