Although I started off a little annoyed with A Bakery in Paris, this heartwarming story about two Parisian ladies -- and their delicious French recipes -- grew on me by the end of the book.
What’s A Bakery in Paris about?
A Bakery in Paris follows two women in the same family – Lisette, living in 1870, and Micheline, living in 1946 – as they overcome hardships during times of pronounced Parisian conflict. Each woman finds comfort in...
A couple years ago, I tried reading The Forbidden Garden, which is actually the second book in the Sparrow Sisters series by Ellen Herrick. I made it a few pages in before putting it aside; I just couldn't get into the story or keep the characters straight.
Now, I know why -- I was supposed to read The Sparrow Sisters first.
Whoops.
What's The Sparrow Sisters about?
Magical realism books are some of my favorites to read, and I'm...
Best Served Hot marries two of my favorite types of books: a hilarious rom-com and delicious foodie fiction.
I ended up loving this funny, sweet, and sexy novel by Amanda Elliot, though it admittedly took a few chapters to get into it. This is mostly because of main character Julie. When we first meet her, she spends most of her time scheming about how to get likes and clicks on her restaurant review blog. As a result, she comes across as a...
Tartlets, it’s Two-fer Tuesday!
The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine and The Bakeshop at Pumpkin and Spice are set in the same enchanting world of Moonbright, Maine, so I thought it'd be fun to do a dual book review today.
LOOK AT THESE BOOK COVERS. And these titles!
With the fall season in full swing, how can you resist something with “pumpkin” or “spice” in the title? Obviously, I couldn't, and I quickly requested these two books from...
The quickest way to dissolve a marriage is with secrets and lies. Both abound in Recipe for a Perfect Wife.
This bold, thought-provoking, and heartfelt novel by Karma Brown captured me right from the start with its recipes, its gardening advice, and its setting in the New York suburbs – all the things an in-her-late-30s woman like myself enjoys. Much of Recipe for a Perfect Wife reminded me of a mix of Friends and Strangers and Julie and...
Sunrise by the Sea is the fourth installment of the Little Beach Street Bakery series, and boy, was it worth the wait. Much like one of the “red thinks” (a.k.a., strawberry tarts) from character Polly’s bakery, I devoured this Jenny Colgan novel that brought me back to the fictional Mount Polbearne, a quaint and remote fishing village on an island off the Cornish coast. If you’re looking for a brief review of the first book in this...
Christmas Joy is the perfect book to sink into over the holiday season. Last year, I basically swiped right on a bunch of Christmas books available from my local library, and I spent the six weeks leading up to Christmas reading about nothing but candy canes, cookies, holiday décor, and small-town romance. There were some hits and some misses, but Christmas Joy is definitely one of the highlights from that book stack. It doesn't hurt that this...
I'm pretty sure that Party of Two is not author Jasmine Guillory's best work. I know, I know: that's a pretty bold statement to make right off the bat. Guillory’s first book, The Wedding Date, made huge waves when it published a few years ago, but I never got around to reading it. I picked up Party of Two because it was the only Guillory title my library had on hand during COVID quarantine. Given all the fuss surrounding the author and her...
Midnight at the Blackbird Café is as wonderful and lovely as its book cover. Please read it. There. DONE! Book review complete. Oh, okay. I suppose I should tell you a little more about why I blazed through this utterly charming novel by Heather Webber. Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe combines all of my favorite genres: Southern fiction and magical realism and foodie fiction (oh my!). The minute I stepped into Wicklow, AL and main character Anna...
I think I want to start a Cookbook Club. I had no idea what one was until I read The Cookbook Club by Beth Harbison, and now I'm obsessed with the idea. And that's completely due to the fact that this women's fiction-meets-foodie-fiction novel is a sheer delight. The Cookbook Club is about three women whose lives intersect when they meet up together for this unique book club group: they pick a cookbook, cook/bake some recipes from it, and...
