August 2022
About:
Things are getting slippery for Stella. With her husband away she’s juggling a full-time job, a tricky stepdaughter and a relentless four-year-old – all while trying to find her footing in her spouse’s shiny world. Joining the throng of local mothers, she reluctantly hires an au pair in the hope that it will lighten the load.
Stella’s mother-in-law, Elise, thinks this is a rotten idea. An industrial chemist and staunch feminist, she finds the ethical murkiness surrounding the au pair solution difficult to swallow. But she’s promised her son not to meddle, has her own career battles to slay and ghosts of her own past to contend with.
For Ava, life in Sydney as an au pair could help fill the void left by the loss of her mother. With her family recipes in her hand and hope in her heart, she sets off to reinvent herself in a place far away.
Three women, drawn together by impossible circumstances, will discover that the greatest comfort can often be found in the mess.
Perfect for fans of Meg Mason and Sally Hepworth; a powerful and heart-rending story about how food connects us and assumptions divide us – and how true family can come from where you least expect it.
Review:
First time reading this author thanks to netgalley.
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I wasn’t totally sure what i was reading. I struggled to remember characters between pick and put down. The chapters relate to a different food which was a bit unexpected but it’s not a cookbook you don’t get the full ingredient list or method, well actually you do at the end.
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It’s a story that took me a good few chapters to get into and it also took me a while to work out who was who.
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It’s a book about life, the struggle is real when you have children, whether you have full glasses of champagne and diamonds dripping like Brie Jones or find yourself with a dwindling bank account searching for cut price groceries like Stella Prentice. Sunshine and sea views can still hide mountain sized problems that we all face, just some of us don’t have the view.
This book is a journey traversing through teens, stepmothers, toddlers and kindly age children bound together by wisdom and food lovingly made by the unseen hands of Ava’s mother.
The final question though should be….does Stella really think 2020 will be any better!
