Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

susan may warren

Feast your mind on these 5 tasty books

By the time you read this, I will have spent a couple of days preparing food and cooking food and eating food. You, too? Marriage to my husband turned me into a foodie. I’m not sorry, except when my grocery budget takes a hit or my kitchen ends up in disaster mode because of my experiments with new recipes.

My other favorite thing to do is read, and if I can do both at the same time, I do. (While waiting for water to boil or a soup to simmer, I’ll often stand near the stove with a book or Kindle in hand to pass the time.) And lately, I’ve read some really great stories that focus on food or cooking or baking, so I can enjoy a novel and be inspired to cook at the same time!

So, if you’re at the point of the weekend where you can kick back and stop cooking or baking (and you love to read!), check out these five tasty books that will leave your mouth watering while providing an inspiring story.

1. Under the Cajun Moon by Mindy Starns Clark. This isn’t a new book, but I only read it last year. It’s a mystery set in Lousiana around a family restaurant. I went through a phase where I read several of Clark’s mysteries and I remember liking this one the best because of its ties to the food business.

when i fall in love2. When I Fall in Love by Susan May Warren. This is the third in a series about a family, but it takes place mostly in Hawaii when the main character, Grace, is sent by her family on a surprise cooking retreat. Grace is then paired with a hockey player for a cooking competition and well, let’s just say the food isn’t the only thing that cooks in the kitchen. Reminded me a lot of some of the Food Network shows I love.

3. Five Days in Skye by Carla Laureano. Setting sold this one because the Isle of Skye, Scotland, is magnificent, but this story features a hospitality consultant aiming for a promotion and a celebrity chef with dreams of restoring the family hotel. Another mouth-watering read.

4. All’s Fair in Love and Cupcakes by Betsy St. Amant. Another one with a cooking competition element, only this one love and cupcakesfeatures cupcakes. Summary: Best friends who want to be more can’t admit it to each other and don’t want the other person to have to give up their dreams for a chance at happiness. A sweet story and one that you’ll wish came with a cupcake!

5. A Table by the Window by Hillary Manton Lodge. Not necessarily my favorite among the foodie books I’ve listed, but still, it’s centered around a family in the food business–running a restaurant and writing about food. This one comes with recipes which might inspire readers to get off the couch and get cooking!

I feel like there might be others I’ve read recently but those are the first five that come to mind!

Do you have any book recommendations for readers who also love to cook (and eat!)?

When the happily ever after may not be forever: Review of When I Fall in Love by Susan May Warren

Have you met the Christiansen family yet? I’m totally in like with this family created by talented storyteller Susan May Warren. This flawed family of faithful and forgiving people fills my heart. They’re so real. You can call me crazy, but I am love, love, loving these kinds of sibling series that focus in on one sibling’s story in a large family. When I Fall in Love is the third in this family’s story, and so far, it’s my favorite. (Disclaimer: I received a free ecopy of the book from the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for my review.)

when i fall in loveIn it, we meet Grace Christiansen whose life is all about playing it safe. She’s reluctant to leave her family and the community of Deep Haven for anything resembling adventure. But when her family gifts her with a culinary vacation to Hawaii, she finds herself unable to avoid a life beyond what she’s known, thanks in part to Maxwell Sharpe. Max is a Minnesota hockey player with ties to the Christiansen family. His former teammate Jace is marrying Grace’s older sister Eden, and he was a teammate of the bad boy Christianson brother, Owen. He’s headed to Hawaii, too, for his third culinary vacation: his time to relax and put away his fears for tomorrow. They meet on the plane and Max sets out to show Grace the beauty and wonder of Hawaii while trying to keep emotional distance because of the fate he knows awaits him in life.

Call this book Food Network meets The Fault in Our Stars. Grace and Max bond over cooking and enter a cooking competition as a team. At times, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep reading or get myself into the kitchen and cook something myself. It was the best of both worlds for me: reading and cooking. And I appreciated the hard questions Warren tackles in this relationship. Max knows his days on earth are limited, and because of that, he shuts himself off from the possibility of a relationship. He doesn’t think he deserves to fall in love or dream because nothing is guaranteed to last.

And Grace. Oh, how I could relate to her need to live a safe life. Her reluctance to step out in faith and try something new or big or great. There were times in the story when I read the words she was speaking about herself and her abilities and they could have been my words, too.

It’s an age-old question: Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? And Warren answers it beautifully.

You can catch up with the Christiansens in books 1 and 2: Take A Chance on Me and It Had to Be You. And I, for one, will be following this family to the end of the series.