PRE-ORDER: Secret Sauce – Paperback

**LAUNCHING 3/14/2026**

James Sutherland didn’t come to Tuscany to fall in love—he came to disappear.

Recently untethered from his family’s expectations and openly gay but emotionally exhausted, James enrolls in a six-week cooking immersion at a secluded hilltop school outside Siena. He wants quiet. Simplicity. A place where no one needs anything from him.

What he doesn’t expect is Lukas Weiss—an Austrian Olympian turned chef whose confidence in the kitchen contrasts sharply with the careful way he lives his life outside of it. Lukas teaches sauces with reverence and restraint, but when it comes to his own desires, he keeps them tightly contained. In Tuscany, he can be himself almost—as long as no one looks too closely.

Their connection is immediate and dangerous. Long nights in an empty kitchen. Stolen glances during class. A relationship built on tenderness, not labels. James is out and honest about who he is—but Lukas isn’t, and the imbalance creates a quiet tension neither of them can ignore. James has spent years learning how to live openly. Lukas has spent just as long learning how not to.

When James’s older sister Veronica arrives in Tuscany for her wedding—bringing her fiancé Matt, family history, and a life James thought he’d stepped away from—their secret affair becomes harder to contain. Veronica knows James too well. And secrets, James is learning, don’t just protect love—they suffocate it.

As wedding celebrations unfold under string lights and olive trees, James must decide whether love means waiting patiently…or asking for more. Lukas must confront the cost of staying hidden, even in a place that feels like freedom.

Secret Sauce is a slow-burn romance about forbidden love, chosen honesty, and the courage it takes to let yourself be fully seen. It explores how secrecy shapes desire, how nourishment goes beyond food, and why openness—though risky—may be the most radical act of all.