A Pinch of Love

I had a hard time coming up with a title for this review. How do you sum up a book about a woman whose husband died while trying to help out people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? How do you describe that his wife has decided to enter a baking contest, although she is far from an expert cook, because the prize money is $20,000 - the exact amount her husband wanted to provide to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina? As the book opens, Zell (short for Rose-Allen) is going on with her life but she is on the passage of grief and not handling some things very well. She can't go up in the attic, has trouble opening the last present her husband sent her and is also having issues with her heart (they started before her husband left for New Orleans). This isn't a book which throws readers into the depths of grief from the start. Zell has a certain determination to try and get by but her pain still arrives when memories hit her. Like many of those suffering from grief, her memories are intermingled with her new life, one without her husband, Nick. He is almost like an extra character since his letters are woven into the fabric of this novel. I was a little bit surprised that the cover didn't show Zell in a camouflage apron because she wears it as a sort of homage to her husband. It used to be his. But perhaps the cover is supposed to indicate that she has moved on. Since this tale is partly about baking, there is a recipe at the end of the book. I haven't tried it yet so I can't note anything about whether it is delicious or not. I enjoyed this novel very much and couldn't stop reading it. At the same time, I don't think this writer has yet tapped the promise she so clearly shows in her writing. I wasn't so riveted by this book that it will continue to haunt me. However, it reveals how Zell finds new connections around her and is a hopeful tale about moving on after the loss of a husband, partly with new people who come along, including a motherless child named Ingrid.