By Kelly Bridgewater
"In The French Kitchen, award-winning author Kristy Cambron weaves multiple characters and storylines into a tapestry of secrets, betrayals, and redemption. Full of mouthwatering culinary scenes and peppered with several appearances from famed chef Julia Child, who worked in intelligence during World War II, this story of spies and lovers zips between the coast of northern France during the war and Paris in the early 1950s . . . Delicious!" --Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau
As Paris rebuilds in the aftermath of World War II, Kat Fontaine never expected the skills she learned in a French chateau kitchen to be the key that unlocks the secrets swirling in her new post-war life.
Paris, 1952--Still haunted by the years she spent serving in the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during WWII, ex-pat Kat Fontaine, now living in Paris, finds a simple cookery class led by indomitable chef Julia Child unearths the tangle of gut-wrenching memories of war. Determined to find her brother who went missing during the war and is presumed dead, Kat questions everything, especially her high-ranking society husband whose past is as murky as her own. But when the puzzle pieces start to come together--and her carefully crafted Paris world begins to fall apart--Kat must confront her own secrets against the mounting suspicions of the husband she thought she knew . . .
Rue, 1943--Deep in the heart of Nazi-controlled northern France, Manon Altier shifts between working for the enemy by day--as a French chef at the famous Chateau du Broutel, where names like Himmler, Rommel, and Goebbels frequent the guest list--and running with underground networks against the Vichy regime at night. Working undercover to filter critical information to agents within the burgeoning OSS presence in France, Manon digs deep into the glitz and glamour of a Nazi stronghold that has her teetering on the edge of being discovered at any turn. But when an intriguing stranger appears at the chateau claiming to work with the French Resistance, Manon must lean on her instincts to judge whether to run and hide or stand firm--even as a terrifying discovery tests her resolve to continue the fight.
From the heights of culinary cuisine in 1950s Paris society to the underbelly of a WWII spy network embedded deep within Nazi-controlled Vichy France--and the spy backstory of the world's most famous would-be French chef, Julia Child--The French Kitchen turns up the heat on the pasts of women whose worlds collide, and forces each to question what she thought she'd planned for a perfect future.
My Thoughts:
The French Kitchen by Kristy
Cambron had me scratching my head. The story is told from two different
heroines' perspective, then told in two different time periods. As I was
reading, I had a hard time keeping the two stories apart. While I love a good
World War II spy novel, I really was drawn into the concept of the story, but
it sadly did not deliver for me. The action was a little on the downside, and
the romance really was not there. It wanted to be, but it was weak at times.
The surprise ending was nice, but I felt like the story really didn't set up to
have that type of reveal. I enjoyed the setting. I liked traveling through
Europe during a horrific time in world history. Cambron does a good job at
allowing her readers to see and feel the setting. Her prose is nicely handled.
I loved how she crafted some sentences and used words to convey a feeling or
color that I would not have thought of to describe things, but it worked
perfectly for the story. Overall, The
French Kitchen by Kristy Cambron really did not deliver the type of story
that I was promised to have been given. I wanted more suspense. Maybe just one
heroine in the two different timelines.
I received
a complimentary copy of The French
Kitchen by Kristy Cambron from Harper Collins Christian Publishing, but the
opinions stated are all my own.
My Rating: 3 out of 5
stars
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