Once again, we are unveiling the next four books selected by our virtual book club's co-hosts. As always, a nice variety of titles. We hope the reading will delight and inspire you in the kitchen. Are you ready? Let's go!
Debra (Eliot's Eats) will open the new series: for the December/January 2027 edition, she chose the epistolary novel Kate & Frida by Kim Fay (March 2026)
From the publisher:
Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez, daughter of Love & Saffron’s own Joan Bergstrom, comes to Paris in 1991, relishing the city’s butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she thought she wanted to become. Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida’s free spirit, spurred to kiss her handsome coworker, to believe in herself as a writer, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives—personally and globally—Kate and Frida’s friendship sustains and nourishes them as they show each other how to overcome self-doubt and the necessity of embracing joy even through our darkest hours. A buoyant, mouth-watering oasis of a novel, Kate & Frida is a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the way stories shape how we perceive ourselves, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last precious years before the internet changed everything.
“A buoyant, mount-watering oasis of a novel”? This is high praise and I hope this book stands up to the Cook the Books’ high standards. 🙂
Debra, Eliot's Eats
Deadline for contributing your post is Sunday, January 31, 2027
For the February/March edition, Claudia (Honey from Rock) has chosen the novel Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen (February 2020)
I first read Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen in 2020 and again this March, enjoying it each time, and noting that it would be a great selection for our Cook the Books Club.
A single twist of fate puts a servant girl to work in Queen Victoria's royal kitchen in this suspenseful, historical mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of The Tuscan Child and The Victory Garden.
Isabella Waverly is confronted by the sight of young woman struck down by an Omnibus on a London street. She crouches next to her, to comfort or possibly help the woman, when in her final dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella's hand. It's an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from her grinding life as a lowly servant. In the stranger's stead, Bella can spread her wings. She arrives at the palace as Helen Barton from Yorkshire. Once employed, she is able to pursues her passion for creating culinary delights, served to the delighted Queen Victoria herself. Best of all, she is chosen to accompany the queen to Nice. What a dream come true! Until the threat of blackmail from Helen's unscrupulous brother shadows Bella to the Riviera. Will she overcome that, as well as possible arrest when a guest of the Queen dies after eating a meal she had prepared? Bella becomes a suspect in a murder investigation! Will she find the killer or die on the gallows?
This delightful mystery neatly blends the historical details of late Victorian life, from rich foods and royalty, into a story spiced with humor and romance. Bella is depicted as a modern Victorian woman, bravely navigating class differences while struggling to further her ambitions.
I hope you will all enjoy the novel as much as I did, and be inspired by all the delicious culinary creations mentioned.
Aloha,
Claudia, Honey From Rock
Deadline for contributing your post: Wednesday, March 31, 2027.
For the April/May edition Simona (briciole) chose the novel Murder in Chianti by Camilla Trinchieri (July 2021)
I don't recall how I learned about Camilla Trinchieri's mystery series set in the Chianti region of Tuscany, but as it was available at the library, I borrowed the first novel.
From the publisher:
Mourning the loss of his wife, Rita, former NYPD homicide detective Nico Doyle moves to her hometown of Gravigna in the region of Chianti. Half Italian and half Irish, Nico finds himself able to get by in the region with the help of Rita’s relatives...
Early one morning, he hears a gunshot and a dog’s cries near his new home and walks out to discover a dead body in the woods, flashily dressed in gold tennis shoes...
Salvatore Perillo, the local maresciallo, discovers Nico’s professional background and enlists him to help with the case.
Rita's relatives, it must be noted, own a restaurant, and Nico besides helping there as waiter, starts developing recipes for it, so there is plenty of food in the novel, and not just from Tuscany: Perillo comes from Naples, while his brigadiere, Daniele Donato, comes from Venice, so we get glimpses of their culinary traditions. I hope the novel will be a pleasant read and a source of inspiration in the kitchen.
Simona, briciole
Deadline for contributing your post is Monday, May 31, 2026
To round up the list of selections, for the June/July edition, guest host Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm chose the historical novel Like Wafers in Honey by Leah Eskin (April 2026)
My selection is a Historical Fiction that follows two timelines and features many Italian Jewish recipes.
From the publisher:
This debut novel from food writer Leah Eskin of the Chicago Times combines the historical sweep and emotional power of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer and the resonant use of food and recipes of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.
The story opens on the mountaintop city of Pitigliano, Italy, once called Little Jerusalem for its vibrant, centuries-old Jewish community. But the year is 1943. Mussolini has enacted anti-Jewish laws across Italy, and the family of Stella Fortuna struggles to maintain any sense of their former life. Then one night a neighbor comes to their door holding a ricotta pudding, and tells them “You must leave now. You’re in grave danger.” The Nazis have arrived to help the Fascists of Italy enact their own Final Solution.
Grabbing what few things they can carry (and the pudding), Stella Fortuna escapes into the woods below Pitigliano with her two older brothers and younger sister, Marcella. What follows is a desperate months-long flight. Precarious stays with sympathetic, but fearful families in the countryside, dodging the ever-closer Fascists in pursuit while Stella dreams of romance, the comforts of home, and the food that was not just her mother’s it was the delicious expression of an entire culture in danger.
In a separate timeline, Edda Servi Machlin is a housewife in 1960s Westchester trying to make sense of a new culture, and the “spaghetti and meatballs” food that passes for Italian cuisine. With caustic wit, we see twentieth-century America through an immigrant’s eyes, someone who can never return to her former home, because it no longer exists. Someone who comes to understand that it might be up to her to preserve the indelible flavors of a Jewish-Italian way of life that is in danger of extinction, as her family once was.
In between these two remarkable stories are more than forty recipes (updated for today's cooks), all inspired by the life and example of Edda Servi Machlin, author of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews.
Wendy, A Day in the Life on the Farm
Deadline for contributing your post: Saturday, July 31, 2027.
Remember that membership in our book club is open to anyone and we hope you will join us by reading these selections and creating inspired recipes. For more information about participating, click here.
As always, specific announcement posts can be found at Cook the Books at the beginning of each two-month period and the current selection is always shown on the right side of the homepage.
And do not hesitate to leave a comment on this post or the specific announcement should you have any questions.
To recap:
December 2026 / January 2027: Kate & Frida by Kim Fay (hosted by Debra at Eliot's Eats)
February / March 2027: Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen (hosted by Claudia at Honey from Rock)
April / May 2027: Murder in Chianti by Camilla Trinchieri (hosted by Simona at briciole)
June / July 2027: Like Wafers in Honey by Leah Eskin (hosted by Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm)
Happy reading and cooking!
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