The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel & Nancy Garfinkel

Genre: Fiction

Valerie Rudman and Lilly Stone couldn’t have been more different than night and day, but also couldn’t have been closer had they been sisters by blood. Lilly Stone had always been the fun one wanting to make it big as a singer, while Valerie was shy with her nose always buried in a book studying to be a doctor. Each girl’s life was shaped and molded by their parent’s influence.

Then, after years of friendship, things take a disastrous turn and the women don’t speak again for nearly 26 years. As the women near 50, their lives are thrown together once more by tragedy and a shocking secret that threatens to shake their world to its very core.

What an amazing book! It is told through emails as well as childhood letters between the women. At ten years old, the girls express their friendship as pen pals and call it “The Recipe Club”. With each letter, they attach a recipe, but they were more than just pen pals, they were “sisters” for life.

This is a fast-paced book that readers will not want to put down. I know I didn’t want to. The recipes each sounded so yummy, I was afraid I’d gain weight just reading them. Not to mention they each came with adorable titles, “Mighty Math Muffins”, “Catcher in the Rye Bread”, “Worry-free Waffles”, “Lovelorn Lasagne”, and “Missing You Warmly Lentil Salad” to name a few.

“The Recipe Club” is cleverly put together and readers will feel as if they are part of Valerie and Lilly’s world. A very enjoyable book that keeps readers captivated to the end.

Since this book truly touched my heart, I’m giving it the Socrates’ Great Book Alert Award.

For reading challenge: A to Z Reading Challenge, Chick Lit Reading Challenge