Another 'enemies' to lovers, rivals at that too.... but not really, as per usual. I don't see how they're rivals at all, one is a food truck influencer and the other has a brick-and-mortar restaurant. That's two VERY different things and venues, and paths in life, like what are they rivals in? food? Just having a trope to have a trope is lazy.

The ending felt incredibly rushed, like all the lawsuit court stuff was just shoved into the end, which was the whole reason behind the fake marriage, but was maybe 2pgs near the end.

Chunky writing throughout. I didn't like either MC.

I liked the recipes at the end.

Also one of the MC took MASSIVE amount of nudes of herself, but she has a reason "So when I'm ninety i can look at how hot i was. And to remember i was real". Super weird to me.

Thanks to Netgalley & Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the E-ARC! Really cute! Enjoyed the cooking themes & the romance. Will read more from these authors.

I read this book in a day!
This is a sweet and spicy sapphic culinary romance. Our two FMCs were the only women in their class in culinary school. They started out as rivals, then they met again years later and entered a marriage of convenience so Kia could purchase land to build her food truck business, Taste the Love Land.

There is so much representation in this story.
The story talks about environmental conservation, interracial relationships, same sex relationships, endangered species, and big corporations/capitalism.

There were so many yummy sounding foods, and some crazy sounding foods, in this book.
The rugby team and the burlesque group were hilarious!

I highly recommend this book!

Taste the Love is a book about communication, compromise, and learning to love each other. I love that Karelia and Fay stetz-waters can write together and create a cohesive book (not how I feel towards many multiple-author books). This was cozy read I didn’t want to put down.

There was a lot about this that I loved, but I also struggled with this book at times. All in all, I truly LOVE the concept of this book. The origin story of Sullivan and Kia is everything that I could have wanted and HOOKED me, but once we got into the story I found myself struggling to be invested in their love. I think that Kia and Sullivan as individual characters are really interesting and flawed in a way that has you rooting for each of them. Unfortunately I found components of the storyline around buying the land to be a bit too unrealistic, and it took me out of the story multiple times as I read it. While there wasn't necessarily miscommunication within this story, there was something within that realm at times, and I felt that things could have been better if both characters were just more upfront with one another. I really wanted to be as invested in the actual relationship between Kia and Sullivan, but I just found it falling a bit flat for me overall. Did I enjoy this? I did, but I also wanted a bit more from it overall.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Forever for an E-ARC!

I really wanted to enjoy this book but I was so frustrated that I just couldn't. I spent most of the time wanting to smack the main characters or shake them. They just kept making the same stupid decisions over and over again! And don't get me wrong I absolutely love the idiots in love trope but that wasn't what this was. This was just two people who needed to flipping talk to each other.

Kinda torn. It’s still very much worth the read but I kinda felt like both MC kept making silly miscommunication things that just kept me a bit frustrated with both.

3.5/4 ish

Let me start by saying that I adore Kia! I love her passion for food, life and love 🥹. Sullivan was a confusing character for me and that made it hard to root them as a couple. I found their friends to be more charismatic than they were together. The main impact to my overall score was how slow this book moves, I found myself really bored quite often throughout the book. I did round up to 4 stars on Goodreads and NetGalley, I found that it was a cute story and I did enjoy the dual POV.

🍝TROPE ME UP🍝
~Forced Proximity
~Rivals to Lovers
~Fake Marriage
~Marriage of Convenience
~LGBTQ+ Rep

I truly wanted to love this when I signed up, the blurb had me so excited but to me it fell a little flat. I've heard that their other books are better so I'm definitely going to give them a try!

I’ve lived everything I’ve read by Karelia Stetz-Waters, including Second Night Stand which was also written with her wife, Fay. Taste of Love wasn’t my favorite of hers/theirs but I still enjoyed it.
Normally I start with likes before dislikes but I’m going a different way this time because it makes more sense this way. You’ll see.
Sullivan is A LOT at first. If you’ve ever found environmentalists annoying even when they are making good points, that’s Sullivan’s vibe. Also, if you’ve ever found that being green is a privilege not everyone can afford on a large scale, yep, she is very privileged. The premise of the story relies on the fact that Sullivan comes from old money and a racist legacy landowner law that they exploit for good.
BUT I promise if you stick it out, she gets better. I’ve always said I love how Karelia writes real characters with real flaws. Sullivan knows her flaws - she makes this clear a couple of times. Privileged environmentalists might be annoying but we need more of them. She’s not who I envisioned Kia with but they make it work.
Now what I like. I love a good fake marriage trope. The side characters are wonderful. I like to think in another life I could’ve been a Nina. I effing love her. I know it’s a rom com so everything has to wrap up nicely for a happy ending but I will say the way the Mega Millions battle was won in the end feels like it was way too easy to make sense compared to how they’d acted up until that point, but I still liked the plot of fighting big bad fast food and the way their reps were barely invested because they were underpaid and generally hated their jobs was definitely realistic. I do wish it was a little spicier. I know they can do better. The first scene (with the pillow) was great but then it got meh in terms of spice.
Anyway this is getting long. Was it my favorite of theirs? No. Was it worth a read? I think so. 3.5 stars.

There is nothing I love more than a romantic forced proximity trope, so a fake marriage of convenience in a sapphic romance is like my top tier. I went into this thinking I was going to love it because I've loved everything else that Karelia has done and one of my all time favorite sapphic books is Second Night Stand. So I was really disappointed by the fact that this one fell so flat. My biggest complaints are the hypocrisy of Alice who has romanticized saving these marginalized folks and given them so much hope while not taking into consideration how her actions impact them, setting things in motion for them and having no certainty. And it felt weird biphobic for a masc bisexual to be written having "a lesbian swagger" I'm a lesbian and I don't know what that means. It almost felt like she was written as this forbidden fruit to men, so masc but all the guys wanted her? I don't get it. I ended up DNFing this one at like 54%.

Oh my goodness I enjoyed this book! Taste the Love is exactly what it is- a love of a reading experience you can taste! And to taste the budding lives of Kia and Sullivan is the most delectable recipe worth savoring.

Sullivan loves and will fight for their spot of earth wholeheartedly believing it is the best for everyone and her grandfather's legacy and and also and a tiny green tree snake! All while contentedly running her restaurant and practicing a lifestyle maintaining the lowest carbon footprint possible. And absolutely using all of that to hide and isolate to the point of being invisible to herself.

Kia is slaying through life on an intrepid adventure of epic "in motion" proportions according to her followers and the world at large. For her, it is just life and the only way she has ever known. She lives large and generously and is compassionately supportive all while being personally supported within her compact trailer and food truck. Of course they are tricked out for almost every need- but still!

When their worlds collide, again- for you see these two magnanimous women went to culinary school together almost a decade earlier- over a Bois, one particular wooded forest in Oregon, that just so happens to be Sullivan's secret garden and Kia's new way to help people- they naturally have to get married to keep each others interest in play and fight off the corporate conglomerate who threaten everything.

This story could have come across as overly ridiculous were it not penned so skillfully by Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters. Under their guidance we get to luxuriate with fully developed well rounded characters with human flaws and human magic. The setting is a poem and the climates in terms of physical and political are daringly current and shared without missing a beat on inclusivity and measure. I understood Sullivan's bisexuality without an academic info dump that is sometimes included in texts to make sure everyone is understood, instead the writing helped her be seen as she is through her actions and emotions. The vivid painting of the white people with woke water bottles in Portland lands without a hint of venom and a twist of humor that is appreciatively refreshing.

Full disclosure, I have met and spoken with one of the author's in person years ago, but this is the first book of theirs I have had the chance to read. I knew I liked them and now I know I love their writing! Do not miss your chance to taste Taste the Love, it might ruin your appetite for anything else and you won't even care! And you will never judge anyone's kale panic again or ever! ~sincerely, sm for BB

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the main characters. I didn’t like how emotionally stunted they felt and I feel like by the end of the book they stayed the same. Both Kia and Sullivan make the stupidest decisions and it just drove me up a wall. I had to put the book down multiple times because I just wanted to scream.

I really hate that I didn’t love this. I was so hoping I would love it but it just fell flat for me.

I really wanted to love this one but just couldn’t get invested in the characters or the plot. I did end up DNFing but don’t let that put anyone reading this from picking up the book, you might love it!

I found myself pretty invested in Kia and Sullivan. The tension and chemistry between them were palpable, but at times, I didn't feel like they really fit together. Kia could be a little difficult to truly love at times because sometimes she just disregarded others altogether. I did enjoy the restaurant industry setting and the way both eventually worked together to find what was best for everyone. Overall cute and easy read.

Taste the Love by Karelia Stetz-Waters and Fay Stetz-Waters is a vibrant, slow-burn romance that blends sizzling chemistry with heartfelt themes of ambition, community, and second chances. Set in the lush, foodie haven of Portland, the story reunites eco-chef Sullivan and her former culinary rival Kia in a deliciously tense and tender journey. When fate throws them together through a high-stakes land battle and a fake marriage scheme, sparks fly—not just in the kitchen, but in every shared glance and reluctantly tender moment. The authors serve up laugh-out-loud humor, emotional depth, and a beautifully queer love story that feels as comforting and complex as a favorite family recipe.

Sullivan and Kia both have the best intentions within the community to help people but are at odds about how that should be accomplish. This provides points a conflict that they must over come to meet their overall goal while discovering how to be with each other. An interesting book with compelling characters and unexpected twist.

Thank you so much to Net Galley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the arc of Taste the Love by Karelia & Fay Stetz-Waters 🫶🏽!

I loved Kia & Sullivan as individuals but felt that their connection overall was lacking. There was also a specific quote that was used repetitively throughout the story that could’ve been used for a really sweet moment if it hadn’t been used in most chapters. Unfortunately, I had to DNF this one at 68% but will be picking up another book by these authors as I did laugh out loud a few times with Kia & Sullivan friends.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This was a sweet story that I enjoyed. I specifically enjoyed reading about that restaurant industry. However, I felt the chemistry between the characters was somewhat lacking.

3.5 stars rounded up

Didn’t love. The characters were hard to love and made it hard to connect with them leading me to hate both of them with how immature they were

This one was not a hit for me. I felt like the writing was not super well down and even though I understand that characters need the space to grow, the main characters were not likable in the beginning and didn't really improve throughout. I definitely think the idea is there and maybe a little bit more revising would have made it a hit!

I was really excited about this book because I loved these authors' other book, but to be honest this one just felt worse to me. The writing isn't great in a lot of ways, and I just kept being like, why is this happening? It felt so much less real. (Spoilers ahead) Like, why does Deja think their relationship is real when the marriage for money thing was her idea? Why are the conversations between Lillian and Kia so surface level? Why didn't the neighborhood just vote not to sell, since they clearly didn't want Mega Eats to buy it? Wouldn't the neighborhood association people have known the property line cut through her house? Why do they have to live together? Everyone seems to make a lot of assumptions and things feel really forced.

I did end up finishing the book and I liked it more by the end, but I'm just a sucker for romance in general. It's not terrible or anything but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'll still read whatever the authors write next though, in the hopes that it will be better than this one/more like the first one!

Thank you to Netgalley and Forever for the chance to read and review this ARC.