 
 
Over the course of the next few blog posts, I’m going to be talking about my debut novel, A Delicious Dilemma. As a debut, it already occupies an important place in my writing life, being my very first full-length publication. But it is also a love letter to the NJ community of my childhood, and finds its inspiration in the people who once lived there.
ICYMI, my debut novel, A Delicious Dilemma is coming 8/24 with Harlequin Romance Special Edition (preorder link here). For today’s post, I’d like to introduce my novel by sharing the publisher’s summary below:
Different worlds collide in Sera Taino’s debut novel.
It’s hard to remain enemies when you’ve broken bread together
Val Navarro’s first mistake: going out dancing after a bad breakup when the chef should be focused on her family business. Her second mistake? Thinking the handsome, sensitive stranger she meets could be more than a rebound – until she discovers he’s Philip Wagner of Wagner Developments. His father’s company could shut down her Puerto Rican restaurant and unravel her tight-knit neighborhood. When Philip takes over negotiations, Val wants to believe he has good intentions. But is following her heart a recipe for disaster?
From Harlequin Special Edition: Believe in love. Overcome obstacles. Find happiness.
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This novel owes a great debt to the Jersey City of my childhood, before it became part of the Gold Coast and was effectively transformed into another suburb of Manhattan. Small businesses, apartment buildings were full of people who knew, supported, and sometimes fought with one another. Open fire hydrants in summer, and collective snow shoveling in winter, loud Caribbean music blaring from apartment windows as people worked and studied and lived – it’s that transformation of a community of a few blocks to high-end housing that fuels the plot of A Delicious Dilemma, as residents find themselves part of an inexorable change. I will discuss the setting of A Delicious Dilemma in more depth in a future post.
In my next post, I’ll introduce my main character, Valeria (Val) Navarro and how she came to be.
Be sure to preorder your copy of A Delicious Dilemma and receive a free recipe collection. Just screenshot/forward preorder receipts via DM or email them to seraspromos@gmail.com, and I will send you Sabor de Casa, an exclusive recipe book, courtesy of the Navarro Family Restaurant. Includes 10 recipes for dishes mentioned in the novel, with detailed instructions on how to prepare them as well as a few snippets of Val’s opinion. Because she has opinions. So many opinions.
