Stones for Bread
November 26th, 2013. Filed under: Tuesday's Tempting Reads.Stones for Bread
By Christa Parrish
A solitary artisan. A legacy of bread-baking. And one secret that could collapse her entire identity.
Liesl McNamara’s life can be described in one word: bread. From her earliest memory, her mother and grandmother passed down the mystery of baking and the importance of this deceptively simple food. And now, as the owner of Wild Rise bake house, Liesl spends every day up to her elbows in dough, nourishing and perfecting her craft.
But the simple life she has cultivated is becoming quite complicated. Her head baker brings his troubled grandson into the bakeshop as an apprentice. Her waitress submits her recipes to a popular cable cooking show. And the man who delivers her flour — a single father with strange culinary habits — seems determined to win Liesl’s affection.
When Wild Rise is featured on television, her quiet existence appears a thing of the past. And then a phone call from a woman claiming to be her half-sister forces Liesl to confront long-hidden secrets in her family’s past. With her precious heritage crumbling around her, the baker must make a choice: allow herself to be buried in detachment and remorse, or take a leap of faith into a new life.
ISLAND BREEZES
Bread is the one constant in her life. Liesl McNamara closed down her heart while still a child and wasn’t going to let anyone else in. That was her protection as she knew it was the only way not to get hurt again.
She was a product of a truly dysfunctional family, and she didn’t know how to escape except into her bread making. But the quiet future she envisions is shaken to the core with the entry of a big noisy man and his delightful daughter, followed by a bake off on national television.
This is almost too much for this quiet woman, but it isn’t the end of the attacks on her formerly peaceful existence.
This book brought the history of bread making to my attention. That helps keep you riveted in the book, not that it was necessary – just an added bonus to a story I couldn’t lay down. It made me want to turn into a baker of bread.
And there are nearly a dozen artisan bread recipes in this book. They’re not hiding at the end, but rather sprinkled throughout the book like cinnamon sugar on cookies.
I really enjoyed Christa Parish’s approach to this novel, and look forward to reading more of her writings.
***A special thank you to litfuse for providing a review copy.***
Christa Parrish is the award-winning author of three novels, including the 2009 ECPA Fiction Book of the Year “Watch Over Me.” When she’s not writing, she’s a homeschool mother of three wonderful children. Married to author and pastor Chris Coppernoll, Christa serves with him as co-leader of their church’s youth ministry as well as serving as a facilitator for a divorce recovery ministry. She is now also slightly obsessed with the art of baking bread.