CHAPTER ONE

Ellie

“This is all a celebrity chef needs to get a cookbook deal? A two-line email from his agent and a ridiculous nickname?” I waved the offending printout at my best friend, unable to keep the exasperation out of my voice.

Nicole stretched elegantly in the conference room chair, like a cat soaking up the weak January sun. “Tobias Paul represents anyone who’s anyone in food, and the Happy Pirate Leprechaun is a great nickname.”

“For the mascot on a box of marshmallow cereal,” I grumbled. “Happy New Year to me.”

Most days, ghostwriting cookbooks was my dream job. Publishers paid me both to cook and write, which would be my hobbies anyway. In addition to capturing my subject’s voice like every ghostwriter had to, I was also a translator, taking the huge quantities and multiple subrecipes of restaurant dishes and turning them into straightforward instructions an ordinary person could follow in their home kitchen. But I was a guide, too, a companion, helping chefs and home cooks connect to each other so everyone could eat delicious food.

To ghostwrite a cookbook successfully, I had to be rock solid: methodical, precise, great at managing money and time, and, above all, patient with people’s foibles. But the lack of information on this project left me feeling like I was balancing on an office chair, the wheels on the verge of going out from under me.

It didn’t help that Kieran O’Neill was late.

The local chef’s victory on the reality TV show Fire on High had triggered a six-way bidding war to publish his first cookbook. Alchemy Press’s editor Tad Winthrop had won the auction by promising him a ridiculous amount of money and the services of his most diligent ghostwriter. I would write recipes and stories in Kieran’s voice, and Nicole would shoot the accompanying pictures. Today, we were all meeting for the first time to discuss our plans for the next several months of work.

I read the email aloud, hoping that more words would magically appear. “‘Kieran O’Neill wants to write a cookbook about having fun in the kitchen. Call me.’ Having fun? Great, thanks, that tells me everything I need to know.”

Nicole checked the ends of her long black hair. “Fire on High is the competition show of the decade. I know you only watch historical British people falling in constipated love, but even you’ve absorbed that by osmosis.”

I shook my head. “Not just osmosis. I did watch the whole season, also known as fifteen hours of my life I could have spent learning to knit or finally reading A Suitable Boy.” Or if we were being honest, five historical romance novels.

She dropped the strands. “How could you not like it? Like him? He goes on a journey.” She waved her hands. “Underdog made good! Figuring out his voice!”

I folded my arms and sighed. “Your jazz hands are super cute, but you know I only watched it because I had to. I’m not trying to yuck anybody’s yum. It’s just not for me.”

I went to the floor-to-ceiling window, soaking in the peacefulness of the view. The Golden Gate Bridge was an elegant red line in the distance, and Marin’s hills rolled out like deep emerald velvet in the early afternoon light.

Nicole leaned on the glass next to me, but she wasn’t looking at the view.

“I know you believe it’s not what cooking is,” she said, the humor turned to concern. “That it shouldn’t be about showing off and gimmicks. It should be about caring for people and making them happy. But a lot of people like the performance. The Banquet YouTube channel wouldn’t have billions of hits if they didn’t.”

“But it’s so fake.”

“OK, fine, you’re never going to watch goofy cooking videos with me. So did you just watch the show through your fingers? Or do you actually know what his deal is?”

I rested my hand on my chest, fake-offended. “How dare you doubt my search engine prowess? I know his full name is Kieran Michael O’Neill, and he’s twenty-seven. He was born on December eighteenth.”

Nicole smiled. “Of course, he’s such a classic Sagittarius.”


Copyright © 2024 by Sarah Chamberlain