QUESTION:  Foodies and romance readers alike have embraced your Recipe for Love novels, but your new book, Just One Taste, is an ending of sorts, yes?

LOUISA:  In Just One Taste, readers of the whole series will get some resolution to story arcs that have carried through the first two books as subplots. And new readers will be introduced to the chefs of Market, and all their romance and drama! The book can definitely be read as a stand alone story, but it should be very satisfying for people who’ve been wondering what’s going on with restaurant manager Grant Holloway, or the romance between bad boy Brit Frankie and photography student Jess.

QUESTION:  Just One Taste is partly set at a top culinary school—and my but it seems to have a lot of rules, how did you go about getting the details right on such a place?

LOUISA:  I went behind the scenes at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, which is stunning and fascinating.  I explored the whole campus, poked into classrooms, and grilled my guide, an adorable pastry student.  I’m also lucky enough to have some culinary school grads as friends, and they very sweetly answered all my hundreds of nitpicky questions!

QUESTION:  The book has your bad-boy chef and your geeky-but-hot instructor dabbling in aphrodisiac research.  Please tell us something tantalizing about aphrodisiacs that you learned from your research!

LOUISA:  Full disclaimer:  Despite what my heroine, Dr. Rosemary Wilkins, “discovers” about aphrodisiacs, medical science has yet to validate any food as a true aphrodisiac.  However!  The most recent research has found connections between certain food scents and a raising of the libido—for instance, the combination of the smell of pumpkin with the scent of lavender.  Interesting, no?

QUESTION:  What do you personally like best about this new book?  And why?

LOUISA:  That’s such a tough question!  I think what really made me proudest of Just One Taste is the connection between my hero and heroine.  Rosemary is unlike any character I’ve ever written—she’s shy, painfully awkward, brilliant, and disconnected from her emotions.  And Wes?  Never tries to change her.  He adores her, exactly as she is, and I don’t know if there’s anything more romantic than that.

QUESTION:  Your writing gets better with each book.  What did you work on in particular when it came to making Just One Taste even better than the first two books, Can’t Stand the Heat and On the Steamy Side?

LOUISA:  Wow, thank you for the compliment!  I’ve been so happy with each book, as it was finished, but when writing Just One Taste, I tried to be very conscious of the ways the different characters and story threads wove together.  It was a lot to handle, but I love the way it came out.

QUESTION:  What comes next?  And how long do your readers have to wait for the next course?

LOUISA:  I have some exciting news!  I’ll have a brand new culinary romance trilogy for my readers in fall of 2011. The first one, Too Hot to Touch, is scheduled for August, with the other two, Some Like It Hot and Hot Under Pressure, following very quickly, almost back to back. The Hot Trilogy follows a team of talented chefs from New York who are competing in a high stakes culinary competition . . . and falling in love along the way!

I have an autographed set of my Market trilogy for the reader with the best question we didn’t answer above!  So bring it on …