Reviews

A Full Plate by Kim Fielding

anitalouise's review

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4.0

Lovely little sweet read about Sage, a guy who is struggling to make ends meet to take care of his family and Tully, a wealthy lawyer who is a friend of Sage's cousin. Like all of the Dreamspun reads, this is like gossamer threads of sugar spun lightly over these two guys. Sage needs a place to live in Portland for part of the week while he works as a cook. Carrie, his cousin, works with Tully and asks him to let Sage live with him for a while until he gets on his feet. Through meals and shared confidences, Sage and Tully move from friends to lovers. This hummed along at a rather low boil (hah!). Up until the end, this was a solid 3 or 3.5 but so liked the way the author ended it that I just swooned and uppped it to a 4. Classic Dreamspun read with strong writing, low to mid heat and a sweet HEA. Solid secondary characters particularly Carrie and Eddy. Nice homey feeling about small towns and acceptance.

hartd's review

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4.0

(I bought this audiobook long before I heard anything about the problems at Dreamspinner. Please don't consider my review an endorsement of their recent practices.)

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to. I wasn't wild about Kim Fielding's Dreamspun Beyond title, Ante Up, even though I usually enjoy her books. But this one is pretty good. It isn't earth-shattering, but I liked it.

The plot is very similar to her book Housekeeping, but the characters are somewhat different.

Tully, a hard-working corporate lawyer, acquires a roommate, Sage, who is very talented at cooking and is going through a rough time. They become friends right away and slowly fall in love.

There's no real conflict between them, just a big misunderstanding which gets resolved before their romance really gets moving, and a complication in the form of Tully's ex. He's a super-rich tech guy, and I found him pretty amusing, in how divorced he seemed from normal human life. But he isn't written as a mean-spirited caricature or anything.

The misunderstanding was pretty contrived, because I can't believe Carrie wouldn't tell Tully about Sage's family, or that he was gay. This is not gay-for-you.


As is usual with this author, the story is about two men finding not just each other, but their places in the world. It's a really solid HEA, and as is also usual with me & this author, I got a little teary at their happiness.

I have one more of these Dreamspun Desires books from this author to listen to, and I'm feeling optimistic about it.