A grandmother who won’t talk about her past, a 100-year-old cookbook filled with family secrets, and an unintentionally hilarious cooking show combine in Cathy Lamb’s delicious, heart-warming novel.

Olivia Martindale is on the run with her almost-adopted daughters, their biological mother, out of jail, now stalking them. Back home in Montana, she knows she’ll find safety and love with her family.

An accomplished chef, she also knows that she’s dead broke and, after throwing a chicken at the head chef of the restaurant she worked at, she has no job. She moves into her grandparents’ log cabin and finds a handwritten cookbook hidden in the attic complete with pictures of old villages, horse drawn carts, geraniums, families, homes with red doors, and a menorah.

Some of the recipes are over 100 years old and titled, “Isaac’s Pecan and Brown Sugar Pastry,” and “Renata’s Challah Bread.” Olivia has no idea who these people are, but it’s the cake recipes – Black Forest gateau with cherries, German apple cake, Kuchen bars with vanilla custard, and Leipzig carrot cake cake – that draw Olivia in.

Taking a chance, Olivia films herself making her ancestors’ recipes and posting them to social media. She is an imperfect cook and funny, unexpected mishaps happen – a mixer takes off into the air as if possessed; her mother, a blunt talking doctor, talks about sewing people back together and the importance of red wine; and her nephew, Kyle, explodes a fake cake to show what baking soda can do.

Olivia has a tasty hit on her hands but an incessant ache in her heart. She left Jace, her husband, two years ago for a reason and that painful reason is still between them.

Learning about the strength and courage of her ancestors through the cookbook, Olivia finally dares to wish for what she wants most of all: Love.

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