The plot didn’t completely hold together for me, but I enjoyed the story and especially all the food and cooking descriptions.

Please take me to Italy and leave me there!

I already love Italian food and culture, The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake has someone made me fall in love with it more.

Our female main character Juliana is the cohost of a popular instagram cooking show, but when her partner decides to go off to try something new and her half-sister all of a sudden needs an escort to stay with her Nonna in Italy; she decides that now is the best time to face her demons and return home. After 15 years away, we can really see Juliana's nostalgia for the olive farm she grew up on; at it's core this novel is a love letter to Italy or maybe just the home of our childhoods. Rachel Linden did a great job of showing us the importance of familial connection and history. Through each recipe Juliana relearns from her childhood, you can see it healing her.

I have to say I think my favourite part of the story was her budding relationship with her half-sister Alessandra. It's very apparent that their mother is a flake- so watching the girls bond and Alessandra growing warmer towards her sister and finding a home is really heartwarming. I also think it's beautiful watching Juliana sharing her culture with Alex and teaching her about the things she loved growing up. It's clear that she is at a loss of how to be around her half-sister but watching that bond form felt special.

Magical realism goes a long way with me, I really love it. In my opinion it always infuses a book with a certain whimsy that I am constantly craving. If you love a book about family, culture and a touch of magic, this is the book for you!

Jules is writing a cookbook and she is having a hard time putting together the recipes. She gets the opportunity to spend the summer on her Nonna's olive farm in Italy. She hopes her Nonna's cookbook will help her pull recipes together. What she doesn't know is that the cookbook she remembers from her childhood has magical powers to help whoever needs it.
I loved the Italian setting and the descriptions of the food. The story was very, very slow and it never really felt fully fleshed out to me. I have loved other books by this author so I will definitely read her next book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Rachel Linden was one of the first authors that got me into Magical Realism as a genre and I was so excited to read her new one after loving her past two. However, this one didn’t capture my attention like her other works.

A magical cookbook and a summer on her family’s Italian olive farm help a brokenhearted social media chef cook up a satisfying new life.

I absolutely loved the Italian setting and the descriptive writing style made you feel like you were right there in on the olive farm. It will also make you hungry with all of the delious and mouthwatering recipes described. However the romance was clunky, all over the place and often read like an after thought. The magic also kept appearing and reappearing and the writing itself was at times way too repetitive and dragging.

Unfortunately I Dnf this at 48%