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Food in Fiction
All titles shelved in Fiction collection, except as noted: M=mystery
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(2004)MThis collection of stories that mix crime and cuisine features 16 acclaimed mystery authors who serve up suspenseful tales with all-new recipes. Includes works by Carol Nelson Douglas, Lyn Hamilton, Claudia Bishop, Donna Andrews, Rhys Bowen and others. Each story comes with its own recipe.
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(2000)MThis is an anthology of short crime stories whose common elements include food, restaurants and food preparation.
- Abu-Jaber, Diana
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(2003)When a handsome professor of Arabic literature and Iraqi exile enters her life, single, 39-year-old Sirine, a passionate cook in a Lebanese restaurant, finds herself falling in love and, in the process, starts questioning her identify as an Arab-American.
- Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
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(1996)Marian, a willing member of the consumer society around her, suddenly finds herself identifying with the consumed, from the rabbits her fiance shoots to the food on her plate. When she feels too moved by the pangs of an uprooted carrot to eat it, she knows she's off the deep end. Marian's deceptively simple solution marked Atwood's debut as a consummate observer of the ironies.
- Averill, Thomas Fox
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(2001)Argument and habanero chile are the dominant spices of Wes's life, permeating the tense atmosphere of his father's restaurant and his mother's catering business. Professional rivalries, romantic triangles and assorted betrayals all make for a volatile coming-of-age tale.
- Barr, Nancy Verde
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(2006)After ending a bad relationship, 29-year-old Casey Costello, an executive chef at a morning television show, swears off men. Who has the time? When Danny O'Shea, a hot new chef from Ireland, makes a guest appearance, Casey wants nothing to do with him until Danny whips up a few surprises during the show's shoot in Italy.
- Binchy, Maeve
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(2001)Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather hope to take Dublin by storm with their new catering company but not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Cathy's mother-in-law disapproves of her new hobby, while Cathy's husband buries himself in his legal work. Tom's ambitious girlfriend struggles with her career and Tom's family expects him to follow in his father's footsteps.
- Blumenthal, Deborah
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(2004)Maggie O'Leary has discovered her secret to success and it is hidden between oysters and savory cheesecake. As America's Anti-Diet Sweetheart, Maggie has captured the attention of the American population. That is, until the phone rings and Mike Taylor, Hollywood's sexiest actor, wants her to come to Hollywood to help him prepare for his upcoming role as a diet doctor.
- Carlson, Lori M.
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(2000)Claire is a young, struggling New Yorker whose understanding of life is enriched after a group of older and wiser Latina women bring her into a close-knit circle. Once a month, they come together for a Sunday afternoon of revelry, at which delicious food and strong opinions are served up in equal measure.
- Chepaitis, Barbara
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(2000)Teresa DiRosa believes that life, like fine food, is made special by mixing together the best ingredients. Owner of a thriving catering business, she is gearing up for their Christmas open house.
- Crace, Jim
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(2001)Crace is known for his finely honed style. Here he works close to the bone, producing 60 brief flights of fantasy on appetite, food and objects of desire.
- Desbiolles, Maryline
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(2001)The novel's narrator is preparing a dinner for friends. Each chapter begins with ingredients and instructions for a stuffed version of the eponymous mollusk. The narrator's cooking is the impetus for ruminations on love, memory, childhood, a terrible accident she endured, dreams, and above all, food.
- Esquivel, Laura
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Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies(1992)The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter weeps so violently she causes an early labor and is born amidst the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life and the child, Tita, grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.
- Gordon, Nadia
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(2003)MHigh-stakes wine fraud and murder disguised as a heart attack compel Sunny McCoskey to again toss aside her chef's apron and don the role of sleuth. And, when the list of suspects includes her new lover, Sunny finds that the personal risks of her investigation rise dramatically.
- Harper, Karen
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(2003)MElizabethan England comes alive in all its holiday pomp and pageantry as this series featuring the young queen continues. Period recipes at the start of each chapter add to the 16th-century holiday festivities.
- Harris, Joanne
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(1999)When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock.
- Harris, Joanne
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(2000)As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of "Jackapple Joe" Cox in the tiny English town of Kirby Monckton, finding solace in his simple wisdom, stories of adventure and his magical homebrewed wines. It was all lost, though, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall. Years later, Jay's life has stalled. He hasn't written anything since Jackapple Joe, his artistic zenith, was published ten years ago. In an attempt to recapture the magic, he purchases a farmhouse in the French village of Lansquenet.
- Harris, Joanne
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(2001)A widow in her sixties returns to the French town she left as a child and the clues to long-kept secrets she finds in her mother's recipe scrapbook.
- Hendricks, Judith Ryan
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(2001)In this debut novel, 31-year-old Wynter Morrison leaves behind her life as a trophy wife and ventures into a Seattle bakery, where memories of her apprenticeship at a French boulangerie arouses her ambition to bake bread again.
- Hinton, J. Lynne
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(2000)Life lessons in faith, love, strength, survival and community (along with great Southern recipes) are featured in this book.
- James, Kay-Marie
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(2004)In this fast-paced, food-laced romance, a woman falls in love with a new man after 25 years: her 100-pounds-lighter husband.
- Johnson, Claire M.
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(2002)MCranky Mary Ryan has sunk a lot of time and talent into the in-vogue American Fare, the town's hottest spot, while grieving over her broken marriage. At work very early one morning, she steps on a laundry bag stuffed with the dead body of one of her employees. The investigation soon exposes all the dirty secrets that the food business would like to keep secret.
- Johnson-Coleman, Lorraine
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(2001)A cookbook and a tale of Southern culture, Larissa's Breadbook brings together a fictional story of a young girl's coming of age with a cookbook filled with the foods she and her family discover, consume and prepare along the way.
- Jones, Idwal
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(2001, reprint of 1945 ed.)High Bonnet refers to the chef's towering white toque, the mark of achievement every young sauce-stirrer aspires to. The young provincial Jean is thrown into a three-star kitchen for the most brutal of trainings after a famous voluptuary swoons over the bitter chocolate sauce he'd ladled on her roast goose. Jean will win his high bonnet, and the royal bearing that accompanies it, but not until he's had many outrageous adventures in the kitchen and out of it.
- Killham, Nina
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(2002)Cookbook author Jasmine March's life is rich and as satisfying as a perfectly prepared bechamel, but even a great bechamel curdles sometimes. This dark, funny and imaginative first novel is about the pleasures of food and the perils of marriage.
- Kirchner, Bharti
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(2003)Sunya, the daughter of parents who imigrated from India, is the head baker at Pastries Cafe where she transforms cakes and tarts into works of art. The success of her bakery is challenged when a chain bakery threatens to open down the street. Her life is further complicated by Roger, her "hip" Japanese boyfriend, and her mother's involvement with a man Sunya detests.
- Kolpen, Jana Fayne
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(1997)In this sequel to The Secrets of the Pistoulet, Mlle. J. reaches out to a grieving man who has isolated himself inside a lighthouse after a tragic love affair.
- Lanchester, John
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(1996)This wickedly funny ode to food is told by a snobbish narrator who instructs readers in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu.
- Lawrence, Cynthia
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(2002)MIn Lawrence's second clever and amusing culinary mystery to feature Cat Deean (after 1993's Take-Out City), the capable, hardworking caterer finds herself in hot water when her boss, L.A. restaurateur Nick Dellacasa, hires a noted but nasty chef, Hippolytus "Polley" Arbusto.
- Lindsay, Andrew
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(2000)A magical story of what happens when Easter and Carnival collide and a fictional Italian community becomes controlled by its food and libido.
- McCouch, Hannah
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(2003)In this modern Cinderella story of love, sex, chefs, and the city, Layla Mitchner is a 28-year-old Cordon Bleu graduate trying to carve out a space for herself in the high-pressure world of Manhattan's top restaurant kitchens.
- Pezzelli, Peter
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(2006)With her children grown and no family to pester, annoy, guide, love and, of course, cook for, widowed Francesca feels useless. When she sees Loretta Simmons's ad for a part-time nanny, Francesca is sure she's found the answer. All the single mom wants is someone to fill in for a few hours a day, but it's obvious to Francesca that Loretta and her kids need a lot more.
- Pickard, Nancy
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(2001)MStanley, a passionate cook and recipe collector ropes Genia Potter into collaborating on a cookbook. But one of the six guests asked to contribute a recipe leaves Stanley dead instead.
- Power, Nani
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(2001)Ito is a literate yet tongue-tied sushi chef who recites haiku in his head as he labors over shopping lists, which at once define and confine him. Alone, he dreams of Mariane, a lost alcoholic waitress who works with him at the Chelsea sushi bar. Ito can't help but live part of every waking day reliving the tragedy he left behind in Japan, and across town Mariane yearns for the baby girl she abandoned almost fifteen years before.
- Prior, Lily
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(2000)La Cucina is an evocation of life's mysterious seasons and the treasures found in each one. It celebrates family, food, passion and the eternal rapture of romance.
- Pritchard, Ann
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(2002)Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, and Uncle Ben get lost in the fray as Crandall Foods unveils its new brand. Fast-paced Good Taste takes off on a romp over the span of a year with the intense Crandall executives in their opulent offices, into the home of an eccentric family in Smithton, Washington, and in the broadcast studios of the national media.
- Ray, Jeanne
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(2003)Ruth loves to bake cakes. Ruth's husband has lost his job, her elderly mother has just come to live with them and her smart-alec daughter won't keep the misery of adolescence to herself.
- Richman, Phyllis C.
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(1997)MWashington's finest French chef, Laurence Levain is dead, and all of D.C. thinks the culprit was too much foie gras , except Chas Wheatley, the city's most famous restaurant critic. This is the first in a series of gastronomic tales by Richman.
- Runcie, James
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(2001)Diego de Godoy sets off for South America in 1518 with Cortes and the Conquistadors. During his travels he falls in love with Ignacia, a native woman who introduces him to the secrets of the most delicious drink he has ever tasted: chocolate. Tragically, their passionate affair is cut short by the chaotic conquest of Mexico. Diego later discovers that his lover secretly added the elixir of life to his chocolate. Unable to die, he lives on through history.
- Staikos, Andreas
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(2000)Food is love, both literally and figuratively, in Staikos's cheeky debut novel, a cross between a cookbook and a romantic and culinary comedy of manners, in which two Greek neighbors attempt to outcook each other and curry the favor of the married mistress they share.
- Taylor, Timothy L.
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(2002)This is a love story wrapped in a murder mystery, served up as a laugh-out-loud satire of the trendy urban restaurant scene.
- Tropiano, Joseph
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(1996)In a New Jersey town, two Italian immigrant brothers stuggle to keep their restaurant afloat. Includes recipes.
- Truong, Monique T. D.
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(2003)In this literary feast, the Vietnamese cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas reveals his fascinating story.
- Winston, Lolly
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(2004)Sophie Stanton finds herself a widow after three short years of marriage and plunges into grief and despair. Unable to cope, the 36-year-old Silicon Valley executive binges on junk food, wears pajamas to work, and crashes her car. When her boss suggests she take a break, she moves to Ashland, Oregon, and, with the help of her best friend, Ruth, finds a job in a restaurant, becomes a surrogate parent to a trouble teen, meets a charming actor, and begins to explore her loss.
- Wright, Vinita Hampton
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(2000)The chief cook in Leeway, Kansas, and the part-time janitor for Jerusalem Baptist Church, Velma takes good care of everyone around her. Then her husband stops talking, her cousin comes to live with her and she finds herself dealing with the town's problems. Her journey of love and forgiveness lies at the heart of this novel. Recipes included.