October 18, 2021
All’s fair in love and tacos in this fun Latinx riff on Romeo and Juliet from Albertson (the Heroes Ever After series). Handsome, ambitious CEO Ramón Montez is used to getting what he wants, from acquiring luxury cars to closing a deal on property in Barrios Logan for his family’s fast-food empire, Taco King. What he wants most now is the sexy señorita who stole his heart with her delicious fish tacos on the Day of the Dead. Chef Julieta Campos is determined to save her family’s taqueria, a community staple of Barrios Logan. She’s mortified to discover that the masked mariachi she’s crushing on is actually the scion of Taco King, the restaurant’s fiercest competitor. The rift between their families only grows when Julieta learns that Ramón’s father stole her mother’s taco recipe years ago. With protests rising over the Taco King takeover in Barrios Logan, the star-crossed lovers must decide if their love is worth fighting for or just a recipe for disaster. Albertson’s emphasis on Mexican cuisine puts a refreshing twist on the Shakespearean tragedy, and though Ramón and Julieta’s dialogue is stiff at points, their chemistry is palpable. Romance fans will be pleased—but are advised not to read this one on an empty stomach. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literacy.
December 1, 2021
Star-crossed lovers struggle to reconcile romance and gentrification in a Hispanic community. Julieta Campos, a trained chef, is managing her family's small Mexican restaurant in the historic Chicano neighborhood of Barrio Logan in San Diego while supporting her recently widowed Mexican immigrant mom. When she enjoys a flirtation with a costumed man who serenades her with mariachi love songs during a D�a de los Muertos celebration, little does she know that he is Ram�n Montez, the scion of her family's sworn enemy and an imminent gentrifier. When she realizes who he is, she runs off. Ram�n is puzzled by her sudden flight from his beachside condo, but he focuses on the expansion of his firm's watered-down Mexican food empire. His plan to buy a block of Barrio Logan proceeds, but once he learns that it includes Julieta's restaurant, things go south. Worse, he learns of the history of his father and her mother's failed romance, which was followed by his dad's stealing her mom's fish taco recipe and building a franchise out of it. Gentrification, conflicts among family members with different values, and the history of state annexation of Chicano community land provide the backdrop to Julieta and Ram�n's pull-and-push relationship. Can they find their way to a happy ending despite all the bad blood? Since this is a romance, we know the answer. The author uses the Shakespearean premise to dramatize the characters' conflicted loyalties and differing relationships to their Mexican American heritage. Ram�n's worries about his connection to his community have an autobiographical ring, as an author's note suggests. A heavy-handedness in establishing Ram�n's stratospheric wealth makes him feel like a caricature, while Julieta's strength as a character is undermined by her choice not just to get involved with a gentrifier she resents, but to join his franchise as an employee. Despite the freshness promised by a modern Chicano rewrite of Shakespeare's tragedy, the happy ending is unsatisfying.
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January 1, 2022
In Albertson's ("Heroes Ever After") latest, Julieta is a gifted chef in an authentic but failing Mexican restaurant. A chance meeting with an unnamed man on Day of the Dead challenges Julieta to decide what community and familial loyalties truly mean. Ram�n is the heir apparent to his family's highly successful chain of Mexican restaurants. Faced with the truth of the beginnings of the family business, Ram�n must decide whether siding with family over what he knows to be right is worth the sacrifice of a future with Julieta. Ram�n and Julieta's chemistry is at the heart of the story, though the exploration of family dynamics on both sides allows readers to further connect with the characters. VERDICT This read is delightful; recommended to all fans of contemporary romance.--Claire Brown
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 1, 2022
Ram�n Montez's father stole a taco recipe from a se�orita in San Felipe to build a nationwide chain of Taco King restaurants appealing to the tastebuds of white Americans. As CEO, Ram�n lives a lavish lifestyle, attending Stanford, living in an oceanfront mansion in wealthy La Jolla, and driving a tomatillo-green McLaren sports car. Meanwhile, Julieta Campos and her mam�, whose recipe it was, are barely eking out a living. Like her mam�, Julieta's passion is cooking, so in lieu of college she goes to culinary school and runs a popular, authentic, sea-to-table taqueria. When Ram�n buys prime real estate in Barrio Logan, the heart of the San Diegan Latinx community, to build another Taco King, he and Julieta go head-to-head; she is fiercely opposed to the gentrification of the neighborhood. As this love story shaped by the complexities of Latinx communities unfolds, Albertson insightfully dramatizes the contrasts between Julieta and Ram�n as he becomes increasingly conflicted about his identity as a Mexican American and his business plans for the neighborhood and its impact on the culture.
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