About the Book:
Loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind: These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a “novel cookbook” that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than eighty delicious recipes.
Lifelong friends Lilly and Val are united as much by their differences as by their similarities. In childhood, “LillyPad” and “ValPal” form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets . . . and recipes—from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.” The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val’s bond across the decades: through the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred—until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.
About the Author(s):
ANDREA ISRAEL (left) is a producer/writer for ABC’s Focus Earth. She was a producer/writer for Anderson Cooper 360, Dateline, and Good Morning America (which garnered her an Emmy Award). Her story, “In Donald’s Eyes,” was optioned for a film. She is the author of Taking Tea, a guide to the history and ceremony of the drink. Her writing has appeared in many publications.
NANCY GARFINKEL (right) is co-author of The Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has written extensively about food and graphic arts.
Have fun at their website, www.therecipeclubbook.com.
My Review:
First, let me start off saying that I LOVED the cover this book! I love to bake and I love to cook, so this was the PERFECT cover for this book. It’s a cover that would have had me buying this book off a book shelf without knowing anything about the book! Second, I want to say wow! These authors are fantastic.They know how to not only write a novel, but they know how to completely capture their readers and keep them hooked until the last page of the novel.
In The Recipe Club, you’ll find emails and letters between to long ago friends,emails from the present and letters from the past. These letters and emails will make you laugh, and cry, as these two friends share EVERYTHING with each other from happy times, to the struggles they have with their not so perfect parents. There are some sad notes and there are some happy notes, too, that really show the bond these friends have. A special bond of recipes, that pull them back together after a terrible and long lasting incident!
Between the laughter and the tears, and then, of course the recipes, I loved this book. It’s a book that will bring back memories of your childhood friends, and maybe the memories you share now, with that friend. Sadly, I’m not friends with my childhood friends…..we lost touch years ago, but I have a best friend whom I’ve never met face to face, and this book really reminded me of her and I, as her and I email each other daily.
The format of this book, the emails and letters and recipes make this novel an easy to read novel. You’ll find spice added to the story through the recipes and flavor added by the amazing bond these two women have. These authors really know how to cook up a story and add life to the pages. It’s a fun and easy to read novel, that have characters with flaws, yes, but they really come to life when you open this book.
So, if you have a special friend that you love to share with, then share this 5 star book with her. If you love to cook, then read this book, with all the recipes through out-and there are lots of them!- creating a novel/cookbook combination. These two authors are truly talented and I recommend this novel to most everyone. Well done and two thumbs up to these amazing authors!
You can see what others are saying about this book here!
These amazing authors will be interviewed by Book Club Girl-click here– on Blog Talk Radio on 11/3 at 7 pm EST.
You can purchase your copy here.
*This book was provided for review by TLC Book Tours and the publisher*
