EFR REVIEWS

  KEY TO LOVE The only thing Bri Duval loves more than baking petit fours is romance. So much so, she's created her own version of the famous Parisian lovelock wall at her bakery in Story, Kansas. She never expects it to go viral--or for  Trek Magazine  to send travel writer Gerard Fortier to feature the bakery. He's definitely handsome, but Bri has been holding out for a love story like the one her parents had, and that certainly will not include the love-scorned-and-therefore-love-scorning Gerard.  Just when it seems Bri's bakery is poised for unprecedented success, a series of events threaten not just her business but the pedestal she's kept her parents on all these years. Maybe Gerard is right about romance. Or maybe Bri's recipe just needs to be tweaked.  Novelist Betsy St. Amant invites you to experience this sweet story of how love doesn't always look the way we expect--and maybe that's a good thing. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Baker Bri Duvall has a job she loves, wor...

TASTE OF APPLE SEEDS When Iris unexpectedly inherits her grandmother's house in the country, she also inherits the painful memories that live there. Iris gives herself a one-week stay at the old house, after which she'll make a decision: keep it, or sell it. The choice is not so simple, though, for her grandmother's cottage is an enchanting place where currant jam tastes of tears, sparks fly from fingertips, love's embrace makes apple trees blossom, and the darkest family secrets never stay buried, but instead pulsate in the house's nooks and shadows. As Iris moves in and out of the flicker between remembrance and forgetting, she chances upon a forgotten childhood friend who could become more. ★ ★ ★1/2 Iris is informed she's been left the family home in Bootshaven, Germany, after the death of her grandmother, Bertha. Iris decides to give herself one week to live in the house and decide whether to keep or sell the place. Not an easy decision for ou...

This is a memoir of sorts written by blogger Julie Powell, who at the time of writing, was working as a secretary for a 9/11 government agency in New York City. She makes it clear in the book that she is limited about how much she can talk about her employer, as far as specifics, but that much she does divulge. She's not all that satisfied with her job (who hasn't been there!), lamenting her dissatisfaction to her husband. She goes on about the grief of turning 30 and wondering where her life's going, trying to figure out what her real goals in life are. His response is an idea to take her love of cooking and Julia Child and make a blog out of it. Julie then runs with the idea and decides to start a year-long project in which she cooks her way through all the recipes in Child's  Mastering The Art Of French Cooking , blogging about her results. The book turns out to be more about what Julie learns about herself in the process than the recipes themselves, which is ofte...