About Books #90: The Ingredients for Happiness

I love cooking, I love reading, I love romance, and I loved How to Bake a New Beginning. Put all those things together in the delicious sequel that is The Ingredients for Happiness? And you’ve got yourself one happy me!

I was offered an ARC by Netgalley in exchange for a review. All opinions are strictly my own.

The story

Three sisters, a stash of family recipes, the chance to make their dreams come true…

Amanda is about to open her very own café. She has the pastry sorted, but hasn’t a clue about the plumbing. With the love of her life by her side, surely nothing else can go wrong?

Sabrina has struck out on her own and is proving to the global music industry she has what it takes. However, balancing the business side of the band with her personal life will end up being more than she bargained for.

Louisa is drawing inspiration from the beautiful Amalfi coast, channelling it into creating gorgeous gowns for modern day Sophia Lorens. But putting herself out there in the fashion industry will present its own challenges, even with the ever-supportive Luca by her side.

With the right mix of perseverance, love and plenty of Italian delicacies, these three sisters are about to discover that when they support each other, the sky really is the limit!

The opinion

I feel like, with this book, Lucy Knott has really hit her strides. All the elements that I loved from the first book were still there, and the narration was even more fluid, consistent and enjoyable.

First things first: the elements I already loved in the first book. The bond between these three sisters is what really got me when I discovered the prequel to The Ingredients for Happiness. The way these women bickered but were always there for each other really rung true – and reminded me a lot of my own sisters. We even have a similar love for food going on – albeit without the Italian ancestry to kick it up a notch.

More than that, though, I appreciated that the author avoided the pit fall of creating random problems in order to make the relationships suffer. Instead, she offered what I thought to be a very realistic overview of the difficulties of building a relationship. Even if, you know the whole “my boyfriend is a rockstar” isn’t necessarily something most of us can identify with.

Throughout all of this, the love for food, music and fashion that just jumped from the pages? Well, that was just the icing on the cake that made me need to keep reading. Yep, this was another “flew through it in a matter of hours” for me!

The rating: 4/5

If, like me, you like food, romance and a good chunk of sisterly love thrown in there? Then this is definitely the book for you. You don’t even really need to read the first book before you delve into Ingredients for Happiness, although it might make you like this one even more.

-Saar