Like a slice of a favorite dessert, thoroughly enjoyable, but gone too soon.
Two peculiar loners bond over the culinary arts in this debut novel.
Fresh out of L’Ecole Gastronomique, the enthusiastic and frizzy-haired Alexandra “Lexie” Haynes scores a coveted gig as a private chef at Frederick House, an isolated, country estate. The catch? Her client, John Frederick, is…particular. A man of ample proportions, he rarely leaves his bedroom, communicates via handwritten notes, and owns every volume of Bon Appétit dating back to 1955. It’s a precarious employment, to say the least. Despite a mishap that nearly gets Lexie fired, a common love of food leads the two eccentrics to forge a tentative friendship. Soon, John Frederick feels brave enough to venture into the kitchen and meet Lexie face to face (“Lexie will be making breakfast. It doesn’t matter that she has cooked breakfast every day for the past few months. Last night, he decided that this would be the first morning he would join her to eat”). But Caleb Mayfield, John Frederick’s business manager and Lexie’s could-be beau, threatens to disrupt the almost-happy home. It’s a jolly, lighthearted narrative, JoJo Moyes’ Me Before You (2012) for foodies. Gastronomic references are sprinkled throughout the prose— Lexie’s eyes are the color of “blueberry sorbet mixed with cream,” and a dashed hope is a soufflé that has collapsed. Novak is kind to her characters, poking gentle fun at their childlike qualities. Accident-prone and insecure, Lexie is an “inveterate talker to walls, trees, and other objects,” whose interactions with other people are punctuated by vivid daydreams. John Frederick’s devotion to filling his stomach is superseded only by his difficulty with coping with change, which is put to the test when medical issues force him to alter his diet. Though it could be mistaken for lazy development, the characters’ simplicity remains endearing. There is also handsome Caleb. Though an effective plot device, John Frederick’s jealousy over Caleb’s acquaintance with Lexie is a stretch, given the brevity of the two’s interactions. Between the straightforward characters and short chapters (at 134 pages, it’s a speedy read), the novel is sometimes reminiscent of a children’s book. An absolutely lovely work, but it’s more appetizer than hearty main dish.
Like a slice of a favorite dessert, thoroughly enjoyable, but gone too soon.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63152-103-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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