Julia of Childress is the cook in the Convent of the Brides of Virtue, and what a cook she is. Julia only got into the convent because she's an orphan, and she doesn't want to be a nun, but the Mother Abbess doesn't want to let her go - she's too good a cook. But Julia has a mind of her own - what she really wants is not to be invisible in the kitchen, she wants her cooking to be enjoyed and she wants a husband for whom to cook.

Griffin de Grandaise is gifted with a high sense of taste and smell - and he's in search for *the* cook, so he will do anything to make Julia his personal chef - even if this means getting her only for one year and vowing to return her afterwards *with her virtue intact*. Which of course will prove difficult - with her freedom just a spoonlength away Julia is determined to open up to her cooking and much more.

A very nice idea, and lots of interesting stuff about cooking in medieval times. Yet, the way Betina Krahn worked out the plot didn't work for me at all. I'm too much a cook and lover of eating myself to buy how everyone just continued to groan at Julia's cooking. Well, the real reason might be that I'm not really into romances at all...

Quite nice actually, but I'm soo not a fan of romance, thus the average review. But it's a nice read if you just want to relax after a stressful day, so I'll send it to a friend who might like to relax with it :-)