I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I loved the recipes and the way they would make-do, substitute and alter them to be able to use what they had.

***I received an advance copy of this book***

I have such an affinity towards novels based during WW1 and WW2, and I love to cook, so when I read the premise of this novel, I knew it would be something I'd enjoy. Each of the ladies in this novel were interesting to get to know, and each woman had her own form of spunk and personality and her own reason to win the BBC cooking contest. It got to a point where I no longer knew who to root for and wanted all of them to have a happy ending! I also love how recipes are scattered throughout the book to provide great insight into the actual meals prepared during this difficult time in our history. I hadn't read anything by Jennifer Ryan before this novel, but I will definitely pick up more of her titles from here on out.

During WWII, the BBC had a program called The Kitchen Front. It was a cooking show hosted by a man. In this fictional book, the producers of the show decided they needed to have a female co-host, since a woman might have some practical input on recipes and cooking techniques.

The story centers on the four contestants who are vying for the chance to become the co-host.
Audrey is the widowed mother of three boys who sells her delicious pies as a way to support her family but her house is falling apart and she needs money to keep the roof over their heads. Her sister, Lady Gwendoline, has always wanted the adulation and attention she never received as a child, and feels she is suited to tell the lesser members of the community about cooking (even though she herself has cooks for her household.) Nell is one of the young cooks for Lady Gwendoline and she wants to use all that she has learned from the head cook to improve her prospects in life. Lastly, there’s Zelda, a French trained chef who wants the position so she will garner the attention of the fine restaurants and ultimately get hired as a head chef.

Besides the fascinating backstories of the four women, there’s great emphasis on creative cooking. The war has put limits on essential ingredients like sugar, eggs, milk, butter, etc. This rationing has forced the women to think of alternative methods and ingredient substitutions while still creating luscious foods. The results are impressive and show their practical and creative side. Ryan even includes the recipes for the food that the women concoct with their culinary submissions.

This book will tantalize readers with the humanity of the women who each deal with their own issues and with the delicious sounding foods that they create. It also highlights the difficulties facing those on the Home Front who were forced to manage with so little supplies. While many wartime books focus on the military, this refreshing book shows how women in the towns were inventive and determined, despite limitations. It shows how even in a time of scarcity and struggle, compassion and goodness can shine brightly.

Great story. Four woman competing in a cooking contest during WW2. Gives a real sense of how creative people needed to be to manage to feed their families. Wonderful story about life, hardship and friendship!

This was a book of love between four women that were as different as day and night and this group of four included two sisters who had been alienated for yrs. One women was an unmarried,pregnant chef from London and The fourth a kitchen maid for a very influential family.
The year was 1942 and the War was raging all around them.
They lived in a small village,but one man did announce the "Kitchen Front"on BBC. and a committee decided to hold a cooking contest and the winner would announce recipes and how to use the rations they were getting.
The four above mentioned women entered the contest,knowing they could only use items that anyone in the village could obtain.
The contest was held in three categories a month apart.and there the fun begins
This is a great story and you will be greatly impressed about the way these women handle their lives and their friendships among some of the worst hardships of their lives.

Thank you.Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read and review "The Kitchen Front" by Jennifer Ryan.

When I saw this was a WWII historical fiction with a cooking competition, I new I had to read this! Four different woman from four different walks of life all compete to cohost a radio talk show, The Kitchen Front on BBC. It was a show to help the woman at home cook meals with their weekly food rations. As the story developed I fell in love with each lady, wanting to root for each one. I sure was hoping for an epilogue, but unfortunately there was not.

My Thoughts:

I love the unique storyline of this World War II historical fiction period.

The themes are cooking, baking, sisters, gardening, single parenting, pregnancy, maternal health, hospitality, honor, sacrifice, war, ambition, perseverance, courage, grieving, compassion, forgiveness, power of love, self-worth, loyalty, and bravery.

I love reading WW2 stories. I love cooking and baking. I love stories about women who persevere against the constraints placed on them. I love reading about true friendship among women. If all of these were points they’d add up to 100% for this story.

Additional reasons why I love The Kitchen Front:

1. The plot of the story is who will win the coveted prize, but the story is so much more. It is about building relationships. It is about forgiveness and the steps needed before then. It is about grieving; and how grieving impacts people differently. It is about shame from abuse. It is about closure.
2. I love it that these women are all from different lifestyles. Yet, through their experience in The Kitchen Front, and through their love of cooking and baking, these bring them a oneness-a bond-a building point for everything else.
3. The Kitchen Front is an uplifting story. It’s encouraging. It’s a feel good story.
4. The Kitchen Front has characters who evolve in a good way. I love transformations.
5. I love a story that’s focus is not on a romantic element, but on a true and lasting bond of love. I’d like to see more stories like this!

I loved the idea of this book and was impressed by the research that went into it. Food history is an interest of mine, and although there are WWII books aplenty(Soooo many that I refuse on principle to read more of them and made an exception for this book) I haven't ever seen one that focuses on the foot shortages, rationing, and creative cooking that people had to do during this war. How can you stretch rations (listed in the book) to feed yourself and your family? How did some people use the black market either to survive or for personal gain? How did the government manage to control and administrate all of this? It makes me see my parents, who always gardened for vegetables when I was growing up, a bit differently. They were from farm towns, but they also were born in the 40's and I'm sure some of the frugality left over from scarcity affected them growing up.

While I was very interested in the subject matter of this book, the book itself was a bit of a letdown. It's based on a true contest that took place during the war- initially the cooking radio shows were voiced by a man, but it was decided that a female voice on the air was also desirable. Contests of all sorts were apparently another way that the government kept people entertained and distracted during the war. So, a contest between four women in one little village: a widow who has begun professionally baking pies from the fruit and veg in her gardens to make ends meet, her sister the lady of the village manor, her sister's cook and cook's assistant, and a female chef who's been working at a factory for turning food into cheap and healthy meals. All of these women, naturally, have backstories, goals, and flaws, all of which will of course come out during the course of the contest.

So, why the letdown? Really, it's just that the writing was not especially good. The characters were exaggerated with no nuance. The writing felt a bit clumsy, as though the author just missed exactly the right word every paragraph. There were no surprises in the plot. So while I was interested in the how of the contest itself, the story surrounding it didn't do it for me.

When I received an email from a publisher asking me if was willing to review a new book by an author since I read her debut novel The Chillbury Ladies Choir. I was so excited because I had really really liked her first book. I was intrigued by this book since it had to do with cooking and World War 2. I was interested to see how these two topics were going to join together.

We join Audrey, Zelda, Nell, and Lady Gwendoline. Four women who are trying to navigate the war in their own way. Audrey, who is a home cook and is trying to find a new normal with her three boys after her husband is shot down over Dusseldorf. Zelda, whose unplanned pregnancy is forcing her to move out of London and work in a pie factory. Lady Gwendoline, who thinks she is all-knowing when it comes to cooking because she works for the Ministry of Food and is a Home Economist. Finally, we have shy Nell who works for Lady Gwendoline as a kitchen maid. These women as thrust together when they all compete for BBC and the chance to be on the cooking show The Kitchen Front as a female voice of the program. This book was absolutely enthralling. I loved it from start to finish. I had to read just one more chapter about each character. I found myself losing track of time as I read it. I loved watching the friendships unfold and rekindle as the books went.

I was amazed to learn that The Kitchen Front was actually a program that the BBC had during wartime. While the women in the story didn’t actually exist Ambrose’s character is loosely based off the male presenter. I loved each of these characters, I think out of all of them, Audrey is my spirit animal. Her personality out of all of them just spoke to me. I was happy to see that Lady Gwendoline, who by the end goes by just Gwen and Audrey finally clear the air between them and become best friends again. Just to forewarn you, and maybe you aren’t as sensitive as me, I spent the last few chapters sobbing over some of the characters. I loved the way the author wrote this book. It weaved recipes that these women cooked with the chapters. I found some of them interesting and others rather vile, especially the whale steak recipe. I found my stomach turning with that one. I learned a lot about food rationing that they did during the war.

A wonderful story of four strong women making their way in a difficult time. I was a little slow to appreciate a couple of the ladies, but really fell in love when I finally understood. A good lesson for everyday life. Great characters, wonderful relationships and delicious recipes. I loved Jennifer Ryan's earlier book Chilbury Ladies' Choir and now I find that she has one that I missed, Spies of Shilling Lane. I'll have to seek it out. She really captures the time and her characters pull at your heartstrings. I've found another author to follow!

England is in the midst of WWII and the women left to care for home, hearth and farm are doing their best to keep everything afloat. In an effort to help the housewives with creative solutions to food rationing, the BBC has created a radio program called "The Kitchen Front" and is running a cooking contest to find a female host for the show. Four contestants, all with important reasons for needing to win, are participating. Ms. Ryan has written great characters all of whom you want to root for. Through twists and turns in their personal situations, the women compete in the best ways they know how. Unfortunately for me, the culmination of the novel wraps up too neatly (With a different ending my review would have been higher - I loved it until then). Thank you to the author and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

A WWII cooking contest changes the lives of four very different women. Cordon Bleu trained Zelda, unmarried and pregnant, enters the contest to prove that she can be a head chef in London. Lady Gwendolyn will use any means necessary to ensure that she wins, especially against her sister Audrey, a war widow raising three boys. Finally there is kitchen maid Nell, employed at Finley Hall by Lady Gwendolyn, a shy young woman who yearns to better her situation in life. The four begin as fierce competitors but will soon find themselves forging friendships. Filled with actual WWII ration recipes, this is a must read for historical fiction readers.

Any book about cooking is one I’m probably going to pick up and in The Kitchen Front I found a delightful examination of the relationships for 4 women in an English small village during World War II. There are the usual colorful village characters but it’s the four women - sisters Audrey & Gwendoline, Nell, and Zelda - who are the beating heart of this story.

Ryan does an exceptional job of untangling and renewing the relationships between the women but also of dissecting the patriarchal culture of mid-century Britain where an accomplished female chef is given no respect, an ambitious woman is cast as a bitch because she has a logical mind, a woman who chose a chaotic family life is looked at with derision, and a woman having a child out of wedlock worries her entire life is ruined. Ryan explores the fear and frustration each woman experiences, but also dips into the joy and sisterhood they find through the Kitchen Front contest.

Fans of Ryan’s earlier work and of Tracy Chevalier and Mary Ann Shaffer will enjoy this.

Every once in a long while you come across a book which just captivates you and tugs at all your emotions.
It is full of intelligence and insight into the plight of women during the war and all of the problems they must face.
Have been talking this book up with everyone since I had never realized the things they had to endure.
Absolutely marvelous!

Not the usual WWII story. Story of the women holding down the home front who enter a cooking contest to become cohost of a popular radio kitchen show. I really enjoyed this story. A nice departure from the usual WWII story.

It’s WWII and the British people are suffering from their losses. Rationing is at its height and housewives are becoming more and more inventive in order to put food on their families’ tables. A BBC radio program called The Kitchen Front is in full swing, helping with food rationing, offering advice and, now, a cooking contest. The winner will become a co-host on the program and four women are vying for the opportunity. All of them have different reasons for entering the contest and all of them are determined to win.

The Kitchen Front is a delightful story, full of hope, friendship, and strength. The historical information is fascinating and this book offers an insight into the challenges that Britain faced during the war. The ingenuity that is displayed is amazing and the stories of these four women is heartbreaking and inspiring. I truly enjoyed this book, I learned more about WWII, and now I’m eager to read more from Jennifer Ryan.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

This was a great story, but it was also predictable and the Hollywood ending was a bit much for me. It was a fantastic reading experience, but I cannot get over how one character's storyline was resolved. I wanted something more realistic.

The kitchen Front is the story of four women during the war trying to survive in any way they could, each one having their own problems and agenda but all of them fighting for the same Place, The Kitchen Front Radio Show.

The kitchen front was a real BBC radio show during the war, that usually gave tips and suggestions on how to rationalize your food, the food was very limited during the war so people mainly women had to cook with whatever was available at that time, sometimes making lines for 3 or 6 hours only to get a single egg.

The story of Audrey, Nell, Gwendoline, and Zelda takes us on a roller coaster of emotions making us feel deep each of these characters, living their situations like they were our own.

Audrey was a widow trying to survive the war with her three children she was cooking and selling food all around to be able to survive, she couldn't help anyone else no matter what things were so tide but time will make things change and things will start to look better for her and the children.

Nell was a maid in a very respectful house, she was the assistant cook or the person who helped at Gwendoline house, she was kind and shy and she prefers to be on her own, but time and circumstances will change everything for her making her dream and smile all over again.

Gwendoline, she was married to a terrible man, she wasn't happy, she always felt like she had to prove herself over and over again in this terrible society but tired of the indifference and terrible moods of her husband, Gwendoline finds a way to redo her life and revindicate herself with her sister and also with her own self.

Zelda is out of work and is having a hard time figuring out what is she going to do, she is pregnant and this is not really helping her case at all, at those times women weren't allowed to work if they were pregnant so she was really thinking what to do next once she arrived in London.

The story of these four women starts to connect and intertwine when things started to collapse all around them, making them compete "against" each other for the radio show.

one of the things that I really love about this book was the friendship between these women, how strong they were, how kind, and how they finally were able to succeed in their own goals, this really gave me so much hope and made me smile.

My favorite character or heroine was Audrey, she was so kind and I love how we can see her change once she started to learn the real stories and burdens of each one of them.

I enjoy so much this book I really recommended, is not heavy on the war part so if you're looking for something with the right amount of drama The Kitchen Front is a great choice.

This story takes place in England during World War II. Four women are competing for a spot on a show called the Kitchen Spot. These women come from very different walks of life but all four are looking for chances to better themselves. These women in the cooking competition are having to present meals to the host of the Kitchen Front show using food rations so they are very creative in their presentations. The books follows each individual woman on their journey and discusses their current successes and struggles. The book was slow for me
until about 3/4 of the way through because of so much gloom and doom. I enjoyed the ending and how everyone comes together for the good of the community. I give this one 3.5 stars. Thank you Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book.

Another winner from Jennifer Ryan that touches on the serious moments of WW2 without being depressing. Ryan's look at village life in England is sure to please fans. by mixing a great story under the backdrop of food rations , ambitions and challenges brought on by the war, Ryan gives readers four women, so vastly different from one another until they realize they aren't in the ways that matter most. Loved every minute I spent in this one!