The Summer Kitchen

The Summer Kitchen by Karen Weinreb
Fiction/Literature

Nora Banks has the perfect life. She is wealthy and well-liked. Her boys attend a prestigious private school and her eighteenth century house is renovated to immaculate and tasteful perfection. Nora's life is filled with volunteering, driving her boys to school and getting together with the other mothers to gossip.

When Nora opens her door before dawn one morning to find federal agents there to arrest her husband Evan for a white collar crime, she is astounded. She never expected this to happen. All the other mothers snub her. What is she to do?

Nora decides with the help of her nanny Beatriz to go back to work. She starts off by doing a midnight shift in a bakery. Soon she decides to indulge her passion and start baking her own goodies to sell.

Nora is furious with Evan to the point of being barely able to talk to him and take the boys to visit their father in jail. She feels the isolation and finds herself encouraging an affair with her lawyer. The lawyer besides helping her with the legal mess her husband has left her with is also trying to help himself to Nora's house. Nora is also dealing with a mum who is determined to run her out of town and out of business.

I loved this book. It brought back what values are really important in life. Nora finds out eventually what is really important in life: family, love and real friends. Sometimes books have a profound effect on their readers. That is what happened to me as I realized what a deep love my husband and I share. Thanks to Weinreb for making me think about my important things in life and realizing what I truly have and can cherish

First Line: "It was raspberry season in Bedford, New York."

Rating:

(4.0/5)