Idgie Says:
I have to say that I was very relieved when I found out that this book has already been published back in 2007 and is now in reprint after the success of her last novel. At first I was under the impression that this was a follow up novel to The Orphan Train and have to admit I found myself dissapointed. I expected something hardier and deeper after that novel.
This definitely falls under the genre of Woman's fiction/chick lit. A woman of certain age floundering with a not yet found life goal/sustenance/man. She chases a dream and finds herself in a very awkward situation. Putting aside what I said in the first paragraph, I found this to be a good story that I read to the end with interest.
As an additional bonus, there are many Italian recipes described in-depth in between the story lines. Recipes so descriptive that I can see and taste them. I have already told my husband that I'm making the exact Chicken Marsala recipe from the pages of this novel tomorrow night for dinner.
The recipes are also in the back of the book as bonus material.
So in closing, at first I found the novel not to be what I was looking for, but after I recovered from that, soon realized I was already more than halfway through and interested in knowing just what was going to happen next.
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William Morrow
October 14, 2014
Originally published in 2007
Book Description:
Angela is 33 years old and single, stuck in a job she doesn't love
and a life that seems, somehow, to have just happened. Though she
inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, she never
has the time; for the past six months, her oven has held only sweaters.
Tacked to her office bulletin board in New York is a photo, cut out of a
magazine, of a tidy cottage on the coast of Maine -- a talismanic
reminder that there are other ways to live, even if she can't seem to
figure them out.Angela decides to risk it all and move to Maine, but her new home isn’t quite what she expected. Far from everything familiar, and with little to return to, Angela begins to rebuild her life from the ground up, moving into a tiny cottage and finding work at a local coffee shop. To make friends and make ends meet, she leads a cooking class, slowly coming to discover the pleasures and secrets of her new small community, and – perhaps – a way to connect her heritage to a future she is only beginning to envision.