THE SECRET OF ORANGE BLOSSOM CAKE by Rachel Linden is women's fiction with a little bit of magic, a lot of family healing, second chance romance, and delectable food descriptions all set in gorgeous Northern Italy. Juliana Costa is ready for her life to take off with a growing internet following and a contract for a cookbook. She works as a crew member at Trader Joe's, but her passion is cooking. She loves her kitschy Instagram show that she co-hosts with her roommate, Drew. Jules dresses in retro fashion to highlight vintage recipes while Drew records and occasionally dances on screen. When a meeting with a Hollywood producer dashes her dreams and her cookbook editor throws her a curveball by asking for more personal recipes, the phone call from her mother asking to take her teenage half-sister to the family olive farm in Italy is the last straw. Jules hasn’t been to Italy since her father’s sudden death turned her life inside out, but she decides the trip could be the answer to finishing her cookbook on time.
Jules awakens buried memories of her family recipes by cooking with her Nonna, getting to know her sister, and reconnecting with her childhood crush, Nico, who lives with his grandmother at the farm next door. Along with the budding romance, the plot thickens with a long-held feud between the grandmothers and a magical family recipe book. Loved this fast-paced, feel-good read.
A magical cookbook and a summer on her family’s Italian olive farm help a brokenhearted social media chef cook up a satisfying new life in this delectable novel from the bestselling author of Recipe for a Charmed Life.
Rising star Jules Costa loves re-creating vintage recipes for her popular online cooking show. But when personal and professional disaster strikes, her only chance to save her career is to complete her new cookbook before the end of the summer. Panicked, Jules returns to her family’s beloved olive farm on the shores of Italy’s stunning Lake Garda. Seeking culinary inspiration, she’s hoping to convince her spunky eighty-year-old Nonna Bruna to share her precious collection of family recipes.
Jules’s plans quickly go awry as she discovers that Nonna’s cookbook has magical and unpredictable powers. It reveals only one recipe at a time, offering a cooking experience guaranteed to satisfy the chef’s palate and bring clarity to their life. Yet the pages remain stubbornly blank for Jules. To make matters worse, the olive farm is in deep financial trouble, and Jules soon uncovers a web of family secrets involving the cookbook and a lost recipe for orange blossom cake that holds the key to everything. Then there’s Nicolo, the boy next door, who broke her young heart years ago. He is now all grown up, even more attractive, and the only person poised to help Jules find answers.
In a whirlwind summer beyond her imagination, Jules begins to unravel the mysteries baked into her family’s history and discovers the essential ingredients to create the future of her dreams.
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