Friday, October 29, 2010

How to Bake a Perfect Life-Barbara O'Neal

How to Bake a Perfect Life
Barbara O'Neal
Bantam, Dec 21 2010, $15.00
ISBN 9780553386776

In Colorado Springs, forty years old Ramona Gallagher loves her bakery, which brings her joy that very little else does in her life. Her other love is for her daughter Sofia who she had as a single teen.

When Sofia’s husband is injured in Afghanistan, he is sent to Germany for medical care. Sofia flies to Europe to be with him. However, before leaving Colorado, she asks her mother to watch her stepdaughter thirteen year old Katie as the teen’s mother is in jail on a drug charge. That summer Ramona and Katie bond, which encourages the bakery owner to reconcile with her somewhat estranged family and to take a chance on love with a man she was seeing when they were teens.

Although bonding between the “bread” generations has been done before, Barbara O’Neal bakes a fresh tale as in many ways it is the teen who teaches the adult what matters in life. Character driven mostly by Ramona but cleverly enhanced by Katie, fans will enjoy this terrific contemporary extended family drama, as the young “grandmother” discovers The Lost Recipe for Happiness.

Harriet Klausner

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