He’s an award-winning chef with a bank account that just hit zero. She’s an overworked single mom with a crumbling hotel and a toddler in tow. In a kitchen this small, tempers won’t stay on simmer.

Cameron McCracken was the darling of the Sydney food scene until burnout—and a highway robbery—left him stranded in nothing but a wetsuit. Now, he’s stuck in Dolphin Cove in the middle of nowhere, trading gourmet plating for Sunday roasts at a run-down hotel. He’s used to calling the shots, not taking orders from a manager who thinks his “deconstructed parmigiana” is a crime against pub food.

Emmie Hewett is at her breaking point. Between her father’s surgery, a failing legacy, and the demands of raising her daughter, she has no patience for an ego-driven chef—no matter how brilliant he is with a whisk or a toddler.

As the hotel finds its feet, the heat in the kitchen turns personal. But when the city offers Cameron a way back to the top, Emmie faces her ultimate test: can a man who lives for the spotlight ever truly settle for a taste of home?

Titles in the From the Outback to the Sea series include:  A Little Bit Country~ A Little Taste of Home ~ A Little More than Friends ~

This story may contain language, violence, and/or sexual situations intended for an adult 18+ audience.

Title:  A Little Taste of Home
Series:  From the Outback to the Sea #2
Author:  Jacinta Peachey
Published:  September 15, 2026
Publisher:  Tule Publishing
My Rating:  4.5 stars

A Little Taste of Home is the second title in the From the Outback to the Sea series, bringing Emmie and Cameron together for a… well, intense relationship that might be a perfect fit for them both if they can survive long enough for that emotional connection to snap into place.  We’re returning to Dolphin Cove, a small town along the coast of Western Australia, to watch two people completely out of their personal comfort zones, doing their best to deal with the situation they find themselves in… and perhaps fight just a bit, the fact that they’re falling for each other, hard.  I haven’t read the first story in this series yet, so I came into this one cold, with no history to go on, and I didn’t feel lost at all.

Emmie has returned home temporarily to help her mother and father, who are both medically unable to run their inn right now.  She’s bundled up herself, her daughter, Teagan (who is a sweetheart and steals every scene she’s in), and headed home to deal with the ultimatum her dad handed down to hold the inn together for him… but don’t change one single thing – ever.  That might have been doable if the inn wasn’t losing money, and the chef she just fired was a bully whose ego was the only thing strong enough to toss out threats on his way out.

Cameron isn’t having a much better day than Emmie is.  He’s a burned-out famous chef who suddenly finds himself stranded by the roadside with no van, no valuables, not a single thing but his wetsuit that he’s wearing when he discovered that his van had been stolen with, pretty much, his life packed in it.  A few strangers will deliver him right to the Dolphin Cove Inn and into Emmie’s world, where a chef with strong opinions and a tendency to change the menu is just one more headache to deal with, but right now they need each other.

I enjoyed A Little Taste of Home.  I was easily swept into this story and found everything I needed to know about this world in the dialogue and narrative, which helped with those “am I going to be lost” feelings.  Emmie and Cameron’s story is well-written, engaging, emotional, and passionate in all the right places.  I adored the Lacy Ladies and The Shedders, whose antics often resulted in a few laugh-out-loud moments.  I do have to admit that I didn’t like Emmie’s father much; he’s holding on to the reins and being stubborn at the expense of his livelihood and his daughter’s feelings.  In all, I enjoyed this world, and I’ll definitely be going back to the first book in the series.  If this sounds like your kind of romance set on the western shores of Australia, then you’d enjoy this one.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the author or the author’s team via Booksprout, and I sincerely thank them for their trust. I chose to leave a review with my personal opinion of this book.*

This title is available on Amazon