Effie Olsen's Summer Special

A fun, delicious romcom about a down-on-her-luck chef who returns to her small Maine hometown and rekindles a relationship with an old friend. 

Second-chance romance, culinary culture, and a beautiful seaside setting sweetly combine in Effie Olsen’s Summer Special, a deliciously appetizing romcom by Rochelle Bilow (Ruby Spencer’s Whiskey Year).

 

Broke and without a backup plan, Effie Olsen--a single, 33-year-old, professional chef--loses her “dream job” in San Francisco. She packs up her “knife bag and a few chef’s coats” and returns, after 16-years, to her “absurdly small, insufferably chatty” hometown of Adler Isle, Maine. Effie takes refuge under the pretext of a summer visit with her father and her younger sister, a “Generation Z financial prodigy.”

 

Effie’s return reunites her with Ernie Callahan, her still-single, former high school BFF. Ernie works as a chef at “Brown Butter,” a “farm to table… Michelin-starred restaurant” operated by a sexist male head chef who offers Effie a job. With Effie and Ernie working under the same roof, the two easily fall into favor and rekindle a “bucket list” of planned field trips of watching sunsets, indulging in giant lobster rolls, and even salsa dancing.  Along the way of their making fun, new memories, a situation arises at the restaurant that calls professional integrity into question—might the dilemma impinge upon the old friends turning into lovers?

 

Bilow’s insider knowledge of the restaurant industry is a key ingredient that adds depth and authenticity to this spicy, richly satisfying story that blends the pleasures of true love with elements of self-discovery.

 

Effie Olsen’s Summer Special by Rochelle Bilow

Berkley, 18.00 paperback, 9780593547908, 384 pages

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (May 2, 2024), link HERE 

The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County

A tenderly drawn, multi-generational novel about the bonds of family, food, faith, and the rallying sustenance of small-town communities.

 

In The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County, Claire Swinarski debuts her first adult novel, a poignantly refreshing story centered on the bonds of family, food, faith, and small-town communities.

 

At the helm is Esther Larson, a warm, 82-year-old, Wisconsin widow—a mother and grandmother. Esther and a group of local women, ‘The Funeral Ladies,’ have shared a bond for decades, providing luncheons for the bereaved in the basement of St. Anne’s Catholic Church. When the ‘funeral ladies’ learn that Esther’s been conned out of $30,000, they--along with Esther’s family--devise a plan to write a local cookbook. Can they raise enough funds to save Esther’s home?

 

Along the way, a pie Esther serves at a funeral arranged by celebrity chef, Ivan Welsh-- his wife dies in a tragic car accident--wows him enough to take notice. After Ivan and his Chicago-based adult stepson, Cooper, and Cricket, the 13-year-old daughter Ivan shared with his deceased wife, visit the town for the burial services, they decide to stay on. They rent an Airbnb from Esther’s adult granddaughter, Iris, who falls romantically for Cooper, a former paramedic who now works “flipping pancakes” at the local diner. Cooper harbors a secret that impinges upon his life—might it affect Irises’ life, as well?

 

Serious themes--underscored by tenets of love, acceptance, and forgiveness--are compassionately threaded through Swinarski’s (What Happened to Rachel Riley?) tenderly drawn story that will hold multi-generational appeal.

 

The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County by Claire Swinarski

Avon Books (Harper Collins), $30.00 hardcover, 9780063319875, 272 pages

Publishing Date: March 12, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (March 12, 2024), link HERE