When a marketing manager at HarperCollins emailed us to see if we were interested in reviewing Didn’t You Use to Be Queenie B? by Terri-Lynne DeFino (that makes us seem way fancier than we actually are, trust me), I jumped at the chance. Sure, it was tagged as “Women’s Fiction” on NetGalley but the blurb was dual POV and hinted at a relationship between Gale and Regina, so I figured it was a fairly safe bet. I don’t usually post blurbs, but in this case, I feel like it will be instructive, so here it is:

"Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips.

"She had it all. Until she didn’t.

"After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she’d fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans.

"Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale’s future dreams don’t hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal—it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair.

"Gale doesn’t recognize Regina, the soup kitchen’s cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It’s been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale’s talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing.

"Teaching Gale, Regina’s passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show, Cut!, it’s a turning point for them both.

"It’s Gale’s time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding…"

One thing that the blurb does not make clear but that is quickly apparent is that Regina is 25 years older than Gale. Bold choice, I thought, to go for such a large age gap where the woman is older. I like it! Reader, if you’re thinking that Regina is going to get it on with the hot young chef just like Stella getting her groove back, you would be mistaken. Regina and Gale never have sex—in fact, they have no sexual tension between them whatsoever. Instead, Regina becomes Gale’s mentor.

Despite the fact that the relationship between Regina and Gale is firmly one of mentor/mentee, I finished this book thinking that maybe, just maybe, Didn’t You Use to Be Queenie B? is still a genre romance.

(Romance readers, it’s time to CLUTCH THOSE PEARLS.)

Before I delve into my analysis of Queenie B, I want to get one thing straight: no one gets madder about a bait and switch romance—especially one that fails to deliver on a happy ending—than an avid romance reader, which obviously includes yours truly.

Genre divisions are marketing tools so that readers know what to expect from a product; mismarketing a book is therefore primarily a disservice to that book, as it won’t find an appreciative audience. So let’s establish what exactly a reader is looking for in a genre romance. The Romance Writers of America defines genre romance as follows:

"Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

"A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as they want as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.

"An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love."

A few years ago, during a series of posts called “The Great Smut Debate,” Ingrid proposed an addendum:

"The main characters struggle against some issue, whether interpersonal or an external force (or both!). In order to overcome that obstacle they have to grow and develop as people individually and together in order to reach their HEA (as determined by the people in the relationship). The most satisfying romances balance these three components."

Here’s what happens in Queenie B, which is told in alternating point of view chapters from both Gale’s and Regina’s perspectives (with a few flashback chapters of Regina before she went into hiding): Gale and Regina meet at Regina’s soup kitchen; they begin working together when Gale starts volunteering at said soup kitchen; they get closer as Regina helps Gale prepare to compete on a cooking show; they solidify their relationship as each other’s most trusted person when Gale goes straight to Regina after he falls off the wagon (and she helps him get through it, both physically in the moment and emotionally after the fact); they navigate the betrayal of Regina not revealing her celebrity chef identity; they use the word “love” to describe their relationship; Regina comes out of her self-imposed exile in order to support Gale in the cooking competition; and they decide to move to Italy together.

I want to highlight a few things about that plot arc:

- From the above summary, it should be clear that the central guiding force of the story is the relationship between Regina and Gale, from their meeting to their happy ending.
- As a direct result of their relationship, they both move out of the unfulfilling stasis they were respectively inhabiting and become the best versions of themselves. This includes not just having the other person in their corner (which they do), but also stronger community ties, new career opportunities, and redemption for past wrongs. In other words, they grow separately as individuals and together into a supportive unit.
- They understand each other in a way that no one else does; they are tied together not only by their obsessive relationship with cooking but also by their shared history of addiction.

Sounds like the hallmarks of a romance, right? Following the rubric laid out by the RWA and the Smut Report, we can see that there is a happy ending where Regina and Gale find emotional justice and they definitely grow separately and together.

There are two big buts. The first is that while there is a ton of mutual care, and even love, between Gale and Regina, they are not “in love,” but rather see themselves as mentor and mentee. The second is that through the course of the book (part of them growing to be better as people), they have romantic/sexual relationships with other partners. Gale’s girlfriend leaves the picture when he has his relapse, but Regina’s boyfriend, Marco, goes with them to Italy. Regina cares about Marco, but not as much as he cares about her—and not as much as she cares about Gale.

The crux of the issue is: what counts as a “love story.”

The standard idea of the romance or love story is that it must include some level of sexual tension. Even if there’s no sex, or even kisses, within the story, it’s understood that the characters will, at some point in their future together, have sex. There is physical attraction in addition to emotional connection. Books that are about loving relationships between two people who have no sexual tension—and will never have sexual tension—are generally not romances. I’m thinking stories about parents and children, siblings, or even close friends. In fact, these types of narratives are central to “women’s fiction” and even “literary fiction.”

However, what about stories featuring asexual or aromantic protagonists finding deep connection and companionship? I can’t recall having read any fully asexual/aromantic romance novels—the ones I’ve read have been more in the realm of demisexual/greysexual, “I’ve never felt a connection with anyone but you”—but I know that they do exist and that Erin has read a handful. She even wrote a piece about it, arguing that romance books tend to portray asexual characters as sex-averse. It seems, from Erin’s piece, that there is still sexual tension between the asexual protagonist and their love interest, but does there have to be? Would a romance still be a romance if it follows an aromantic person developing companionate love?

Another key feature of love stories according to genre romance writ large is that the love interest will be the be-all, end-all one-and-done person for the protagonist. Even many poly romances feature closed units at the end of the story, where the protagonists get everything they need from their multiple partners. So how are we meant to read a central relationship where the two characters get fulfillment through sharing a common passion for cooking and mutual support surrounding their sobriety—but find sexual fulfillment elsewhere?

To be clear, most real-life relationships do not mirror that standard romance novel relationship; people have important companionate relationships of all kinds. However, what I do want to hone in on is whether a genre romance can include, or even centrally focus on, these kinds of relationships without calling into question the all-encompassing nature of the romantic relationship.

I don’t have answers to these questions, and frankly, I don’t think that there are cut and dry answers to them. We can throw out genre definitions as much as we want, but at the end of the day (at least for me), reading a romance is about the feelings the book elicits. Did I feel that the characters worked for their happy ending; do I feel happy when I close the book? Am I engaged with the characters as they worked through their stuff? Did I feel hot and bothered or uncomfortable or punched in the gut or anything at all as I read? Did I cry? (Please note that despite the many jokes Erin and Ingrid tell about me crying when I read books, I actually cry less than 10% of the time—it’s my rubric for whether a romance is really something special.)

Discussing the romances out there where I strongly feel that the couple should not be together at the end is a whole separate can of worms, but at least in this case, I did feel that Gale and Regina found emotional closure at the end and were moving together towards something better. On the other hand, I didn’t feel the highs and lows throughout their journey, suggesting that the full emotional connection wasn’t there for me.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

[4.25 stars]

Don't be fooled by the hot pink cover, this novel is NOT a romance! I was so pleasantly surprised by what it is, which is the story of a disgraced celebrity chef and her protege. Queenie B was a famous celebrity chef who went into hiding after embarrassing herself one too many times with her substance fueled antics. She opens a soup kitchen in a struggling neighborhood in New Haven, CT under the name Regina. Gale Carmichael is a line cook with talent who is struggling financially and trying to stay sober. When he visits Regina’s soup kitchen for a meal, it kicks off a mentor / protege relationship, which culminates when Gale applies to be a contestant on Cut! (a cooking competition show based on Chopped). This story has a lot more depth and sadness than you would think, but it also has love, tenderness, hope, healing, and is overall a heart-warming story. It’s about fame, found family, addiction, mentor relationships, and getting a second chance at life. A lot of the action takes place in Regina’s soup kitchen and the restaurant where Gale works his paying job. So, there is a lots of behind the scenes of cooking and restaurant life (especially for a struggling chef just starting his career). Though I haven’t seen the TV show The Bear, the publisher says this is a perfect book for its fans.

Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for the DRC of Didn't You Used to Be Queenie B? All opinions in this review are my own.

After three books, it is safe to say that Terri-Lynne DeFino is one of my favorite authors! Her strength is creating realistic characters who you can't help but root for and Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B? is no exception. The emotional journey that Regina and Gale take is a rollercoaster but it is worth it! I like that the novel doesn't follow a pattern for switching between timelines. It only does it when it is needed which makes the flashbacks more impactful. I also really like the cooking terms at the beginning of each chapter. Once again, this is another hit for DeFino!

Creating Meaningful Mentor-Mentee Relationships and DIDN’T YOU USE TO BE QUEENIE B? By Terri-Lynne DeFino

Cover of the book Didn't You Use to be Queenie B? Used to provide skills about Creating Meaningful Mentor-Mentee Relationships

Regina runs a soup kitchen in New Haven. She cooks, cleans, orders supplies, and serves meals—often with the quiet support of volunteers. She’s tough and reliable.

It’s a far cry from who she used to be: Queenie B, a wild, brilliant chef who lived fast, won big, and crashed hard. Her chaos burned through Regina’s career, her marriage, and her role as a mother.

Now, the soup kitchen is more than a job. It’s Regina’s way of making amends.

Enter Gale, a line cook sidelined by an injury. He shows up at the soup kitchen and starts lending a hand. Regina quickly recognizes his raw talent, and a long-dormant love for cooking and teaching sparks inside her. She becomes his mentor.

Their bond is built on trust, grit, and respect. As Regina shapes Gale’s skills into something world-class, he offers her something just as vital: hope that Queenie B’s talent and fire can live alongside Regina’s sobriety and hard-won peace.

Both Gale and Regina gain deeply from their mentor-mentee relationship.

Mentorship happens when a seasoned professional offers guidance, encouragement, and emotional support to someone newer in the field. It can involve role modeling, goal setting, and career development. These relationships can be formal or informal, and they center around the needs and growth of the mentee. On paper, the mentee is the primary beneficiary. But in practice, both sides often walk away transformed.

Here are tools for a creating meaningful mentor-mentee relationship.

Collaborate on Goals: Start with clarity. The mentee should articulate what they hope to gain, and the mentor should be clear about the support and guidance they can offer.

Be Flexible: Stay open to new ideas, perspectives, and approaches. If things need to shift, communicate honestly and offer specific feedback about what’s working and what’s not.

Build Trust: Listen actively to each other’s needs, concerns, and growth areas. A strong mentoring relationship is rooted in connection, clarity, compassion, and commitment.

Appreciate the Process: Mentorship evolves. Over time, roles shift. One day, the student might become the teacher. Throughout this journey, regularly express gratitude.

A Sweet Story with a few missed opportunities

I found the pacing to be a bit uneven and the plot somewhat predictable. I think it could have gone deeper but overall the main character is relatable.

Recommended for: readers who love to read about food and a good fictional memoir

Summary: Regina is a retired chef who opened a soup kitchen as a way to give back and make amends for her early life. Gale is a young chef who finds himself volunteering at the soup kitchen after enjoying the food there one night. Regina takes him under her wing and starts to mentor him as he competes in multiple cooking competition shows. The story continues to unfold as he begins to learn the secrets of Regina’s previously famous life, along with us readers.

Review: I really enjoyed the story with its lovable characters and mouth watering food descriptions. I did find the way Defino layed out Queenie-B’s past to be disjointed and confusing, however. Also, the switching between points of view was distracting and frustrating at times. Lastly, there should be a trigger warning for drug use and overdoses.

I don’t think this was anything like the Bear. DNF. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to William Morrow Books and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

As a huge fan of The Bear I was beyond giddy to read this one! A disgraced celebrity chef trying to recover from her fall from grace? I loved this story SO very much - Queenie B was a goddess in the kitchen until well... until she wasn't! It all came spiraling down and she was forced to go into hiding - where she ends up? A local soup kitchen. This spin on the fall from grace - redemption story made me happier than I can really express but it was just SO good, so perfect.... and the way she takes Gale under her wing is truly beautiful. I loved every single page in this book and the only complaint I have was that it ended way too soon!

Food is about taking care of people.

This book is full of second chances, compassion and empathy. Fans of reality cooking shows will love the glimpses behind the scenes of a Chopped/ Iron Chef style TV program. Highly recommend this fun and heartfelt book.

This was an emotional, food-filled story about reinvention, mentorship, and second chances, but it didn’t fully click for me.

Regina used to be Queenie B—celebrity chef, Food Network star, and culinary powerhouse. But a combination of ego, addiction, and burnout sent her life crashing down. Ten years later, she's living in quiet anonymity, running a soup kitchen in New Haven and doing everything she can to stay off the radar. That peace is disrupted when Gale, a talented but volatile young chef, enters her life. Regina sees flashes of her former self in him, and their evolving mentorship becomes the heart of the story.

The food writing here is a real strength—so vivid you can practically smell what’s cooking. I especially loved the clever chapter intros that define culinary terms like “braise” or “86”—a fun way to blend story and kitchen culture. Gale’s rise through a cooking competition show (The Cut, clearly inspired by Chopped) adds momentum and a bit of excitement.

What didn’t work as well for me was the structure and pacing. The story shifts between timelines, and while that adds depth, it occasionally felt disjointed. The beginning is especially slow, and it took a while to feel emotionally invested. The book also leans heavily into Regina’s past struggles with substance abuse, which are treated seriously and respectfully—but it can be heavy, and it dominates the emotional arc.

That said, I appreciated how DeFino portrays redemption—not as a dramatic turnaround, but as a long, often painful process. Regina’s quiet care for the soup kitchen’s patrons, and her bond with Gale, brought warmth and heart to the narrative.

Overall, Didn’t You Used to Be Queenie B? didn’t completely win me over, but there’s a lot here for readers who enjoy food-focused fiction, flawed characters, and stories about picking up the pieces.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book with the many people influenced by Regina - owner of the local soup kitchen. It’s a story of friendship, community and redemption. I also learned some new food terms. If you love stories about food, friends or Food Neteork shows, this is the book for you!

I loved this book. DeFino has a brilliant way of laying out a story in which each character matters, each meal matters, each temporary dip into the past matters.
Dale is a young man who wanted to be a chef, but his addictions got the better of him. When his best friend died, the shock and pain were enough to get him to stop and redirect his life, but his departed friend's voice keeps entering his thoughts. Once out of rehab, he finds himself at Regina's soup kitchen, where he is shocked by the quality and thought put into the free meals. He wants to know more about the person who runs it, and he wants to learn from her, even though she is very prickly and demanding.
Fortunately for Dale, Regina needs help badly. Her other helper is unreliable and often goes on a bender, and she cannot do everything, much as she wishes to. A former alcoholic herself, her fall from grace and disappearance from being Queenie-B, a famous chef, was mostly her own doing. She walks in shame. As she warms up to Dale, she starts helping him practise for the famous cooking show The Cut, but she never reveals her true past. It's never something she wants to remember.
DeFino has a rare talent of being able to add subplots that never confuse the reader, and each one is interesting in its own right - not added purely to add more word count. Everything comes to a satisfying conclusion, and you grow to love every character, including Regina.
In summary, read it. It's a wonderful adventure into the world of celebrities' kitchens and their goings-on, and what it takes to survive and rise to the top.

At some point between requesting the ARC and reading the book I completely forgot the synopsis so when I did eventually dive in all I really had retained was that it featured a chef protagonist. After Colton Gentry's Third Act that was enough for me

Here we follow Regina and Gale as their lives connect in a New Haven soup kitchen. Gale is a couple years sober and still poorly dealing with some serious survivor's guilt. Regina is a former culinary icon with some substance issues of her own she's keeping under control as she focuses on her life running a soup kitchen. Over the course of the novel we see Gale become something of Regina's protege and Regina dealing with the distinct possibility that this life quiet life she's built for herself could come crashing down at any minute.

I had a good time with this. I liked the occasional looks back at Regina's life as this culinary icon and how that juxtaposed to her current existence. Gale's narrative was more linear, and you really lived with him trying to stay on the straight and narrow as he worked himself up. By far though my favorite moment with him was one he and Kyle have in the third act of the book. It was such a vulnerable moment that it really moved me.

Gale and Regina each have a romantic interest, but that's so clearly not the focus of either of their journey. Which to be fair, I hadn't expected. The book I did get though was very good and while it is certainly heavy at times there are still many moments of levity.

Didn’t You Use to Be Queenie B by Terri-Lynne DeFino follows Regins or Queenie B who was a celebrity chef who disappeared from the public eye. If you watched the Bear you will definitely like this one.

It is beautifully written. I loved everything about this book! highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable read! I enjoyed the story and felt like the characters were very well written. Queenie B is and has always been a star, but that comes with all the troubles and trappings of stardom. What happens when she disappears and where does she go? Can she come back practically from the dead? Gale Carmichael is working his way to chef but has a troubled past. How can he decide what he deserves when the past is still haunting him? I enjoyed that for neither character there was an everything works out and all is forgiven moment, and that there was no super happy epilogue, it felt more like real life.

I really enjoyed this book! As someone with work experience in food service, who also appreciates fine dining and cooking shows, I was drawn to the plot of a celebrity chef who had experienced a fall from grace. I think the subplot of addiction was well depicted, and I found myself frequently empathizing with the main characters. The romantic storyline was well-used and didn't detract from the main plot, and I was highly satisfied with the ending. I would love to see this adapted to a screenplay!

This was a very good book with well thought out characters. It was easy to get a feel for the emotions that the characters would be feeling at any time. Queenie B/Regina was the famous woman chef who crashed and burned. She ran away, put herself in hiding and opened a kitchen for those who needed a meal. While trying to stay distant with others so that she would not be found she formed some great relationships. Those relationships drove the story. I enjoyed the heading on the chapters. Each heading defined a cooking term or a term used in the kitchen of a restaurant. This book illustrates addiction, sobriety and the fear of giving in to the addiction,-disappointing others and feeling the shame that goes along with it all. Waring: also contains death from overdose. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the digital ARC. I was not coerced in any way for this review--it is my own words and opinion.

Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B was such a fun book! I love watching The Food Network and other cooking competition shows so this book was so fun to binge.

Regina (Queenie B) was a cooking goddess and had it all until she didn't. She vanished from the public and has been hiding out in New Haven where she's been running a soup kitchen for the last 10 years in secret. Gale is a local line cook who is newly sober and struggling. After a rough week, he stops by the soup kitchen and ends up volunteering. When he's selected to compete on the hit show Cut! what does that mean for Regina hiding?

I loved the behind the scenes look at a cooking competition show liked Chopped. This book was well written, deals with some tough topics around addiction, sobriety, fame and how food can bring us together.

I liked the redemption for Queenie and seeing Gale become more confident. These were real and relatable characters. Plus all of the food descriptions had me hungry!

If you like a good second chance story and food competition shows you'll love this book!

Thanks to William Morrow Books for my advanced copy. Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B came out April 15th!

As an avid watcher of all types of food competition shows, just reading the blurb about this book had me hooked. What I did not expect were the honest and raw portrayals of addiction, recovery, and the wide swath of fall-out that accompanies both of those things separately and together.

Gale, our protagonist, has settled into an uneasy recovery. A tragedy has launched him onto this path, and he has not forgiven himself for being a survivor where his friend Sean was not. He enjoys his work as a chef, the only place where he can lose himself, and has secret aspirations but little confidence to act upon them.

Queenie B, after fame, fortune, addiction, and a rather nasty fall from grace, has reinvented herself as Regina. She becomes invisible, hiding in plain sight. When her world and Gale’s collide, they recognize each other as kindred souls and when Gale gets a chance to seize a dream, they collaborate.

The character development in this novel was so real I felt as though it could be a memoir. Various threads of the plot were both resolved and unresolved, reflecting the complexity of life, experience, and relationships. This read was much more than I anticipated. Thank you to NetGalley for the Advance Reader’s Copy.

4.5 Stars. Thanks to William Morrow Group for giving me a widget on for this book. This book dealt in the past and present for Queenie B (FMC) and present for Gale (MMC). I loved that every chapter had kitchen terminology that was actually useful and some that I actually knew. Queenie B used to a great but Hot Mess Chef and then she disappears from the scene Gale is a chef with a tragic past that is trying to make it. These two characters lives become intertwined and you see them both grow throughout this book into something so amazing. It has some hard subjects addiction, abandonment, death but it is a great book that makes you reflect on life. The side characters bring so much to the story that you cant help but fall in love with all of them.