SWEET EXPECTATIONS
A Union Street Bakery Novel
Mary Ellen Taylor
A Berkley Trade Paperback/Original/Fiction
On Sale November 5, 2013/$15.00 ($16.00 Canada)
978-0-425-25970-2 • 0-425-25970-6
Book Excerpt and Recipe links at bottom of page!
Idgie Says:
This, and the book before it, (A Union Street Bakery) look like they would be sweetly romantic Rom Com novels. They are absolutely not. They have grit and angst and real life issues thrown in there. Struggling businesses, abandonment issues, fitting in, all that good stuff. The characters are real and you can relate to several of the issues they are struggling with. A "real life" book with bonus recipes to not only swoon over - but re-create!
Book Description:
Mary Ellen Taylor returns to Old Town Alexandria and the Union Street Bakery in SWEET EXPECTATONS, A Union Street Bakery Novel.
Picking up the story of Daisy McCrae, the struggling bakery and the
McCrae family, Mary Ellen fast forwards a few short, but amazingly busy
months following events in The Union Street Bakery. Plenty has changed, including the store’s finances, which no longer teeter on the brink of disaster.
The
bakery is undergoing long needed renovation, including moving the
original oven and installing a wine cellar as part of Daisy’s plans to
increase profits and help the family business thrive. Since her return
to help rescue the bakery from financial disaster, she’s come to terms
(almost) with a life away from big finance and the perks of her former
career. Adopted, and having finally found her birth mother, she’s also
been able to put aside the rejection and sense of failure that have
haunted her since being abandoned at the bakery as a toddler. In
fact, these days’ it’s difficult for her to imagine not being back at
the bakery, smack in the center of her family’s lives and, surprisingly,
back in the arms of her former fiancé, Gordon, another corporate
refugee who’s found peace in the historic neighborhood.
As
the remodeling gets underway, discoveries emerge. Jean Paul finds a
metal box containing dog tags and recipes hidden within a wall in the
kitchen. Rachel is learning she just may be able to enjoy the company
of men, including Jean Paul, despite still mourning her late husband.
And Daisy? Daisy discovers she’s pregnant following a night of drinking
and seeking solace, which took place before she reunited with Gordon.
When Daisy tells Gordon the news it doesn’t go well, and when he finds
out she intends to make sure the child knows who his father is—a man
Gordon detests—it only makes things worse.
Exhausted
from the pace of the remodel, her day-long “morning” sickness and the
pain of losing Gordon, Daisy looks to the mystery of the hidden recipes
for distraction. In addition to the dog tags, the box contains a photo
of a young woman with two men in uniform, marked “Jenna 1944.” Who was
she? Why was the box hidden? Who was the man whose name is on the dog
tags? Most of all, Daisy wants to know why she’s having recurring dreams
about a woman searching for her lost baby and keeps hearing whispers of
the words “find them?”
In SWEET EXPECTATIONS, Mary Ellen Taylor brings readers an intimate story echoing the emotion and sensitivity of The Union Street Bakery,
as she explores dreams lost and found, the fear and joy of becoming a
mother, and how the meaning of family transcends both time and DNA.
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