[ad/gifted eARC - I received a gifted eARC for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]
Title & Author: Stirred Up by Leigh Suznovich
My rating: 5/5
Publication date: 9th December 2025
Blurb:
Gage Cabrera is married to his work running his family’s beloved bar, El Abrevadero. His past has him not wanting to commit to any relationship, he’s content to go home to his funny birds. That is, until his ailing dad sets an ultimatum: get married, or I won’t turn ownership of the bar over to you when I retire. Gage is at a loss, until Celeste comes charging into his life with a personality as fiery as her hair.
Celeste Martino is trying to get her life back together and moving forward after a four month stint in prison on an unjust charge. The trying experience has made her endometriosis flare up, but she has no healthcare. After commiserating with Gage, who she has started to like visiting at his bar, he comes up with a plan: get married so he can inherit his bar, and she can go on his healthcare.
As with any carefully laid plan, it goes off script and lines start to get stirred up when they find everything they could have ever wanted in each other. Can these two people who are so scared of romance make a marriage work for real?
Review:
We all know I am a serial four star giver but there was genuinely nothing I disliked about Stirred Up so it gets an instant five stars from me.
I read, and loved, the Special Delivery duet - The Parcel and The Care Package - and was delighted when I heard that there was actually going to be another book focusing on the sister of a character in The Care Package. From what we heard of Celeste in The Care Package, I knew she would be an interesting character to delve into and boy, was I right! Suznovich has developed this character perfectly.
Celeste has recently been released from prison after her charge of breaking a man's nose after he inappropriately touched her, was reduced to a misdemeanor and has to attend anger management classes. She has also been recently diagnosed with endometriosis and requires an operation to help with her pain but with no health insurance, that will prove difficult.
Gage runs his father's bar and is good friends with Carlo, the boyfriend of Celeste's sister. He knows he will become the owner of the bar soon due to his father's declining health, but his dad doesn't want the bar to be his life. He wants Gage to find love and get married and for everything to be balanced.
He needs a wife, she needs health insurance - the two could help each other out surely?
I absolutely adored these two. Celeste is probably my favourite FMC I have read about in a while. She is so headstrong and her issues with anger, trauma, trust and endometriosis are tackled fantastically. I love how her relationship with Gage changes her for the better and she learns to trust someone other than her sister.
Gage's family dynamic and all of their support for them, taking Celeste in so she feels like a part of them too is beautiful. Especially for someone like Celeste who has never really felt that.
In true Leigh Suznovich style, there are some of the most mouth-watering descriptions of food and I feel like I want to go to El Abrevadero immediately!
Everyone needs to go read not just this book, but The Parcel and The Care Package too.
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