Author Ali Rosen talks to Club Calvi about her spicy new romance "The Slow Burn"
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Club Calvi is cranking up the heat with "The Slow Burn," the new book by author Ali Rosen. She talked to Mary Calvi the day she learned the novel had just made the USA Today best-selling booklist.
Rosen is a noted cookbook author and television host. "The Slow Burn" is her fourth contemporary romance. It's about a Michelin-starred chef living in New York whose world suddenly crumbles.
"Her life is going great until one day her restaurant burns down, her boyfriend breaks up with her, and she doesn't know what to do with her life," Rosen said. "Her best friend says while your restaurant is being rebuilt, go spend the summer in Italy. Make pasta with my grandmother. Learn that skill and have a great time. In the process, she meets a man who makes olive oil. And she recalibrates what she wants her life to be."
Mary asked Rosen if there's are similarities in crafting a story and creating a recipe?
"Absolutely," Rosen said. "It's all about finding the right balance with a recipe and with a book ... You are trying to get feelings from people, which I think is what we get from food as well. You eat something and it brings you back to a memory. It makes you happy. It comforts you. I think it's the same with fiction. People pick up a thriller to get lost, but to be a little afraid. When people pick up a romance, they want to have a lot of feelings and then they want to know it's all going to end up OK. I think in romance you know what you are getting, hopefully, but you don't know where the story is going to take you."
You can read an excerpt from "The Slow Burn" and get the book below.
The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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"The Slow Burn" by Ali Rosen
From the publisher: Between a breakup and a burned-down restaurant, there's nothing left in New York for Kit Roth except the ashes of her success.
Needing distance and distraction, she agrees to work for her best friend's pasta-making nonna in the Italian countryside. But instead of providing a quiet sabbatical to eat up time while her kitchen is rebuilt, the small town of Manciano keeps pulling Kit into its rituals and rhythms. And before long, it shows her everything she's been missing. Simpler cooking, community…and Nico Ruspoli, an olive oil producer with his own scorched past. But with Kit determined to leave after three months, and Nico rooted to his grove, their growing chemistry is at odds with what they both want for their future.
Yet with each passing week, Kit finds herself measuring less and tasting more. And when it's time to go back to her life in New York, she doesn't know what―or who―she's willing to leave behind.
Ali Rosen lives is New York City.
"The Slow Burn" by Ali Rosen (ThriftBook) $14
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Excerpt: "The Slow Burn" by Ali Rosen
(In this scene, the heroine, Kit, has ventured into the town of Manciano and stops at a pasticceria where she meets Emilia, the pastry chef and owner.)
An argument is on the tip of my tongue, but Emilia is shooting me that same look from earlier that clearly is her go-to when she wants to get her way. And I do need to figure out how to get around eventually. I can't argue with the convenience of someone's estranged husband's abandoned scooter. I certainly understand the sentiment of wanting to rid yourself of someone else's memories.
So I suppose I can just go along with it.
"Okay," I say, trying to muster the appropriate enthusiasm for someone who's instantaneously solved one of my most externally apparent issues. "That's quite a convenient solution for me, so thanks. What else can we manifest? Can you help me go frolic in an olive grove? Because those trees have been calling my name."
The bell above the door rings again, and I see glee written all over Emilia's face. "I think you really are making things happen today!" she says.
I turn and stop short when I realize who she's looking at. Nico has sauntered in, and I hate that his presence makes the air crackle to attention instantly. He's looking, once again, like a snack left out on the counter to tempt me. Great.
"Vorrei un caffè, per favore," he says to Emilia, who immediately bounces over to start his espresso. Nico turns to me, and a smile takes over his whole face. "Hello again."
His expression is so earnest. His energy radiates calm, and yet all he does is make me edgy. I should say hello back, but I think his presence has stunned me into silence. I should've figured I'd run into him again, but I've been trying to not let my mind wander in the direction it keeps wanting to go. He's wearing beat-up jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up in a way that clearly was haphazard but now has the effect of accentuating everything. I have to look past him so I don't stare. Whatever this man sets off in my body, I need to ignore it.
I'm saved by Emilia, who sets the small espresso cup in front of Nico with panache when she returns. "Kit was just saying to me how she wanted to see some olive groves, and you walked right in. Do you have time to take her?"
"Sure, of course," he says back, with a nonchalance that's hard to fathom. "It's summer, so you know there's barely anything happening." "Uh, hello?" I interject. "I don't even have a way to get anywhere yet."
But at that moment Flavia walks back in and tosses me a set of keys. She says something in quick Italian and then wanders back out.
"Your ride is parked outside," Emilia translates.
I look out the window and see a matte-marigold scooter haphazardly parked on the street, its character etched into all the nicks I can see even from a distance.
"I . . ." This is a lot for one day after effectively being in solitude for a week, outside of Gia. I turn to Nico. "You really don't have to show me anything. I was simply making small talk with Emilia."
"You're not interested in olive oil?" he asks, leaning toward me and fixing me with that same focused, still gaze that's been running in my mind on a loop ever since we met. His proximity and his attention make me feel like a fish being lured in. He's magnetic, and yet the worst part is, since that earnest expression is back, he clearly doesn't even know it. Hot men who don't know they're hot are true kryptonite. But I imagine, if he's married to one of Gia's granddaughters in a town where everyone knows everyone, no one flirts with him either. So maybe he doesn't even realize how much the way he watches me feels like interest.
"Oh no, I am," I say, still attempting to ignore whatever his eyes are doing to my insides. "But I just don't want to bother you. I don't even really know what you do?" It's a weak excuse but not inaccurate.
"He makes the only olive oil worth a damn here," Emilia cuts in.
A small blush rises on Nico's cheeks, and it makes him even more endearing. Most men would've said it themselves if it was remotely close to the truth. And even with my limited knowledge of Emilia, one thing is clear: She certainly wouldn't proclaim it if it wasn't accurate. I wish I could pretend like I don't want to know more, but I do.
And thankfully Emilia keeps talking. "He's so rigid during production you'd think he was managing a nuclear bomb. It's like the steadiness of a chef handling an ingredient, but with a mechanical engineering degree. And last season he engineered his own filtration system to reduce particulates even more than any other commercially available one."
Okay, now I'm intrigued on a professional level, which means I'm better able to shake off my inexplicable physical nonsense and actually focus on excitement of the food variety. "I didn't even know most producers use a filter," I say. "I thought they racked the oil and let the particulates sink down?"
I'm not immune to the excitement that takes over his face when he registers that I might actually be able to nerd out on this with him. Damn, this man wears every emotion so visibly.
"Most rack, yes, but a lot are also filtering. We actually do both, even though most people who filter just do that from the start and move on. We rack for a week before using the filter, and I believe it's created a smoother product. I'm mostly grateful that Emilia agrees with me, because I'm not sure I'd trust anything if she didn't."
He gives her a warm smile, and she pats his hand, like a proud friend. The blunt demeanor she wears naturally seems to slide a bit when she's talking to him, like he tugs at everyone's tough edges.
"So yours is the one Gia must use?" I ask, putting two and two together. I know she uses something local, since it comes in unmarked jugs, but she said so little about Nico the other day when he stopped by that I've had no idea.
"Obviously Gia wouldn't use anything else," Emilia cuts in again. He blushes a little more, and I wish I didn't notice the way it creeps past the stubble of his face and ever so slightly onto the curve of his neck.
"So you want to come see the groves?"
Adapted from THE SLOW BURN by Ali Rosen. Copyright (C) 2026 by Ali Rosen. Published with permission of Montlake, an imprint of Amazon.