A review by reader44ever
Idle Ingredients by Matt Wallace

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! :-)