Book Review: The Art of Baking Blind

by: Sarah Vaughan

This story starts with baker, or all around fine cook and author, Kathleen Eaden. We are randomly treated with chapters from her point of view. It's not the happy story that everyone seems to imagine. Thinking she had been wildly successful until leaving the limelight to take care of her daughter and husband full-time.

Modern day, there is a competition to find the new Mrs. Eaden. There are 4 women and one man in this contest. We really only see this from the 4 women's perspective. There is a smattering of the man, but mainly that he is interested in Claire.

Claire is a single mother, working in a grocery store to make ends meet. Oddly enough, it's an Eaden store.

Vicki is a stay at home mom to 3 yr old Alfie, trying to have another baby and trying to figure out how to feel fulfilled in this role. But her husband is fairly supportive and she has her mother to lean on as well. Her biggest problem, and I'm guilty of this too, is not asking her husband to do more childcare. Assuming since he works outside the home, everything else is her job. Some days that is overwhelming.

Jenny is a plus-size woman embarking on middle age. Her husband has decided to completely change his lifestyle with no regard to his wife. To be honest (and clean) he's a jerk. Her daughters think that Jenny is the one pulling away until they witness their father go off on Jenny. She bakes to comfort herself, now that it no longer comforts her family.

Karen is the opposite of Jenny. She is starving herself, never eating what she bakes. She has 2 teenage children who are pulling away from her and a husband who never was that close. She had a very rough time as a teenager, and that she isn't more of a mess actually surprises me.

This story, stories...these women...are all fantastic characters. You really have no idea who to root for. That was the hardest part. Getting to the end of the competition. I didn't want to know the winner, because that would mean one of these other women lost.

But they become good friends and lean on each other when the need is there. It's a beautiful thing.

This is a book from England, so watch out for all the unfamiliar words and phrases.