Review: Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Publisher: Legend Press

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My Thoughts:

I'm delighted to continue working with this incredible publisher, and they kindly sent me this for review (released in February 2020) I hadn't come across the author before, but the premise seemed quirky and amusing, so I accepted.

I wasn't disappointed.

I mainly was drawn to the culinary theme within the story, a cookbook binding together a historical time frame with a modern day one. I wasn't sure what to expect but as soon as I began reading I was hooked on the lives of these two women.

Nellie (the '50s housewife) is green fingered, loves to create culinary masterpieces for friends and a husband that we soon come to realise isn't what he seems. I loved the side characters within this narrative, and how Nellie conducts herself outside of the home was charming and endearing.

Alice is our present day narrator, and while I enjoyed her story, I sometimes found her viewpoint less likeable, which is I think was intended. The chapters back and forth between the two, beginning with either recipes from the cookbook or quotes from old fashioned texts setting marriage as less than equal, gave the novel an unusual, humorous feeling while sometimes bleak. I must admit I loved the reveal at the end and how it made you look back over the story with a glint in your eye.

I'll always enjoy books based around food, whether it be home baking, cafes or restaurants, and this is something within that context that I don't feel I've come across before. I have already passed it to my mum to read and she loved it, so I feel I want to keep shouting about it as it's a great book that I think would make a unique addition to your bookshelf or book club list.

Thanks again to Legend Press for sending me a copy for review, if you've yet to find them as a publisher, you have so many options of amazing books. Click here for more information.