The City Baker's Guide to Country Living ~ Louise Miller (Pub. Date 8/9/2016)

Miller, Louise. 2016. The City Baker's Guide to Country Living. New York, NY:  PRH/Viking/Pamela Dorman Books. ISBN: 978-1101981207.  $26.00 USD.

What a joy and pleasure it has been to read Louise Miller’s debut, The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living, especially since I was laid up recovering from knee surgery!  From the opening scene involving a flying, flaming Baked Alaska to the last walk through the Vermont woods, this novel kept me entertained, moved, and eager to enjoy every last “crumb,” so lovingly written and shared by the author.

Olivia Rawlings, a talented pastry chef with a penchant for crazy hair color, causes a disaster by dropping her Pistachio Baked Alaska in front of an elite crowd at the Boston Emerson Club where she works, including her married lover, no less. Fleeing the scene, she lands in Guthrie, Vermont, home to her best friend Hannah, who is married and expecting.  She is offered a temporary job at the nearby Sugar Maple Inn making desserts and, though missing being in a large city where she has always lived, she gradually comes to find life in the country more satisfying than anything she has ever known.  With a cast of quirky characters, a realistic examination of small town life, some surprising secrets, and a slow and sweet romance, this novel reveals how a lonely, banjo playing chef learns a lot about herself in the year she spends in Guthrie, and what it means to call a place “home.”A nice respite, in more ways than one, from the literary thrillers I've been reading lately!