Book: Unrivaled

Lucy Kendall returns from a tour of the Continent, her luggage filled with the latest fashions and a mind fired by inspiration. After tasting Europe’s best confections, she’s sure she’ll come up with a recipe that will save her father’s struggling candy business and reverse their fortunes. But she soon discovers that their biggest competitor, the cheat who swindled her father out of his prize recipe, has now hired a promotions manager–a cocky, handsome out-of-towner who gets under Lucy’s skin.

Charlie Clarke’s new role at Standard Manufacturing is the chance of a lifetime. He can put some rough times behind him and reconnect with the father he’s never known. The one thing he never counted on, however, was tenacious Lucy Kendall. She’s making his work life miserable…and making herself impossible for him to forget.

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When Lucy comes home from Europe and discovers her father is ill she throws herself into saving their company.  It's all she's ever wanted to do.  But society has other ideas of how a young lady should act, namely as the Queen of Love and Beauty she should be focused on looking pretty and getting married rather than getting her hands dirty in the kitchen and trying to run a business.

Lucy is trying her hardest to come up with a new candy recipe, but it seems that some unseen - and some seen - forces are at work to thwart her at every turn.  From flopped candy to the eye candy belonging to her rival, Lucy can't seem to catch a break.  It isn't until she befriends a girl she thought was horrid that she starts to see that maybe her life isn't exactly the way she pictures it.

This is the first of Siri Mitchell's novels that I've read.  I appreciate the way she brings you along with the character as she discovers things about herself.  It's definitely not a preachy novel, which gets under my skin.  

There's a bit of a mystery that keeps you guessing along the way, but it's also a straight up romance novel.  My only criticism is that it seems to wrap up a little too nicely in the end for all the lessons Lucy's learned along the way.

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Siri Mitchell is the author of nearly a dozen novels, among them the critically acclaimed Christy Award finalists "Chateau of Echoes" and "The Cubicle Next Door". A graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in business, she has worked in many different levels of government. As military spouse, she has lived in places as varied as Tokyo and Paris. Siri currently lives in the DC-metro area.