Changing Scenes
Changes
Book Two
Jennifer Allis Provost
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult
Publisher: Limitless Publishing
Date of Publication: January 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1680584431
ASIN: B019SHY37Q
Number of pages: 247
Word Count: 62000
Cover Artist: Wicked by Design
Book Description:
For Astrid Janvier, image is everything…
Astrid is a world-renowned model, as famous for her strut as her startling green eyes. She’s modeled for the biggest names in the fashion world, and is regularly invited to parties in New York, London, and Paris. Thanks to a designer label addiction, she’s also broke, and takes a job as a cocktail waitress just to make rent. When her best friend Britt asks her to be her maid of honor at her upcoming wedding, their first task is to decide the menu.
Donnie Coehlo is a young, up-and-coming chef with a dinner menu to plan…
Donato—Donnie for short—is the head chef at Thirty-Nine and Twelve, a seafood bistro on the Connecticut shore. It’s a great accomplishment given his youthful age, but Donnie doesn’t brag. He just wants to find the right girl, settle down, and have a bunch of kids. When Astrid arrives at his restaurant, Donnie hopes she is the one. But would a high-priced model like Astrid be interested in a regular guy like him?
As Astrid’s life crumbles around her, and Donnie makes a terrible choice, Astrid learns the two of them are irrevocably tied together.
Will their connection be enough for Astrid to leave her high-fashion life behind,
and accept what Donnie has to offer?
Or will she chase her dreams as a model, leaving Donnie as part of her past?
What better time
than the holiday season to be with the ones you love? In Changing Scenes,
circumstances force Astrid and Donnie to spend their first Christmas apart.
This is a much bigger deal for Donnie than it is for Astrid; while she sees
holidays as something to endure, he enjoys going back to his grandmother’s
house and spending a day or two cooking up a feast for his family.
In order to show
Astrid just how much he is going to miss her, Donnie plans a special breakfast
for Astrid—but this breakfast doesn’t involve bacon and eggs. Instead of
traditional breakfast foods, he makes a few different chocolate pastries for
Astrid, and she gets to choose between the sinful desserts. Does that make
Donnie the dessert to the dessert? I guess it does.
In the spirit of
Donnie’s romantic breakfast of desserts, here’s a recipe for one of the most
sinful chocolate cakes you’ll ever encounter. Below that breakfast scene
itself.
Happy
reading—and baking!
Ingredients
butter and flour
for coating and dusting the cake pan
3 cups
all-purpose flour
3 cups
granulated sugar
1½ cups
unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon
baking soda
1½ teaspoons
baking powder
1½ teaspoons
salt
4 large eggs
1½ cups
buttermilk
1½ cups warm
water
½ cup vegetable
oil
2 teaspoons
vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat oven to
350 degrees.
Butter three
9-inch cake rounds. Dust with flour and tap out the excess. (see cooking lesson
below)
Mix together
flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a stand mixer
using a low speed until combined.
Add eggs,
buttermilk, warm water, oil, and vanilla. Beat on a medium speed until smooth.
This should take just a couple of minutes.
Divide batter
among the three pans. I found that it took just over 3 cups of the batter to
divide it evenly.
Bake for 30-35
minutes until the cake meets the toothpick test (stick a toothpick in and it
comes out clean).
Cool on wire
racks for 15 minutes and then turn out the cakes onto the racks and allow to
cool completely.
Frost with your
favorite frosting and enjoy!
Excerpt from Changing Scenes: Donnie makes Astrid a
special breakfast
After the
session wrapped, I went home, showered, and took a nice, long nap. When I woke
I ate a bowl of cereal, then I got dressed in my warmest socks, leggings, and
sweater while I waited for Donnie to pick me up. My man was right on time and
came bearing hot coffee, and we did our usual circuit of the market.
“These fish get
heavier every week,” I said when we were loading up. “And I think Trevor put
rocks in those sacks instead of clams.”
“I hope they’re
not clams,” Donnie said. “I paid for mussels.”
I shook my head,
unsuccessfully stifling my latest round of laughter; my chef thought he was a
comedian. “I’m ready to head out if you are.”
“You know it,
babe.”
We hopped into
the fishmobile and left the market. I watched the market get smaller and
smaller in the rearview mirror, wondering how big of a catastrophe would be
needed for Donnie to cancel Christmas and hang out with me instead. The
restaurant burning down? No, since he’s not an owner he’d probably go back to
his family and wait for word from his boss. Massive snowstorm? No again, since
he’s a New Englander; they laugh at snow. Me breaking a leg? Hmm, now that
could work. Donnie would have to stay in my apartment with me, taking care of
me, keeping me company… Of course, I would have that broken leg to deal with…
“Babe?”
“What?” I asked,
blinking myself back to reality.
“You’re a
dreamer, you know that?”
I looked down.
“I was just thinking.”
“Hey.” I glanced
up, saw his smile. “Dreams are good.”
I returned his
smile, then I realized we were headed toward my apartment instead of the diner.
“We’re not going to breakfast?”
“I thought we’d
do something special.”
“What special
thing?” I pressed.
“I’ll make
breakfast at your place.”
I flopped back
in my seat, totally speechless. Just when I thought Donnie couldn’t be any more
perfect, he goes and one-ups himself. Then I remembered that all this cooking
would be taking place in my kitchen, and my happiness turned to horror.
“I don’t have a
lot of food at home,” I babbled. “I haven’t had time to shop, and I don’t own
things like spatulas and cooking spray.”
“I brought
everything we’ll need.”
“You did?”
“’Course I did.
When I was in your place before I checked out your kitchen.” He gave me a look,
and added, “The stove didn’t look like it’d been used this year.”
“I’m not a
cooker like you.”
“Babe, there was
dust on the burners.”
I crossed my
arms and fidgeted in my seat. “What can I say, housekeeping hadn’t come by.”
“It sure
hadn’t.”
We reached my
building, and I directed Donnie toward my parking space. Once that was complete
he handed me a cooler, then he grabbed a second bag and we headed toward the
elevator.
“Will the fish
be all right?” I asked.
“They’ll be fine
for a few hours,” he said. “It’s cold, even in here, and they’re packed in tons
of ice.”
When we entered
my apartment Donnie went straight to the kitchen. “What do you want me to do?”
I asked.
“What do you
usually do after I drop you off?”
“Change and go
to bed.”
“Go change,
then.”
I blinked. “I
thought if I didn’t help, I didn’t get to eat.”
He kissed the
corner of my mouth. “Grandma’s rules, not mine. Don’t worry, I got this.”
I did as
ordered, and shed my fish market gear. Since I wasn’t going to see Donnie for a
while I decided to dress sexy, and put on a blue satin spaghetti strapped
nightie and matching robe. The smell of coffee lured me back to the kitchen,
and I saw little pastries set up on the counter.
“What’s all
this?” I asked. “No bacon and eggs?”
“Sweets for a
sweet lady,” he replied. The coffeemaker beeped, so Donnie poured a cupful and
handed it to me. “Gonna try one?”
“Sure.” I
selected a tiny chocolate confection, then I took it and my coffee to the
couch. Donnie sat beside me a moment later. “What brought this on?”
“I’m going to
miss you, that’s what,” he said. “Not gonna lie, I was single for a long time
before we met. Been a long time since I found anyone I wanted to spend time
with…” Donnie shook his head. “And now, I won’t even be with you over the
holidays.”
“It’s not like
you’ll be gone forever,” I said, ignoring the pang in my heart. “If it’s any
consolation, I’ll be miserable with my family.”
Donnie made a
face. “I’d be miserable too, if they dragged me to some restaurant on
Christmas.”
“Yeah,
restaurants are terrible,” I said. “And the chefs, especially the head chefs,
now they are the worst.”
“Hey, take that
back.”
“Nope.”
Donnie grabbed
my coffee and pastry from my hands and set them on the table, then he grabbed
my waist. “Take it back,” he insisted, his hand sliding up my spine toward my
neck.
“Make me.”
About the Author:
Jennifer Allis Provost writes books about faeries, orcs and elves. Zombies too. She grew up in the wilds of Western Massachusetts and had read every book in the local library by age twelve. (It was a small library). An early love of mythology and folklore led to her epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Parthalan, and her day job as a cubicle monkey helped shape her urban fantasy, Copper Girl. When she’s not writing about things that go bump in the night (and sometimes during the day) she’s working on her MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jennallis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/copperraven
Twitter: @parthalan
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