The Sweet Taste of Muscadines

The Sweet Taste of Muscadines
Author: Pamela Terry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593158466

A woman returns to her small southern hometown in the wake of her mother’s sudden death—only to find the past upended by stunning family secrets—in this intimate debut novel, written with deep compassion and sharp wit. “A deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Where the Crawdads Sing . . . a story to remember long after the last page is turned.”—Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. Yet despite their independence, Lila and Henry know deep down that they’ve never quite reckoned with their upbringing. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover the facts about Geneva’s death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family’s history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines reminds us all that true love never dies.

Room and Board

Room and Board
Author: Miriam Parker
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-08-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1524744506

A charming and redemptive novel about unexpected second chances, following a publicist who, after the sudden implosion of her career, takes a job as a dorm mom at a Sonoma boarding school that happens to be her alma mater Gillian thought she had everything she ever wanted—as a successful publicist running her own Manhattan firm and working with a high-profile-celebrity clientele, she finally made herself at home among the elite who eluded her throughout her youth. That is, until her career implodes, leaving her jobless, friendless, and with a googleable reputation that follows her everywhere. So, when she receives an offer to become a “dorm mom” at Glen Ellen Academy, the prestigious Sonoma boarding school she attended two decades earlier on scholarship, she leaps at the opportunity for a change of scene—at least until she can figure out how to rehabilitate her career. But Gillian is surprised to find herself enjoying her new life: her role as a mentor is unexpectedly fulfilling, she finds a community, and most surprisingly of all she runs into an old flame from her own time at school, who is just as dashing now as he was then. However, just as she begins to feel comfortable, a scandal surfaces on campus that threatens to derail everything, and Gillian must figure out how to save her job, her students, her friends, and her new romance before it’s too late.

This Will Make It Taste Good

This Will Make It Taste Good
Author: Vivian Howard
Publisher: Voracious
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 031638111X

An Eater Best Cookbook of Fall 2020 From caramelized onions to fruit preserves, make home cooking quick and easy with ten simple "kitchen heroes" in these 125 recipes from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Deep Run Roots. “I wrote this book to inspire you, and I promise it will change the way you cook, the way you think about what’s in your fridge, the way you see yourself in an apron.” Vivian Howard’s first cookbook chronicling the food of Eastern North Carolina, Deep Run Roots, was named one of the best of the year by 18 national publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, Bon Appetit, and Eater, and won an unprecedented four IACP awards, including Cookbook of the Year. Now, Vivian returns with an essential work of home-cooking genius that makes simple food exciting and accessible, no matter your skill level in the kitchen. ​ Each chapter of This Will Make It Taste Good is built on a flavor hero—a simple but powerful recipe like her briny green sauce, spiced nuts, fruit preserves, deeply caramelized onions, and spicy pickled tomatoes. Like a belt that lends you a waist when you’re feeling baggy, these flavor heroes brighten, deepen, and define your food. Many of these recipes are kitchen crutches, dead-easy, super-quick meals to lean on when you’re limping toward dinner. There are also kitchen projects, adventures to bring some more joy into your life. Vivian’s mission is not to protect you from time in your kitchen, but to help you make the most of the time you’ve got. Nothing is complicated, and more than half the dishes are vegetarian, gluten-free, or both. These recipes use ingredients that are easy to find, keep around, and cook with—lots of chicken, prepared in a bevy of ways to keep it interesting, and common vegetables like broccoli, kale, squash, and sweet potatoes that look good no matter where you shop. And because food is the language Vivian uses to talk about her life, that’s what these recipes do, next to stories that offer a glimpse at the people, challenges, and lessons learned that stock the pantry of her life.

A Crowded Marriage

A Crowded Marriage
Author: Catherine Alliott
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1402253206

Praise for Catherine Alliott "Possibly my favorite writer."—Marian Keyes "Compulsively readable and highly entertaining."—Times "A joy...you're in for a treat."—Daily Express "Hilarious and full of surprises."—Daily Telegraph 'Til death do us part jut might cause you to wring someone's neck... Imogen Cameron can't quite figure out how she and her husband, Alex, have plummeted from living in their beloved London townhouse to scraping by in his exgirlfriend's guest cottage. But although the scenic pastures might inspire her flagging artistic career, and getting out of the city might do their son good, Imogen wonders if all the country air in the world could calm the crowds that are invading her marriage. There's a gaggle of psychotic chickens, an infuriatingly bossy vet, that oh-so-sweet ex-girlfriend—and the feeling that her husband is preoccupied with more than just his job. International bestselling author Catherine Alliott delivers an "intelligent, acutely drawn picture of a difficult marriage" (Daily Telegraph), crafting a witty, sophisticated, and poignant exploration of relationships and family.

The Sisters Sweet

The Sisters Sweet
Author: Elizabeth Weiss
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1984801562

A young woman in a vaudeville sister act must learn to forge her own path after her twin runs away to Hollywood in this “elegant, immersive . . . exploration of sisterhood, identity, ambition and betrayal” (The New York Times). “A beautifully told coming-of-age story that embraces life with a galloping energy and irresistible curiosity.”—Maggie Shipstead, bestselling author of Great Circle Leaving was my sister’s choice. I would have to make my own. All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her sister, Josie. As “The Sisters Sweet,” they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious parents, who were once themselves theatrical stars. But after Josie exposes the family’s fraud and runs away to Hollywood, Harriet must learn to live out of the spotlight—and her sister’s shadow. As Josie’s star rises in California, the Szászes fall on hard times. Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, Harriet molds herself into the perfect daughter. She also tentatively forms her first relationships outside her family and begins to imagine a life for herself beyond the role of dutiful daughter that she has played for so long. Finally, Harriet must decide whether to honor her mother, her father, or the self she’s only beginning to get to know. Full of long-simmering tensions, buried secrets, questionable saviors, and broken promises, this is a story about how much we are beholden to others and what we owe ourselves. Layered and intimate, The Sisters Sweet heralds the arrival of an accomplished new voice in fiction.

Lost Roses

Lost Roses
Author: Martha Hall Kelly
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1524796387

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The million-copy bestseller Lilac Girls introduced the real-life heroine Caroline Ferriday. Now Lost Roses, set a generation earlier and also inspired by true events, features Caroline’s mother, Eliza, and follows three equally indomitable women from St. Petersburg to Paris under the shadow of World War I. “Not only a brilliant historical tale, but a love song to all the ways our friendships carry us through the worst of times.”—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often, many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia: the church with the interior covered in jeweled mosaics, the Rembrandts at the tsar’s Winter Palace, the famous ballet. But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia’s imperial dynasty begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire the local fortune-teller’s daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing intense danger into their household. On the other side of the Atlantic, Eliza is doing her part to help the White Russian families find safety as they escape the revolution. But when Sofya’s letters suddenly stop coming, she fears the worst for her best friend. From the turbulent streets of St. Petersburg and aristocratic countryside estates to the avenues of Paris where a society of fallen Russian émigrés live to the mansions of Long Island, the lives of Eliza, Sofya, and Varinka will intersect in profound ways. In her newest powerful tale told through female-driven perspectives, Martha Hall Kelly celebrates the unbreakable bonds of women’s friendship, especially during the darkest days of history.

The Kitchen Front

The Kitchen Front
Author: Jennifer Ryan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593158822

From the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes an unforgettable novel of a BBC-sponsored wartime cooking competition and the four women who enter for a chance to better their lives. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • “This story had me so hooked, I literally couldn’t put it down.”—NPR Two years into World War II, Britain is feeling her losses: The Nazis have won battles, the Blitz has destroyed cities, and U-boats have cut off the supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio program called The Kitchen Front is holding a cooking contest—and the grand prize is a job as the program’s first-ever female co-host. For four very different women, winning the competition would present a crucial chance to change their lives. For a young widow, it’s a chance to pay off her husband’s debts and keep a roof over her children’s heads. For a kitchen maid, it’s a chance to leave servitude and find freedom. For a lady of the manor, it’s a chance to escape her wealthy husband’s increasingly hostile behavior. And for a trained chef, it’s a chance to challenge the men at the top of her profession. These four women are giving the competition their all—even if that sometimes means bending the rules. But with so much at stake, will the contest that aims to bring the community together only serve to break it apart?

Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer

Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer
Author: Matthew Raiford
Publisher: The Countryman Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1682686051

More than 100 heirloom recipes from a dynamic chef and farmer working the lands of his great-great-great grandfather. From Hot Buttermilk Biscuits and Sweet Potato Pie to Salmon Cakes on Pepper Rice and Gullah Fish Stew, Gullah Geechee food is an essential cuisine of American history. It is the culinary representation of the ocean, rivers, and rich fertile loam in and around the coastal South. From the Carolinas to Georgia and Florida, this is where descendants of enslaved Africans came together to make extraordinary food, speaking the African Creole language called Gullah Geechee. In this groundbreaking and beautiful cookbook, Matthew Raiford pays homage to this cuisine that nurtured his family for seven generations. In 2010, Raiford’s Nana handed over the deed to the family farm to him and his sister, and Raiford rose to the occasion, nurturing the farm that his great-great-great grandfather, a freed slave, purchased in 1874. In this collection of heritage and updated recipes, he traces a history of community and family brought together by food.

Time Windows

Time Windows
Author: Kathryn Reiss
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2000
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780152023997

In this story that is reminiscent of "Indian in the Cupboard", a girl named Miranda must unlock the past before her family falls under a terrifying spell.

Lizzie & Dante

Lizzie & Dante
Author: Mary Bly
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593134842

The insightful, audacious, and deeply romantic story of a woman whose life turns upside down after she meets an enigmatic chef on vacation in Italy, from a New York Times bestselling author “Delicious.”—People • “Smart, sexy and funny, full of joy in simple pleasures.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune What if falling in love means breaking someone’s heart? On the heels of a difficult break-up and a devastating diagnosis, Shakespeare scholar Lizzie Delford decides to take one last lavish vacation on Elba, the sun-kissed island off the Italian coast, with her best friend and his movie-star boyfriend. Once settled into a luxurious seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time. She leaves the yacht owners and celebrities behind and sneaks off to the public beach, where she meets a sardonic chef named Dante, his battered dog, Lulu, and his wry daughter, Etta, a twelve-year-old desperate for a mother. While Dante shows Lizzie the island’s secrets, and Etta dazzles with her irreverent humor, Lizzie is confronted with a dilemma. Is it right to fall in love if time is short? Is it better to find a mother briefly, or to have no mother at all? And most pressingly, are the delicacies of life worth tasting, even if you will get to savor them only for a short while? A luscious story of love, courage, and Italian wine, Lizzie & Dante demands to know how far we should travel to find a future worth fighting for.