Six restaurants. Three Michelin stars. A television career. Julian Vale has spent years building a reputation as one of the most celebrated chefs in the industry.

Then, without warning, he loses his sense of taste.

Four months later, he’s hiding it.

His employees don’t know. His business partners don’t know. And the millions of people who trust his name certainly don’t know.

Julian has spent his entire career fixing problems before anyone else notices them.

Then Julian meets Clara Grady, a woman who has absolutely no intention of making his life easier.

She works at her grandmother’s neighborhood diner, where the coffee is questionable, the menu is too long, and absolutely nobody cares how many Michelin stars Julian has.

Especially Clara.

She’s stubborn, sharp-tongued, and thoroughly unimpressed by the wealthy celebrity chef who seems determined to interfere in her life.

Clara sees a man who doesn’t understand the meaning of “mind your own business.”

But somewhere between unsolicited advice, coffee runs, disastrous escape rooms, and Sundays that become the highlight of Julian’s week, their constant disagreements turn into something neither expected.

Julian is used to being wanted for his talent, his reputation, and his money.
Clara doesn’t care about any of it.

She doesn’t need him to be brilliant.
She doesn’t need him to be famous.
She doesn’t even need him to taste.

For a man who’s spent months terrified of losing everything that defines him, falling for a woman who doesn’t care about any of it might be the most terrifying thing of all.

Because for the first time in his life, Julian wants something he can’t earn with a Michelin star or buy with a checkbook.
He wants Clara.

And his hunger has nothing to do with food.

Famine is the second standalone romance in The Four Horsemen: Before They Knew, a series about the men they were, the women they loved, and the lives they built before discovering what they were destined to become.