The story-line in this book immediately pulls the reader in, and then keeps the interest going to the very last page. The main character, Juliette, is from a family of restaurant owners and cooks. Her French-Italian family is passionate about eating, cooking and each other. Every Sunday night, Juliette’s parents have a family dinner. This is a time for them to all connect with each other, but it can also be a time when this loud and boisterous group meddles in each other’s lives. Secrets aren’t easy to keep with this group, and everyone has opinions they aren’t afraid to passionately share.
Juliette works as a food writer and restaurant critic for the local paper. Her brother wants her to help launch a new restaurant, but Juliette doesn’t know if she can juggle two jobs. She also wonders about the conflict of interest that could develop as a food critic and owning a restaurant herself. A nice inclusion in the book are recipes for some of the dishes prepared in this story.
Recently, their beloved Grand-mère (Grandmother) has passed away, and her entire family is grieving, especially Juliette and her mother. While looking through Grand-mère’s cookbook, Juliette discovers an old picture of a man hidden beneath the book’s cover. This man is unknown to her, but he is the spitting image of her brother. Thus begins the quest for Juliette to find out who this mystery man is, and who he was to her Grand-mère.
After a long dry-spell in her love life, Juliette has started a relationship with Neil. Although she cares deeply for him, this romance has some problems. The main one is that Juliette lives in Portland, Oregon, while Neil lives in Memphis, Tennessee. She doesn’t know if she can survive this long-distance arraignment. In fact her brother is strongly encouraging her to give up on Neil, and go out with a local man he wants her to date.
It has been a long time since I liked a book as well as I like this one. The French-Italian heritage adds a richness to the story-line, the recipes sound wonderful, and the characters are believable and very endearing. There is even a romance and a bit of a mystery–so the story is very interesting. There are two things I disliked. The first was the light amount of faith in a book that is Christian fiction. However, I was happy the romance was kept clean and sweet.
The other thing I didn’t like was the ending. It seemed to stop suddenly. That is when I discovered that this is the first book in a series. I was glad to see that there is more to the story, but wished the ending wasn’t so jarring. Despite that, this work does stand on its own, it is a 5-star read and I enthusiastically recommend it.
The publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book through WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purpose of review. All opinions expressed are my own, and I have not been compensated in any other manner.
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