THE GLASS KITCHEN by Linda Francis Lee is a fabulous story
to get lost
in. It is a story of contemporary romance with a great deal
of magic thrown
in. Portia has recently lost her beloved grandmother and
just went through
a horrible divorce. Her ex husband Richard, starts an
affair with her best
friend, gets her pregnant and then divorces Portia. She is
drowning in
grief, and decides to go to New York City to join her
sisters Cordelia and
Olivia in Manhattan. She is going to start a new life so
she leaves her
childhood home in Texas with only two suitcases and her
grandmother's
Glass Kitchen cookbooks.
Not soon after arriving in NYC, she meets Gabriel Kane, a
widowed father
raising his two daughters, or maybe I should say, trying to
raise. He owns
the upper floors of the brown stone Portia lives in. She is
instantly attracted
to him as he is to her, but neither of them acts on it.
Portia has "The
Knowing", a gift she has had since she was a very young
girl. When she
moves to NYC she is determined not to use it, but life has a
funny way of
not doing what you want it to. She and her sisters want to
open their own
version of The Glass Kitchen in Manhattan, but Gabriel tries
to talk her out
of it. When Portia learns that Gabriel thinks she is crazy
and he doesn't
believe in her, her world crumbles. All the while, Portia is
developing
feelings for his daughters, Ariel and Miranda. They are
really missing their
mother and Gabriel is refusing to talk to them about her.
It's almost like he
wants them to forget. Portia knows this is wrong and tries
to help the girls
see that their dad is grieving too.
I fell in love with THE GLASS KITCHEN from the very first
page. Linda Francis Les
has a way of pulling you in to the characters lives and
making you feel like
you've known them all along. My heart was breaking for
Miranda and Ariel.
They missed their mother so much and she had only been gone
a year,
and no one would talk to them about her. They didn't want
to forget her
which is what their father seemed to be trying to do. This
story is filled with
secrets and I love how Portia wakes up, runs to the kitchen
and starts
cooking and baking up a storm, not knowing right away why
she is doing
any of it. The midnight visits that Gabriel makes to Portia
down the fire
escape really add much spice to the story. As an added
bonus, there are
recipes at the end of the story and who doesn't love new
recipes? I
thoroughly enjoyed THE GLASS KITCHEN and can't wait to read
more by
Linda Francis Lee!
With the glass kitchen, Linda Francis Lee has served up a
novel that is about the courage it takes to follow your
heart and be yourself. A true recipe for life.
Portia Cuthcart never intended to leave Texas. Her dream was
to run the Glass Kitchen restaurant her grandmother built
decades ago. But after a string of betrayals and the loss of
her legacy, Portia is determined to start a new life with
her sisters in Manhattan . . . and never cook again. But
when she moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper
West Side, she meets twelve-year-old Ariel and her widowed
father Gabriel, a man with his hands full trying to raise
two daughters on his own.
Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into
a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she
must confront everything she has been running from. What
seems so simple on the surface is anything but when
long-held secrets are revealed, rivalries exposed, and the
promise of new love stirs to life like chocolate mixing with
cream.
The Glass Kitchen is a delicious novel, a tempestuous story
of a woman washed up on the shores of Manhattan who
discovers that a kitchen—like an island—can be a refuge, if
only she has the courage to give in to the pull of love, the
power of forgiveness, and accept the complications of what
it means to be family.