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Dec 27, 2016gvenkatesh rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
An ambitious attempt at story-telling that combines food, art, history and romance that is worth a read in front of a fireplace in the winter. More for female audiences than males given its propensity to push more of the emotional buttons for the former than the latter. It is very successful in embedding a historical and celebrity figure into a work of fiction with an imagined look at the character in private moments. It is also an example of being a good foodie novel in the sense of cooking and cuisine being a part of life. Not a fad and a hobby as in contemporary foodie fiction that just caters to an addiction to food-porn by reciting menus and ingredients. What keeps it from being a great novel is that most of the material is not new. Any number of novels and movies exist on the theme of artists/writers in the French Riviera and their young muses. The dysfunctional American family is a trademark of most contemporary American fiction. The type of romance in the novel is a staple of Harlequin novels. Calamities and misfortune strike at calculated intervals to lead to a fairy-tale ending. There is no intent to provoke deeper social, philosophical or moral dilemmas/ambiguities. Just competent story-telling that does not pretend to be anything more.