The Secret Ingredient is just the most beautiful story filled with grace and kindness. It’s about friendship, loss and the coming together of people through companionship and recipes from their pasts. It’s about heartbreaking pain and how with the help of others even though there is darkness, you can get to the light. In more ways than one.
Kate Shaw’s life changed in the blink of an eye. Now, three years later, with the grief and guilt still overwhelming her, she decides to quit her job as a teacher and do something else. Not sure what, she just knows she as to do something to stop her life from spiraling out of control. Not very close to her mother, she carries her burdens alone. In the dark. With no comfort.
But that suddenly changes when an elderly man named Charles knocks on her door. He tells her the story of how her home use to be a bakery of sorts with tea and he and his wife Mary used to go there. He tells her his wife is ill and the one thing he thinks will help her are the scones which came from this bakery. Now, Kate not only does not cook, although her grandmother did and she still has her recipe book, but the thought of any kind of cooking breaks her heart.
But Charles convinces Kate that Mary would so much appreciate the scones that she could help her make them. In the meantime, as Kate is looking around her neighborhood, which while working she really never did, or never wanted to do, she meets another person, Della who loves to garden. Della offers to help Kate with her gardens which have been neglected. In return, Kate invites her to the tea to try the scones. Della is divorced and lonely, but her dog is everything to her. Of course, she jumps at the chance. Then there is Jack, who himself was a famous restaurant owner/chef who gave everything up. You see, Jack has lost his mojo and by mojo, his sense of taste. Without that, he has nothing. Or so he thinks.
And those my friends are the wonderfully charming characters you will learn to love and care about, even if you say you won’t. It’s about opening up about fears, pasts, guilts and losses. It’s about a group of unknowns who meet and through the love of eating, cooking and memories begin to bond and grow in strength separately and together. My friends, it’s about love.
Each person brings something to the table as they not only share meals but share themselves with the others. Every person has their own special secret ingredient in life. Sometimes if your very lucky you will find others whose ingredients will combine with yours and you will find true happiness in your life too.
Thank you #NetGalley #OneMoreChapter #SueHeath #TheSecretIngredient for the advanced copy.
Lisa's Cubby 