Welcome to the Rose and Thorn where steamy romance is always on the menu.

Kassi is ever the optimist. She uprooted her life and moved across the country with her young daughter to give her damaged marriage one last shot. Now she's broke, stuck in Portland and feeling like an idiot. Worse, her degree in filmmaking won't pay the bills.

When Kassi lands a waitress job at the infamous Rose and Thorn restaurant, she thinks her luck may finally be changing, especially after meeting Clay-head chef and the most beautiful man she's ever seen. Their white-hot attraction is instant and undeniable. But after her marriage disaster, Kassi has sworn off relationships or even dating, maybe forever.

So, what's a girl to do? Put him in a sexy screenplay, of course.

Kassi is writing a movie script for a contest. It's a long shot, an impossible shot, but it could be her ticket to Hollywood. After meeting Clay, she comes up with a new plot about a hot chef and a waitress falling madly in love (and bed).

It doesn't take long before Kassi's imaginary relationship and reality collide in unpredictable ways. As things steam up in the restaurant kitchen, not everyone can stand the heat, including hunky Clay. Turns out he's dealing with a heartbreak of his own that he may never get over, not even for Kassi.

Kitchen Heat is the first in the Restaurantland Romance series, a slow burn friends-to-lovers story crackling with off-beat humor and featuring a flirtatious cast of waiters, customers and cooks, set in the pre-internet 1990s before cells, social media and streaming.