From debut author Jennifer Gold comes a delicious novel about the sweet and sour ingredients of life and love.Elle, an accomplished baker, has a recipe for every event in her life. But when she discovers her husband’s infidelity, she doesn’t know what to make of it. Jam, maybe? Definitely jam.Fed up with the stale crumbs of her marriage, Elle revisits past recipes and the events that inspired … events that inspired them. A recipe for scones reminds her of her father’s death, cinnamon rolls signify the problematic courtship with her husband, and a batch of chocolate cookies casts Elle in a less-than-flattering light. Looking back, Elle soon realizes that some ingredients were missing all along.
After confronting her husband, Elle indulges her sweet tooth in other ways, including a rebound that just leaves her more confused. As secrets from the past collide with the conflicts of the present, Elle struggles to manage her bakery business and maintain the relationships most important to her. In piecing her life back together, will Elle learn to take the bitter with the sweet?
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I really liked the recipes sprinkled throughout the book – especially the way in which they were written. Each recipe was tied to a person or memory in Elle’s life and you could sense her state of mind when she wrote the recipe.
The plot itself was interesting, but a bit slow at times for me. I didn’t particularly care for Elle or Tom – it seemed that they were both at fault for their failed marriage in that they weren’t honest and upfront with one another. Tom seemed pretty clear from the beginning that he wanted a family, where Elle was more interested in growing her bakery business.
Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing a copy for review