Reviews

Idle Ingredients by Matt Wallace

monkeysbecausewhynot's review

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

noveladdiction's review against another edition

4.0

I love this series! They're so funny, and clever. And I appreciate the length - not so short that things feel rushed, but not so long that everything feels drawn out.

Can't wait for the next one!

e_flah's review against another edition

4.0

It’s been too long since I read a Sin du Jour book and I totally forgot how much fun they are. This one was particularly fast-paced and had lots of my favorite characters — like Lena, Nikki, and Jett — at their best.

reader44ever's review against another edition

5.0

Have I mentioned how much I am loving this series? This fourth book was just as excellent a read as have been the previous three books. :-)

In this one, Sin du Jour is faced with catering events for an upcoming election. . .an election for the supernatural sort. ;-) And they're being sabotaged by "a force within their ranks," a force that only affects the men. (

But not all of the men!

) ;-)

At the one catering event that was held, we got to meet gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders (elementals!). :-)

The antagonist, also known as the "force within their ranks" that was having a negative impact on the menfolk, was

a succubus! (Luciana Monrovio was really creepy, too.)

I must admit, I didn't see that coming, though it makes a "hit me over the head" amount of sense. ;-)

And when the election candidate - the "charismatic motivational speaker" according to the description - turned

out to be an incubus, I was once again surprised. (Though again, I shouldn't have been. But at least with this one I can be forgiven. After all, Lena is attracted to men and she wasn't attracted to him. [This turned out to be because the incubus wanted her to stay "sane."])

:-)

I loved that the womenfolk - and Moon! - saved the day in this book. Seeing Lena, Nikki, Cindy, and Jett - with Moon - working together was really just fabulous. :-) Why was Moon included in their number, you ask? Well, in previous books he

has shown that he is impervious to magical attacks; they just bounce off of him. So Luciana wasn't able to get her hooks into him, since those hooks were repelled by Moon just being Moon.

:-)

And this led to the second of two LOL scenes in this book, on page 133 of Chapter "Mellon" (Part II: X's and O's): Lena, Nikki, Cindy, and Moon are

infiltrating Sin du Jour after midnight to try to get into the locked kitchen and hopefully figure out why Luciana wanted those she can't influence locked out. Nikki, Moon, and Lena are talking, when . . .

"Will y'all please shut the hell up?" Cindy snaps at them. "It's like trying to infiltrate with three Moons instead of one."
Lena and Nikki both stop walking.
"Whoa now---"
"Totally uncalled for."
"I'm sorry," Cindy says immediately. "That was wrong."
Lena and Nikki look at each other, having a silent conversation with their eyes.
The two of them nod at Cindy, appeased.
They all start walking again, except for Moon.
"That was a slam, right?" he says. . . .

lol!!! :-)

(I should add here that I was disappointed in Darren in this book. I think I said in my review of book one that I didn't really like him, and that opinion has only become stronger the more I see of him. Darren

is gay, and in a relationship with James, so these two were, like Moon, able to resist Luciana's "charms." But did Darren - a newly confident and "more manly" Darren - help the womenfolk and Moon? No! Luciana gave them a few days off so they went off for a long-weekend upstate.

) :-(

But back to happy stuff. . .

The first quote that surprised a laugh out of me happened on page 68, in Chapter "The Mad Pastry Chef" (Part I: New Regime), and involved Cindy making mention of "Betty Crockerstein." lol! ;-)

So I really just loved this book. Though I wondered (and am wondering), if Bronko

knew that Luciana was a succubus, why didn't he do anything to stop her?

But I guess maybe he had to stay away from her? So he didn't realize that

she was poisoning the apps for the second, upcoming, election-related event, or that she put Boosha into a coma.

???

In the end, after all is said and done --

"...if Hell's coming for us, then Hell is what we'll give 'em"

-- we have an Epilogue ("Missing from Your To-Do List"), in which Ritter

returns home to find his brother, Allensworth, and a guy in an executioner's hood in his dining room. (His brother had deserted Allensworth's service and shown up at Ritter's earlier in the book.) Allensworth is naturally not pleased to learn that Ritter was harboring "a fugitive," the "executioner" is holding a gun to his brother's head, and after thinking furiously for several long seconds. . .

Ritter stares into his brother's terrified eyes, holding his gaze like a lifeline. His mind is playing out every permutation of what's to follow.
Several dozen mental bloodbaths later, he bends at the knees and carefully places his shotgun on the carpet.
"All right," he says to Allensworth. "Let's talk options." [fin]

While I am disappointed over this cliffhanger ending, it feels like an anticipatory disappointment, if there is such a thing (and if there's not, that's still how I feel!). I sure hope my library gets book five in soon. :-)

Also, in addition to the cliffhanger ending, the

threats from Hell are still "live." In the first chapter of this book, we saw Lena working at a restaurant that was in no way a part of Sin du Jour. She returned only after Bronko and Nikki tracked her down and told her that outside of Sin du Jour, she would not be protected. Inside Sin du Jour, Allensworth was supposedly working to keep them safe.

. So the next books in this series should be very exciting! :-)

And I cannot wait to read them! :-)

ptrhansen's review

4.0

Didn't enjoy this as much as previous books in the series but as this book had more setup and less plot. I am glad book five is already out as this one ended in a surprise cliffhanger.

jameseckman's review

2.0

I have several issues with this book, first it's not obvious from the physical book that it's part of a series, a blurb on the back mentions "I fell in love with this series..." but I don't usually read those. Second much of the character development and relationships have (possibly) already been developed and you are left floundering if you haven't read the first books. Lastly there are chapters included that have nothing to do with this book's plot, they don't interact in any way with characters performing the main action. These bits aren't even sub-plots, I feel this book has been poorly edited and works poorly as a standalone, the basic idea was OK and it was short enough to power through, but I don't plan on reading anymore.

bookertsfarm's review

5.0

It's really hard to put into words why I like this series so much. I was afraid that as the series progressed, I might lost interest, but that simply isn't the case and once again, Wallace had added to his already quirky and often dangerous Sin du Jour world.

In this installment, the team is back at Sin du Jour trying to recover from the escapades in the last book. All is going fairly well, or as well as it can go when your catering service's primary customers are demons, trolls, witches, banshees and all other sorts of supernatural creatures. In fact, I STILL haven't recovered from the attack of the Giant Easter Bunny and the Evil Santa Claus so I don't know how they could have. Anyway, there is an underworld election going on and the gang has been hired to do the catering. In addition, a new liaison has been hired and she is having quite the detrimental effect on the crew, especially the men. The women decide to band together to figure out what the hell is going on, and if and how Hell might actually be involved.

Once again, the characters in this installment are great. The regulars have grown and dare I say, some have even matured. A few aren't seen quite as much in this book, but I have a feeling Wallace is saving them for something big in the future. "Idle Ingredients" also does a great job of sharing some more information about Boosha, en elderly advisor (for lack of a better word) and I really started to like the old hag (my words not his).

Since there are 7 deadly sins, I believe we are due at least 3 more of these wonderful tales and I'm already starting to miss them. If you aren't reading this series, what are you waiting for? It's quickly become one of my favorites!

olegx's review

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

ellanarose's review

5.0

This series is weird. I love it

kamreadsandrecs's review

5.0

Once again Wallace delivers the hilarity and the thrills in this continuation of the Sin du Jour series. Though it's not QUITE as funny as the first three books, there's still plenty of moments that are laugh-out-loud hilarious, and even better, the stakes are MUCH higher in this latest installment than in the others. Really looking forward to the next book in the series.