Book Highlight: Black Truffle & Spice by Mathis Bailey

Title: Black Truffle & Spice

Author: Mathis Bailey

Publisher: Self-published

Publication Date: February 1, 2022

Genre: Fiction, Multicultural, Romance, LGBTQ+

Zola Washington and her gay roommate, Pierre Jackson, are cooking up to open a café after recovering from unsavory relationships. Tension flares when a French-fusion bistro catches smells of the upcoming restaurant.

Darshan Singh is a food critic for Gourmet magazine. His job jet-sets him to all corners of the world, tasting extravagant dishes at Michelin-starred restaurants. Then he meets Zola. Will his review send her knives packing or set their relationship simmering?

Black Truffle & Spice is a witty commentary on a multi-cultural society and exploration of food, family, culture and love.

_{-from Amazon}

Why This Book

Black Truffle & Spice mainly focuses on Zola and her romance with Darshan, whose traditional Indian mother doesn’t make their relationship easy, not to mention Zola’s own insecurities. But Zola is in business with her roommate Pierre, who has an intense love and appreciation for men. While Pierre wasn’t the focus of this book, his casual relationship with the very secretive Marquis was something of an intense storm that I loved.

Pierre might not be one of the main characters and his romance with Marquis is not the primary romance, but it was very nicely woven into the main story. It’s all supposed to be very casual, but Pierre has a big heart and he clearly cares much more than he lets on about Marquis. Their relationship was sweet and sour, and I truly felt for Pierre when he started questioning Marquis.

I’m choosing to highlight Black Truffle & Spice this month because of Pierre’s romance with Marquis. Pierre himself is a fun character, but it was really his surprisingly intense relationship with Marquis that stole my heart and helped seal this book as very enjoyable to me.

Reviews

My review: “If Zola and Darshan twisted my heart, Pierre and Marquis pained it. When they were simply together, I could feel all the care between them just ooze out. But, when they were at odds, it was like a stormy sea. There’s so much more meat to their story, and I loved how it was tangled up in the other story lines.”

A guest reviewer on Book Junkie Reviews gave it 4 stars

Grace J. Reviewerlady awarded it 4.5 stars

Tanya from Read-Love-Review offered a detailed review and 3 stars