I loved this book!!!! I grew up in a small town in Michigan, and currently live in NY State, and this book brought back the carefree summers of my youth, and made me long for "home." This is a book about a girl who grew up in rural Northern Michigan, who left chasing a dream as fast as she could to get out of the small town where family lives and runs an apple orchard. She is living in NYC after graduating from culinary school, and returns home for a break after making the decision to quit her job on a whim one morning. The descriptions of Sam's youth are so very vivid, and I definitely related to the feeling of wanting to get out as soon as she could, yet being nostalgic for the things back home. The feeling of jumping in a cold Great Lake on a hot summer day is one I can recall vividly.

The chapters are grouped around a recipe for a baked treat, and while I have not tried any of the recipes, I plan to.

This book was a very enjoyable read for me - well-written, fun, full of love, light in tone and positive. If you are looking for a good story that is rooted in family traditions, nostalgic for the past but also looking forward to the future, this is for you!

Sam’s glamorous life as a sous chef in New York is, in reality, not glamorous at all. She works for a petty, mean spirited chef who finally goes to far and embarrasses Sam to the point she decides to head home to Michigan. Sam is crushed to be returning home, as a failure. She spends the summer working in her family’s apple orchard and cooking with her mother and grandmother. As Sam works alongside her family, she learns about their past as her mother and grandmother open up about their own “failures”. Shipman gets extra points for one of the best beginning and ending scenes I’ve read in a book in a long time