A Holly's Life

Calculated Whisk (Tales from the Dragon Diner #1) by Lindsay Buroker.

Quick synopsis: In the space of a week, two enemies who fought on opposite sides in a war become trusted friends. One of the two wants more than friendship. And there was a cooking contest.

Brief opinion: Cozy books are so not for me. The story made so little sense and the characters' actions made even less, all in pursuit of "cozy".

Plot: A war between dragons and "everyone else" ends. The dragons can shapeshift and one (Jildarin) takes the form of a human so he can open a diner and cook for people.

A woman (Rylana) from the other side of the war, one who shot Jildarin almost in the eye, nearly killed him, needs a job so she shows up on his diner's doorstep.

She gets hired and spends most of the story trying to get Jildarin to like her, first as a friend and then more.

Plus Jildarin wants to enter some cooking contest, but there's an unbelievable plot about another cook trying to kill him so that other cook will win.

Editing: I can't complain about the editing, it was really good.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I can see why I picked this book up. The story has such potential. If only it had been handled in a realistic way instead of "cozy".

I was really surprised near the end of the book to learn this all took place in a week. They went from mortal enemies to trusted friends/budding relationship in a week. All of the logic was like that: Sacrificed so everything would be "cozy" -- no real conflict or tension. Nothing was realistic at all.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked. I enjoyed the beginning of the story, but by the 50% point had lost all interest. For some reason I kept going. At the 60% point I really wanted to DNF it, but pushed through to the end for some reason. I should have DNFed it.