RITA Award winner!“A terrific read from a talented author. Made me hungry more than once. I can’t wait to read what comes next.”—Francine Rivers, New York Times bestselling author of The MasterpieceDenver chef Rachel Bishop has accomplished everything she’s dreamed and some things she never dared hope, like winning a James Beard Award and heading up her own fine-dining restaurant. But when a … own fine-dining restaurant. But when a targeted smear campaign causes her to be pushed out of the business by her partners, she vows to do whatever it takes to get her life back . . . even if that means joining forces with the man who inadvertently set the disaster in motion.
Essayist Alex Kanin never imagined his pointed editorial would go viral. Ironically, his attempt to highlight the pitfalls of online criticism has the opposite effect: it revives his own flagging career by destroying that of a perfect stranger. Plagued by guilt-fueled writer’s block, Alex vows to do whatever he can to repair the damage. He just doesn’t expect his interest in the beautiful chef to turn personal.
Alex agrees to help rebuild Rachel’s tarnished image by offering his connections and his home to host an exclusive pop-up dinner party targeted to Denver’s most influential citizens: the Saturday Night Supper Club. As they work together to make the project a success, Rachel begins to realize Alex is not the unfeeling opportunist she once thought he was, and that perhaps there’s life—and love—outside the pressure-cooker of her chosen career. But can she give up her lifelong goals without losing her identity as well?
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I really enjoyed the feel of this story. The characters were enjoyable and well written.
A Delicious Story in every aspect of the word!
When writer Alex’s article inadvertently cost chef Rachel her job, he hosts a supper club to find investors for her next restaurant.
Excellent novel in every respect. Author Carla Laureano dives deep into the characters. Rachel’s strength attracts Alex, but gets in the way of finding her best life. Alex’s understanding gives her the insight she needs. Alex’s support of his sister is heroic. The author’s research seamlessly informs every page.
I listened to this book on audio and enjoyed it. The 2nd book: Brunch at Bittersweet Café is worth it, too. I appreciate the strong female characters of each book. Gourmet Chef in The Saturday Night Supper Club and fabulous Baker in Brunch at Bittersweet Café. I also appreciate the male characters, and how their career choices (writer & pilot) affects the lives of the women. I’ll read more of Carla Loreano’s books. I’m glad a friend recommended her books.
I love everything written by Carla Laureano — always have and I’m certain I always will. She’s convinced me that she’s been a chef, a hospitality coordinator, an award-winning photographer … her characters are so believable! If Carla Laureano writes it, I’ll read it.
Really enjoyed this story. The characters really had me. Now I do have a complaint. All the food ideas sound SOOOOOOOOOOO good and now I want someone to make them for me. Bacon gravy??? Seriously. I want some. Great book. Fun idea they had.
This is Carla Laureano at her finest. Anyone who enjoys contemporary romance will fall in love with this book.
It is incredibly well-written. The premise of the story is fun and innovative, the plot moves at a swift pace, the characters are unforgettable, and the romance is heart-stopping. And the dialogue! It’s peppered with such fun and witty banter, like “You’re such a jerk.”
“I know. My mad psychology skills make me incredibly self-aware.” The conversations between the two main characters are so delightful, real and heartfelt. The thought-processes of Alex and Rachel in the book had me either grinning silly or crying profusely throughout the entire story.
Rachel is a gifted chef, strong yet vulnerable, with a painful past. When she loses her job and her restaurant in one swoop due to accidental social frenzy created by Alex, the two meet and Alex is determined to help Rachel. Alex is a talented writer, struggling to get past his sense of failure and writer’s block. Man, Alex is swoon-worthy, for sure. He’s faith-filled, faithful and loyal with a strong moral compass, patient, loving, thoughtful, kind, creative, wickedly funny, witty, and flirty. He pursues Rachel relentlessly and makes her realize that God sees her much like Alex sees her.
There is a strong thread of God’s Sovereignty and our need for His guidance in all parts of our lives. This faith component is seamlessly tied to Alex’s character and poignantly portrayed.
And the food! And the romance! Both are complex, layered with intensity, sweet and so tender to savor. My stomach, taste buds, and heart twisted, turned over, and tumbled over themselves as the food and romance developed. I thoroughly enjoyed Five Days in Skye with Jaime as the celebrity chef, but the food and romance in this book took it up another notch!
To think there is a second installment to the Supper Club Novels! I cannot wait to read about Melody’s story!
I received a copy of this book from the author/publisher and through Celebrate Lit Tour. I was not required to write a favorable review. All comments and opinions are solely my own.
Rachel Bishop has been living her dream. As part owner of one of Denver’s hottest fine dining establishments, Paisley, she has earned the respect of her peers, and won the prestigious James Beard award for her cooking. She’s riding high, until a food critic targets her with a smear campaign. Refusing to stoop to his level, she refuses all interview requests hoping that the furor will blow over. She doesn’t count on being blindsided by an unscrupulous reporter on a night when exhaustion has loosened her tight lips. Her words – taken out of context and scrambled so they’re nearly unrecognizable as being what she said – give her the appearance of being anti-feminist, and make her persona non grata in her own community. When yet another columnist chimes in – even if he’s defending her – the furor blows up, resulting in Rachel’s partners pushing her out of her restaurant.
Essayist Alex Kanin saw a wrong and wanted to right it. He never imagined that his words would go viral, causing a renowned chef to lose her job. Feeling responsible, he contacts her to beg forgiveness. What he finds is a principled woman trying to figure out who she is if she’s not cooking. He’s drawn to her – both her beauty and her spirit, and looks for ways he can help. He agrees to use his contacts to help her establish a new restaurant and offers his home as a venue for what becomes The Saturday Night Supper Club – meals by invitation, that show the breadth of Rachel’s skills, in a venue that encourages friendship.
As Alex and Rachel work together, can they each heal the wounds of their growing up years to see the strength they each gained through their struggles? Can Rachel see that she’s more than just a great chef? Can she find the person she is inside, learning to trust, not only her best friends, but Alex as well?
I learned so much about the cooking scene reading this book. Rachel’s meals sounded like works of art in Ms. Laureano’s hands (although, for this seafood hater, she made entirely too many seafood dishes.) Rachel’s struggle to see God as someone who cared about her and the things that mattered to her was so very true to life. It wasn’t sugarcoated, or made to seem easy in any way. While I cheered Alex on all the way, I understood why Rachel would be as cautious as she was.
Readers who love novels where food often takes center stage will love this story. The romance was gentle, not the insta-love variety often seen today, and the characters had a depth seldom explored. Once started, I can almost guarantee some tears, some drooling (because, the food sounds delish!) and some soul searching. I can hardly wait for Melody’s story, Brunch at the Bittersweet Café!
I loved this book! My favorite thing about it is that the characters are real and the story is believable. They make mistakes and have to learn how to fix them. It’s about a chef who made a flippant comment to a journalist that made her lose her job. She teams up with a guy that started the whole mess for her to start hosting a Saturday Night Supper Club in order to start her own restaurant. I enjoyed the character development, the love story, and the food! A satisfying read.
A delightful book that is different in the restaurant/chef’s story. Well written and nicely unfolded.
Can anyone tell I’m on a Carla Laureano kick? I loved the themes of redemption and gratitude in this book. As life throws the characters in this book curve ball after cataclysm, they all have a chance to decide how to use their time and their talents in new and sometimes scary ways. Rachel is a chef who only wants to train her team and let her food do the talking. When the internet trolls cause her partners to loose faith in her, she gets bought out of the restaurant she invested so much of her life into. The essayist who starts her inadvertent fall from grace is Alex who is suffering from a failed book and writers block. Rachel’s job loss is Alex’s popularity boost. Guilt and instant attraction lead Alex to offer his home and his connections to Rachel to use for a Saturday Night Supper Club: a chance for influential people to meet her for themselves and maybe invest in her next adventure. But as Rachel and Alex circle their attraction, Alex’s sister and Rachel’s besties are all putting their oars in. The sense of community and purpose that Rachel misses most from her restaurant may not be as far as she thinks if she and Alex have the grit to weather the misunderstandings and challenges heading their way. Don’t read this with an empty stomach! I have cravings for all sorts of things that aren’t in my pantry! Happy Reading!
This book has long intrigued me. It was a lighter read and enjoyable in style. I enjoyed the culinary aspects very much!
In some ways it made me think of a Hallmark with the ebb and flow of circumstances and misunderstandings.
Rachel’s backstory… ouch. It hit home because I have known so many over-zealous people who are strict disciplinarians in the name of “Christianity.” It was so sad, yet so true.
The Christian content was a little confusing to me. While the individuals claimed to be Christians and had some good, Christian discussions… I guess it just didn’t penetrate quite so much into their everyday life as they talked about. It was either on or off. So in one sense there was a good message about doing what God created one to do, but… there were also parts where her friends said, “We’re in this with you. Whether you forgive him or don’t,” instead of challenging to do what was right regardless.
I’m not a big romantic, and this one was definitely beyond my personal tastes. There was so much kissing as well as the word “sexy” frequently used for descriptions. They did discuss the topic of purity, which I appreciated. Given the way the romance was, many of my younger reader friends probably would want to wait until they’re older to read it.
This was a new author for me. I loved this book! And I’m not really a foodie but if you are you’d REALLY love this book!!! Very original and well-written!
I wish that there was a Saturday Night Supper Club in my area. I almost felt as if I was actually in the book. A great read
A very believable, complicated story, well told. Realistic as well as inspirational. Not pie-in-the -sky storytelling. So well written!
Wonderful book with with an original premise and delightful characters who face modern challenges and steam up the pages without explicit descriptions. Thank you Ms Laureano. You can’t write them fast enough for me…
A wonderful clean read with realistically flawed characters and delicious food!
This book will make you hungry. It will make you want to get together with your girlfriends to chat and just enjoy each others company. It will also make you dream of fancy dinners on a balcony with a fantastic view of a sunset that seems to have come out from a painting.
Carla Laureano graciously dwelled into sensitive subjects and gently brought up topics currently trending that, as much as they promise justice, in my opinion, are actually drawing a dangerous line between “them and us”. The author discreetly dwelled into this (it may not even have been her intention, but it made me think about this), without naming anything, but just challenging the pillars of life we stand upon about What does it mean to be equal? does finding for space in an easy-to-discriminate-world always means choosing opposite sides or is there a balanced partnership to be found?
Rachel Bishop is a talented award-winning cook. She’s all in when it comes to her job. It takes up her full life and she’s fine living this way. She has found safety in the kitchen since it once sheltered her during a difficult time in her life, and since then she has never looked back, only kept going, kept fighting to grow as a chef. So she has a sense of security in her work that makes her capable of ignoring coarse opinions and confident enough to not have to advertise her personal image too much to attract clients. She knows the quality of her food will keep people coming.
But this supposedly discreet side of her hides an insecurity so deep she might not even be aware of how much it has been keeping her from truly living. Until one day she loses everything and has to rebuild her career, her reputation, and her influence. What she doesn’t expect is that the perfect person to help her do so is talented writer Alex Kanin, whose essay actually got her in trouble in the first place.
Their relationship built slowly but surely. It was endearing and sweet. But, as much as Rachel saw her walls coming down whenever she was around Alex, she still questioned when disappointment would come and she would wake up from this wonderful dream. Still, once you get to truly know yourself and feel a sense of peaceful rightness, you might just see where success authentically stands on, and discover that fallbacks and failure can be dealt with so much grace and hope to allow you to dream again.
I was entranced by this book! There was such a vibrant sense of the setting, the food, and the emotions of the characters. I loved that the author set the location in her hometown and based the restaurants in the book on some of her favorites there. The story starts with such a great conflict, and I was invested from the get-go with how the journey of Rachel and Alex would progress. There is a great balance of backstory and how it affects the present day, and anticipation for what the future holds. I loved the details of what it takes to be successful as a chef and the family-like dynamics of the food industry. The food trucks were my favorite, they seem like such a fun and accessible way of trying new and adventurous food. Rachel’s two friends Ana and Melody provide a strong support for her as she navigates new circumstances in her career and personal life, and I hope the author uses them as main characters in future stories. The themes are deep and the author explores them thoughtfully through her characters, which made it such a rich reading experience and had me thinking about the issues in between reading sessions and how they apply to myself and the world. Highly recommend!!!
(I received a complimentary copy of the book; all opinions in this review are my own)
Consider this your invitation to The Saturday Night Supper Club. No reservation is needed, just a copy of Carla Laureano’s new book and a few hours of your time. In blending her love of literature and food—she has written an ultra-modern romance sure to appeal to both Christian and mainstream audiences.
Laureano’s writing is totally immersive. Readers will enjoy the picturesque beauty of Colorado from Castlewood Canyon State Park to the rooftop view of Alex’s Cheesman Park condo. This same care is taken to describe the prepping, plating, serving and savoring of each dish Rachel prepares.
The women of The Saturday Night Supper Club are fantastic! Single and nearing thirty, these working professionals reflect a growing segment of today’s women. I thoroughly enjoyed the laughter and loyalty shared among these friends. It’s no wonder Rachel leaned so heavily on them after a publicity nightmare cost her her job. Ana and Melody’s support went beyond take-out food and tough love when they arranged a meeting between Rachel and Alex Kanin. In a strange turn of events, the man who unintentionally helped ruin her reputation would become her best hope of cooking again.
As in life, people change and characters should reflect this transformation as well. Those who grow the most are the ones we remember… and I will remember Rachel! From the beginning, her drive to succeed in a male-dominated profession is shown when she won the James Beard Award. Through her conversations with Alex, readers glimpse the hard path she took to owning her first restaurant. In the end, it’s in looking back that Rachel knows how to move forward.
Christian Shelf-Esteem received a book to facilitate this review. The views and opinions expressed are 100% honest and my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255 Guidelines, concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.