The Book of Lost & Found
By Lucy Foley (HarperCollins)
Romances that span two generations and continents, wartime tragedy and personal heartaches are pulled together in this love story. The plot turns on a portrait of a young woman painted in the 1920s. She is Alice Eversleigh and Tom Stafford has adored her since he was a boy. But circumstances mean their love affair is tantalisingly brief. Fast forward to the 1980s when Kate Darling is grieving the death of her famous ballerina mother, June. To her shock, she learns that years earlier her birth mother tried to contact June, sending a letter that included a portrait of a woman with a strong family resemblance. Kate's search for this link to her mother alternates with Alice's story. It takes us from Corsica to Paris and New York, and Foley writes evocatively about those places. At times the plot flounders. But it's an ambitious book from this debut novelist, gritty in parts, charmingly old-fashioned in others. An ideal holiday read.
The Silent Sister
By Diane Chamberlain (Macmillan)
There is a Gone Girl-style twistiness to this latest book from US best-seller writer Diane Chamberlain. It's awash in family secrets and things people have hidden from each other for years. Riley MacPherson has gone home to clear out the family house after the death of her father. She's alone because her brother, Danny, is no help and her sister, Lisa, a talented violinist, committed suicide as a teenager. That's what Riley has believed. Then she finds a box of newspaper clippings that reveal Lisa was accused of murder when she died. As she pieces together what happened, Riley wonders if her sister is dead at all. If so, what is the true story of her disappearance and how can Riley find her? Chamberlain is clever at teasing out secrets and keeping the intrigue going. It's a page-turner.
Saison: A Year at the French Cafe
By Simon Wright (Random House)
Some cookbooks seem designed to drool over. They are things of beauty but the recipes are far too complex for the average person. Saison falls squarely into that category. It's a handsome, boxed, hardback volume but the idea of cooking anything from it is daunting since each recipe has multiple components and many stages of preparation. The designer seems to recognise this and has abandoned the conventional formula for cookbooks. For example, the pictures don't accompany the text but are run, one after the other, making it food porn at its most shameless. The recipes then appear in a solid wall of type with the ingredients list printed after the method instead of before as is usual. In his introduction, chef Simon Wright concedes that readers are unlikely to reproduce his complicated dishes but his hope is they will be inspired to use elements from each recipe in their own cooking and so expand their confidence, knowledge and technique. Saison is aimed at seriously obsessed foodies, people who want to take their cooking to a higher level, chefs seeking inspiration and diehard fans of top Auckland restaurant The French Cafe.
The Children's Pond
By Tina Shaw (Pointer Press)
This gripping New Zealand novel set in Turangi captures beautifully the enjoyment and risks of trout fishing. Jessica has moved to Turangi to be near her son, who is in prison there. She obtains work running a trout-fishing lodge on the Tongariro River and develops a relationship with a charming Maori lawyer visiting from Sydney. When his troubled sister is found dead, Jessica's own past as a troubled teen comes back to haunt her, with some sinister connections to the present. There is a strong plot, a vivid sense of place and the relationships between the characters are sensitive and truthful.
