The Kitchen Front: A Novel
By: Jennifer Ryan / Narrated By: Jasmine Blackborow
Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
Light. Predictable. But, uhm, I really really liked it… so sue me…!!!
Here’s the thing: I’d listened to author Jennifer Ryan’s first audiobook and gave it a mighty Huzzah! in my review over on Audible. Forgot about the whole thing. Went back a month later, and oh my! how the other reviewers trashed it soundly. They thought it was waaaay tooooo heavy on the romance, totally predictable, light fare. You name it, and they were disgruntled by it.
And so here I am, with yet more Light Fare Offerings by Ryan, and yeh yeh yeh, I’m gonna unABASHedly give it a glowing review.
Cuz see? I liiiiiike light fare at times. Give me a bit of history with m’ fiction, and here, add some cooking and foodie-types of descriptions (Complete with a PDF of recipes… which, hey, I don’t cook, but someone out there might try their hand at certain of the more saliva-inducing ones), and yup. There’s a somewhat okay Huzzah! to start this review.
‘Tis into WWII and things on the home front in Great Britain are getting tough. Ryan offers four heroines, and the first Audrey. Her husband’s MIA, most probably KIA, and all those mortgages on their rundown home are making times even tougher for her as she struggles to run a little baking business AND raise three boys who are desperately missing their Dad. Lady Gwendoline? Whoo boy! Audrey’s sister, who has Made It in the world and is married to a Man of Means in the area’s manor house. She’s a bit of a cruel wench, does cooking demonstrations, helps Audrey with payments, but only by making Audrey give lots and lots of their little garden’s food to the manor. No sympathy, certainly no empathy, Lady Gwendoline lives with the memory of being the outcast of the family… and she’s still SORELY peeved-off. Nell Brown? Kitchen maid with crazy-mad kitchen skills who’s starting to dream of life that’s NOT drudge and such a lack of freedom. And Zelda Dupont, cultured chef extraordinaire classically trained and fighting to make it in a man’s world of cooking.
A contest starts up, points given for a Starter, a Main Course, and a Dessert. The winner of this contest will become the first female co-host of the show The Kitchen Front which entertains as it educates British housewives about how best to creatively use their dwindling rations. Each of our four heroines has HUGE reasons to wish to win the contest, and the story begins with some twitchy shenanigans that get even twitchier as the women become even more desperate to win.
Soon, events occur in each of their lives where they’re forced into each other’s company for vast expanses of time, working together, helping out, easing burdens. And finally? Predictably, they’re soon sharing trauma and emotionally charged situations, Being There for each other.
Seriously! Predictable, predictable, predictable.
So why’d I like it? Cuz the characters truly are well-fleshed out, their burdens are heavy and very believable. And in addition to foodie-lovers delights of scrumptious concoctions described causing heavy salivation, there are just some nicely crafted scenes of angst that felt believable. Ryan’s book here is not as heavy on the romance, but there is a light one that is grown throughout, but the best part is that THAT character grew on her own withOUT having a man buck her up and guide her.
Jasmine Blackborow is a new narrator for me, and she did really quite well. Our heroines shined brightly, the men in the story were sufficiently jerk-ish or sufficiently swoon-worthy. Our abusive husband was a total creep, so well done, well done, well done.
In wrapping this up, I shall end with the one caveat I have: Lady Gwendoline’s story at the beginning was a trifle overwritten, and her epiphanies came far too swiftly, and the writing was On The Nose. Which was weird cuz we’re talking a previous century, with far different social norms and mores.
Still. Women coming together (Huzzah for friendship!), and yumptious food (Sans the Spam creation—I kept hearing the jellied “plop” of the Spam squeezed out of a can). Some nicely done prose (Tho’ descriptions of nature veered occasionally into the Purple end of the spectrum), and fine situations. Comeuppances. Just desserts (Oooooh, no pun intended, with my sinCERest apologies). And a simply sweet and sentimental ending that I fell for tho’ I shouldn’t have as it was so contrived.
But I liked this…
…seriously… you’ll just have to suuuuue me…!
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