Already Home-Susan Mallery

Already Home
Susan Mallery
Mira, Mar 29 2011, $14.95
ISBN: 9780778329510

With her marriage to chef Aaron in ruins due to his cheating and her self-esteem in the sewer, sous chef Jenna Stevens leaves Los Angeles and returns home to Texas. When Jenna sees a to rent sign near her parent’s home where she is staying, she decides to open a cooking store. She immediately hires Violet to work at the store.

Like Jenna, trying to move on to is Violet. She and Jenna make a terrific team at the store and as friends. Violet also is welcomed by Jenna’s mother, Beth who worries about her daughter succeeding with a store as Jenna has no experience running a shop. However, just after the store opens, her biological parents Atomic and Serenity arrive hoping to bond with their daughter; confusing Jenna and upsetting her mom.

The extended family females (to include Violet and Jenna’s high school friends) are fully developed characters with fears, flaws and diverse personalities. On the other hand the men in their lives lack that same level of intensity as they each come across as one dimensional in support of the prime woman in their life. Still readers will enjoy Susan Mallery’s warm contemporary tale as jittery Jenna finds her groove.

Harriet Klausner