This book is the love stories of three women who work in a bakery in Paris. Each chapter ends with a recipe for an indulgent French pastry mentioned in the chapter. Conceptually, I loved the idea of a story involving food where I actually get the recipes to use myself.
Thirty French pastry recipes are included in the book such as croque en bouche, pear tarte tatin, and crepes mille. The recipe instructions are quite detailed making it feasible for anyone with even a little bit of baking experience to recreate these often fancy pastries. Honestly, I can't wait to try out some of these recipes myself.
The ladies' love stories, however, are not as successful in my opinion. I am not turned off by the author's use of foul language or candid descriptions of sexual encounters. All of the characters are "modern" women, so the adult language and behavior is appropriate for the characters. The actual love stories only occur in the last few chapters leaving them to feel rushed and somewhat unrealistic for characters two of three are up until this point skeptical of romantic relationships. The author spends 27 chapters telling the backstories of the characters only to have the main characters meet and find love in just the last 3 chapters. To me, the most realistic love story is of the old man who is a regular customer at the bakery. Multiple love at first sight love affairs in one story feels way too hokey for my liking as well.
There are also a few fantastical elements in the novella that seem out of place in the story such as the mechanism for how a rival bakery take hold of the city for multiple days that seem quite out of place in a story so grounded in a realistic world.
So, for me, I found it worked well as a small cookbook, but not as much as a love story.
This ebook is available for purchase on Amazon here.
I received this product for free in exchange for a review, but all opinions are honest, genuine, and my own.
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