Book Review and Giveaway: The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry

I missed this book when it came out in hardback, so I was quite happy to review the paperback copy, that is being released on the 20th! For those that did, the cover has changed (I liks it better myself), but it's the same book!

Synopsis: After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.

A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

About the Author: Jael McHenry is a talented and enthusiastic amateur cook who grew up in Michigan and Iowa before moving from city to city along the East Coast: Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and now New York, where she blogs about food and cooking at the Simmer blog, http://simmerblog.com. She is a monthly pop culture columnist and Editor-in-Chief of Intrepid Media, online at intrepidmedia.com. As a tidbit of info: in her senior year at Tufts University she appeared as a semi-finalist on the "Jeopardy!" College Championship, where she made a killing in consolation prizes. LOL. 

Review: This is the author's first novel, and I think her time blogging paid off handsomely! If you have siblings there will be alot in this novel you will be able to relate to- perceived parent favortism, sibling protection, and sibling bickering, to name a few. The mix of recipes (included in the chapters), helps to move the book, as they set the stage in ways that sometimes words can not. Southerns know this language, it's why food is such a key part in our family traditions and customs.

The dialogue in the book makes up for any story structure faults(there are just a few), and the story of discovery that emerges gives us hope, and understanding that while they may not be to our liking, facing fears is really a way of letting go of the past and breaking free to be ourselves. This was an enjoyable book and it would be a great gift idea, packages with the ingredients for any of the wonderful recipes in the book! It would be a thoughtful hostess gift for example! I highly recommend it as a great winter read!

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Disclosure / Disclaimer: I was sent this book, for review purposes, free of charge, from Gallery Books. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post it about either.