Book Review: The Love Goddess’ Cooking School by Melissa Senate

Title: The Love Goddess’ Cooking School
Author: Melissa Senate
Publisher: Gallery
Publication Date: October 26, 2010
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN: 978-1439107232
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

Camilla’s Cucinotta: Italian Cooking Classes. Fresh take-home pastas & sauces dailyBenvenuti! (Welcome!)

Holly Maguire’s grandmother Camilla was the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island, Maine—a Milanese fortune-teller who could predict the right man for you, and whose Italian cooking was rumored to save marriages. Holly has been waiting years for her unlikely fortune: her true love will like sa cordula, an unappetizing old-world delicacy. But Holly can’t make a decent marinara sauce, let alone sa cordula. Maybe that’s why the man she hopes to marry breaks her heart. So when Holly inherits Camilla’s Cucinotta, she’s determined to forget about fortunes and love and become an Italian cooking teacher worthy of her grandmother’s legacy.

But Holly’s four students are seeking much more than how to make Camilla’s chicken alla Milanese. Simon, a single father, hopes to cook his way back into his daughter’s heart. Juliet, Holly’s childhood friend, hides a painful secret. Tamara, a serial dater, can’t find the love she longs for. And twelve-year-old Mia thinks learning to cook will stop her dad, Liam, from marrying his phony lasagna-queen girlfriend. As the class gathers each week, adding Camilla’s essential ingredients of wishes and memories in every pot and pan, unexpected friendships and romances are formed—and tested. Especially when Holly falls hard for Liam . . . and learns a thing or two about finding her own recipe for happiness.

My Review:

Melissa Senate’s newest release, The Love Goddess’ Cooking School is filled with love, hope, life lessons, and friendship. Holly Maguire’s heart has been broken so she heads to Blue Crab Island in Maine to stay with her Nonna, Camilla Constantina. While visiting, Camilla passes away and Holly inherits her Nonna’s Cucinotta. Camilla Constantina was known as the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island, not only was she an exceptional cook, but she also could tell fortunes and used wishes in her cooking. Holly gets settled into her new way of life running the cooking school and quickly becomes part of her four students’ lives in ways no one could have predicted. Senate brilliantly weaves together several storylines to create a central story of friendship and love, heartache and joy, and the many facets each person faces in real life. The reader will learn all about Juliet, Simon, Tamara, Mia, and Liam. Senate’s characters are multi-dimensional, interesting, and people that I could imagine talking with. The Love Goddess’ Cooking School is an altogether feel-good novel, with added dimension of several characters lives, the interactions and the problems and joys associated with the rollercoaster that is life. Some of my favorite parts of the book were the pages of Camilla’s diary, which allowed the reader to get to know this remarkable woman, the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island. This is the second book I have read of Melissa Senate’s and I was unable to put the book down. I was easily transported to Maine and to the cooking school, and fair warning, the book will make you hungry, but thankfully, Senate includes delicious recipes at the end of the book. I would recommend The Love Goddess’ Cooking School to anyone looking for an excellent book to curl up with.

About the Author:

Melissa Senate is the author of eight novels, including the bestselling See Jane Date, which was made into an ABC Family TV movie and has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. She’s published short pieces in Everything I’ve Always Wanted to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, It’s a Wonderful Lie, Flirting with Pride and Prejudice, and American Girls About Town. A former romance and young adult editor from New York, she now lives on the southern coast of Maine with her son.

I received a complimentary ARC copy of The Love Goddess’ Cooking School by Melissa Senate from Melissa Senate to review. I also agreed to review the ARC for Gallery Books. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

Be Sociable, Share!

•