Category Archives: Curtis Brown Digital

Friday Feature Guest Blog & Review: Outside the Lines by Kimberly Kincaid

Five Ways To Feed Your Lover: My Top Five Most Romantic Foods

I’m a foodie romance author, so it comes as no surprise that for me, food is not only sustenance. It’s sexy. In my latest novella, Outside The Lines, the hero and heroine have a secret-filled past together, one that includes French toast in bed on lazy Sunday mornings. I write food-as-love into all of my books, and here are my top five foods that fit the bill.

Fruit Hear me out, junk food fans. Fruit is sexy. It’s a call-it-like-you-see-it food group, one that requires little to no prep other than a good rinse and maybe a bit of slicing. Most fruit is eaten with your hands, which is delicious all by itself. Try feeding your favorite fruit to your lover, and see if you stay in the kitchen!

Breakfast It’s the most important meal of the day, after all! Breakfast is romantic because it’s the one meal we think of eating in bed. Sharing something as simple as some toast and jam with the person you love is sexy because it’s intimate. Like Blake and Jules in Outside The Lines, it creates evocative memories to go with your meal, and your feelings. PS: The French toast recipe is in the back of that book for any of you looking to test this theory!

Chocolate Where are all my fellow chocoholics? There’s something about chocolate that is decadent, delicious, and puts us in a fantastic frame of mind. Scientists will tell you it’s chemical. Me? I say it’s visceral! Chocolate (or any sweet dish of your choosing) is indulgent and sexy. It makes us feel just plain good. If you don’t believe me, you can check out the scene in my first novella, Love On The Line, where my hero and heroine make brownies together. It puts the heat in the kitchen!

Comfort Food Nothing says intimacy like wanting to comfort someone, and there are few better ways to do that than through food. Some dishes simply put us at ease—think warm, gooey mac and cheese or chicken and dumplings on a cold day. When we share them with the people we love, that comfort creates intimacy. And where there’s intimacy… well, you get the picture!

Lovers Choice Everyone has a favorite food or dish, and there’s nothing sexier than sharing it! When we share meals together, be they elaborate four-course dinners or quick or simple sandwiches from the store, we’re extending the message that we care for the people we’re feeding. And if that’s not romantic, I don’t know what is 🙂

So tell me, readers! What are your romantic foods? What meals have you shared with a love that you’ll never forget? Flip through that pantry and tell all!


Title: Outside the Lines by Kimberly Kincaid
Publisher: Curtis Brown Digital
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: Novella/107 pdf pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Author

Summary:

As an ivy-league ER doctor who eats double shifts for breakfast (and lunch…and dinner), Blake Fisher has little appetite for anything other than work. Being on the staff at Brentsville Hospital means taking care of people, a need Blake understands all too well from losing his brother to cystic fibrosis eight years ago. When he’s asked to coordinate a carnival fundraiser for the cause, he jumps at the chance to help others with the disease…until it lands him side by side with the one woman he never thought he’d see again: his ex-fiancée.

Streetwise and rough around the edges, Jules Shaw is no stranger to earning a living through hard work. But when her job as the restaurant manager of Mac’s Diner puts her shoulder to really broad shoulder with Blake Fisher, she nearly balks. She’d rather dodge and deflect than admit the real reason she broke things off, but the catering contract for the carnival means big business for Mac’s, and feeding people is Jules’s lifeblood.

As Blake and Jules join reluctant forces, they quickly rediscover the spark between them. But the possibility of a future together hinges on coming clean about the past, with potentially devastating consequences. Can Blake and Jules overcome their drastically different backgrounds and learn to love again, or will they always be outside the lines?

The Review:

If you a looking for a light quick read then you should pick up a copy of Outside the Lines. This short and steamy novella is a fast-paced and angst-free love story that fans of contemporary romances are sure to enjoy. Although this is the third installment in Kimberly Kincaid’s series set in Brentsville, NY, it can be read as a standalone.

When an accident takes Jules Shaw to the local ER, the last person she expects to see is her ex-fiancé Blake Fisher. Jules broke off their engagement and disappeared from Blake’s life eight years ago but neither one has recovered from their failed relationship. When the two are forced to work together on the hospital’s fundraiser, Jules and Blake rekindle their romance, but will their unresolved past tear them apart once again?

Outside the Lines is a sweet and sexy romance that heats up pretty quickly. The overall storyline has depth and the characters are well rounded and three dimensional. The shared history between Jules and Blake makes their romance believable. Although a little predictable, Kimberly Kincaid keeps the plot fresh with a few unexpected twists and turns. All in all, a delightfully entertaining story that I greatly enjoyed.


Excerpt

Blake’s eyes flashed, the same stormy green as the ocean in a thunderstorm, and he pinned her in place with his stare. “I don’t want you to say you’re sorry, Jules.”

“Oh.” The word collapsed from her lips in more of a throaty sigh than the stubborn affirmation she’d intended, and she swallowed hard. “You don’t?”

“No.” Blake lowered his attention to their hands, the calluses on his thumb sliding roughly over her knuckles as he blanked his expression and let her fingers go. “I didn’t come here for that. In fact, I’m here for something that has nothing to do with you and me.”

“Okay,” Jules said, extending the word by several syllables to form a question as she belatedly recovered her wits. “What’s that?”

“The Brentsville Hospital Carnival For A Cure.” He pulled a crisp, dark blue folder from the laptop bag he’d propped over the bar stool next to him. “I’m the event coordinator, and Mac’s is the catering restaurant. I came to see your boss so she and I can get a tentative schedule set since it looks like I’ll be working pretty closely with her for the next six weeks.”

Jules white-knuckled the edge of the apron around her waist, her heart doing its level best to vault clean out of her ribcage. She was so far past this-can’t-be-happening, and yet…“You…you’re the event coordinator for the Carnival For A Cure?”

“Yeah.” Now it was Blake’s turn to draw the word into a question. “Why?”

“Because I wrote that proposal. I’m in charge of all the catering and planning for that event on our end.”

Jules shifted her weight to stand as tall as her five-foot-nine frame would allow, her palms going slick with realization as she finished, “You won’t be working with Serenity for the next six weeks, Blake. You’ll be working with me.”


Author Bio

Kimberly Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and sweet. When she’s not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as “The Pleather Bomber”, she can be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. Kimberly is a 2011 RWA Golden Heart® finalist who lives (and writes!) by the mantra that food is love. She has written two digital novellas, Love On The Line and Drawing The Line, about hot cops and sexy chefs, with a third novella, Outside The Lines, due this summer. She is also thrilled to have collaborated on a Christmas anthology with Donna Kauffman and Kate Angell, titled The Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap, to kick off her Pine Mountain foodie series with Kensington this October. Kimberly’s first full-length novel, Turn Up the Heat, will follow in February 2014. She resides in northern Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters. Visit her any time at www.kimberlykincaid.com or come check her out on Facebook (www.facebook.com/kimberly.kincaid1) and Twitter (@kimberlykincaid).

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Filed under Contemporary, Curtis Brown Digital, Friday Feature, Guest Blog, Kimberly Kincaid, Outside the Lines, Rated B, Review, Romance