The Color of Tea

I had a hard time getting into this first novel by Hannah Tunnicliffe, I have to admit that. It just started out a little depressing for me, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to keep reading. Grace and Pete have just moved to Macau for his job with a casino, and she's a bit adrift, depressed after learning she's unable to have children, and wallowing in sadness.

Luckily, things get better.

Grace rediscovers her love of baking and decides to open a café, catering to mostly expats but some local Chinese as well. It's during that process that she meets Rilla, a hard-working young Filipino girl with a sweet disposition and a secret she's hiding; Gigi, a sassy native girl who's crusty exterior hides a warm heart and a talent for baking; and Margery, the gorgeous Aussie who's a little too salty for the "ladies who lunch" crowd. With these women - and a few others - Grace finds a new kind of a family and finds a way to make a life in a foreign land.

The characters are lovely, and pastry descriptions are decadent. I wound up really enjoying this novel.

The Color of Tea

The Lost Art of Mixing

So apparently this is the second book in a series, but don't let that deter you - I didn't read the first one and I didn't miss it.

Lillian is the owner/chef at a restaurant in a small town in the Pacific Northwest (it took me a while to figure out exactly where the story takes place, and to be honest I'm still not exactly sure). She has a way of drawing people to her - Al, her accountant, stuck in a loveless marriage; Chloe, her sous-chef, who thinks she'll never be good enough; Isabelle, quickly going into Alzheimer's but still with so much to share; and Finnegan, her dishwasher, taller than everyone but often overlooked; these are just a few of the diverse characters in Lillian's world.

This isn't an action story, and there's no mystery. It's just a lovely little story about a group of people who find each other. It's about how your family is not necessarily the one you were born into (or gave birth to), and how even the people who live with us the longest may not know us at all, and misread us all the time. It's about finding your home, wherever it may be. I thought it was wonderful.

The Lost Art of Mixing

Peaches for Father Francis

This is Joanne Harris' follow-up (I think there is one in between, too) to Chocolat (which was also a great movie). It does not disappoint.

Vianne Rocher, now living in Paris, receives a letter from beyond the grave from an old friend. So she and her two daughters return to the village of Lansquenet where she caused such a stir so many years before, to find things are very different. The town is now split between the natives and a large group of Muslim immigrants. The townspeople never did take to strangers, but these strangers have built a mosque, and more and more of their women are dressing head to toe in black, and they don't seem to want to fit in with the natives... and Vianne's old nemesis Father Reynaud is at the center of all of the problems, it would seem.

I just gobbled up this story. It's beautifully written, haunting and mystical. The descriptions of the sights and smells are beguiling to the senses, and the magical bits are not too contrived. And the characters are just wonderful, so clearly drawn that one can almost see them.

But aside from all of that, this is a story about otherness, and acceptance, and finding ones place in the world. It's about how appearances CAN be deceiving, and how the thing that we think is hidden is often right in front of our faces. I highly recommend it.

Peaches for Father Francis