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Sophie's Bakery for the Broken Hearted, Lolly Winston
Hutchinson
Reviewed by Jan Treliving-Brown (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Lolly – a glorious name for a foodie author.
This is Lolly's first novel and it reminds me of another splendid baking book entitled By Bread Alone, written by New Zealand's own Sarah-Kate Lynch. Inhale that yeast – it's a wonderful opportunity for spicy, aromatic prose to waft off the page. You can smell the brie-and-porcini cheesecake, the maple moon cookies, banana cupcakes...

Baker extraordinaire is Sophie Stanton. She's recently lost her husband to cancer and her quest is to become a good widow, poised and gracious like Jackie Kennedy.

Alas, all is not going according to plan. You see, as a young girl, Sophie lost her mum in a car accident. Depression and panic inconveniently gatecrash: "To lose a mother and a husband! ... After Ethan and I were married, I made him buy a big car with double air bags. Fortunately he was a cautious driver. Still, as he looked both ways and stuck to the speed limit, malignant cells crept into his lymph nodes."

Exactly one year on from the funeral, Sophie is still on the brink of total devastation: "I'll never miss Ethan any less than I did on the day that he died. I know this, because I don't miss my mother any less than the day she drove off the road twenty-three years ago. I miss my husband, miss my mother. Two chips out of my heart like birthmarks."

The little Oregon bakery is going to be the key to Sophie's healing. Toss in new love Drew, adopted teenager Crystal and a mother-in-law going ga-ga. Why is it these foodie books always have large old houses, groups of off-the-wall eccentrics and a thing about weight loss?

While Sophie's Bakery for the Broken Hearted has all of the above, there are also some special moments of candour and authenticity around the subject of bereavement. It's been called a stunning novel of love, grief and baking. I'd say it does justice to all three.