Wednesday, August 1, 2012

...in books


Review
Friendship Bread
by Darien Gee

The author:
Darien Gee is an author, wife, and mother of three. She’s a Libra Monkey, a chocoholic, and of late, an Amish Friendship Bread addict. A former California resident, Darien served on the board of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and ZYZZYVA, an award-winning literary journal. She’s an alum of Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her next Avalon novel, Memory Keeping, will be published in 2013 by Ballantine Books.





First sentences:
Leon adjusted the 25mm Plossl eyepiece and swings his scope towards the heavens.

Summary:
One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.
Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.
When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.
In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.
About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.
source: Goodreads

My opinion:
Friendship Bread tells the wonderful story of the people of Avalon, a small American town. Each and every one of the town’s inhabitants has their fair share of personal problems or tragedies and in the course of the book those get revealed and dealt with.
The story starts with Julia finding some slices of Amish Friendship Bread and a bag of starter on her doorstep and to please her little daughter she agrees to bake bread in 10 days time. In basically no time at all, the whole town is baking Amish Friendship Bread due to the fact that one bag of starter produces two loaves of bread and three new bags of starters which you are supposed to give to friends.
The book has over 400 pages but I just flew through them in a few days. The story is wonderfully told and just grabs you. The characters are lovely and you can identify with them all during the story and the desire to start baking – preferably Amish Friendship Bread – is huge.

Friendship Bread is available at Amazon in paperback and for your Kindle too. You can also buy it at Book Depo.

For more information about Darien visit her homepage or her Facebook and Twitter pages.

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