This is a rich-girl-poor-girl, social strata
straddling romance.
Margo is hired as a cook, personal chef, by
the Decaudins, a family of you – parents and two daughters – for the summer. Her boss, Mrs. Decaudin seems a little ditzy
and somewhat eccentric. The younger daughter, seven year old Charisse, seems to
be on her way to world domination or at least politics with mad bribery skills
already in place. The older daughter, gorgeous Elise, seems to take an instant
dislike for Margo on learning that as their family chef, Margo will be living
in the apartment in the basement.
Margo sticks to her work, keeping her head
down and trying her best not to ruffle any Elise-feathers despite being privy
to Elise’s proclivities towards bringing women home almost every night and
spiriting them away during a safe pocket of time in the morning after Margo
serves them breakfast.
But as Margo inadvertently gets to know
Elise more, she realises that things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Within lesfic, there is a large space for
pocket packets – books that have most elements of a full-fledged novel, but
rather than get into depth of characterisation or relationship-building and
relationship development, they skim along surface providing just about a
glimpse of everything. These are undemanding quick reads that don’t
particularly stay with you for any length of time (of course, there are some
exceptions – shorties that stay). This one is definitely a pocket packet.
Margo and Elise are nice enough. Their social
interactions are very farfetched but move the story along. They relationship
moves from nothing to everything rather abruptly so it didn’t have enough
build-up or depth to appeal. Since it’s not insta-love or insta-attraction
either, the suddenness of a change in their feelings and status was kind of
hard to swallow.
On the whole, this is a quick okay read.
⭐⭐☆
