Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses by Meredith Mileti
Publisher: Kensington
Release Date: 1st September 2011
Rating: 5/5
Source: Received from the author, thank you!
Publishers Summary:

Mira Rinaldi lives life at a rolling boil. Co-owner of Grappa, a chic New York City trattoria, she has an enviable apartment, a brand-new baby, and a frenzied schedule befitting her success.

Everything changes the night she catches her husband, Jake, “wielding his whisk” with Grappa’s new Mâitress d’. Mira’s fiery response earns her a court-ordered stint in anger management and the beginning of legal and personal predicaments as she battles to save her restaurant and pick up the pieces of her life.

Mira falls back on family and friends in Pittsburgh as she struggles to find a recipe for happiness. But the heat is really on when some surprising developments in New York present her with a high stakes opportunity to win back what she thought she had lost forever. For Mira, cooking isn’t just about delicious flavors and textures, but about the pleasure found in filling others’ needs. And the time has come to decide where her own fulfillment lies—even if the answers are unexpected.

Entertaining guests was always on Mira’s to-do list, but entertaining a stint in anger management class was never even a consideration. After years of marriage and a successful restaurant business, Mira and her husband Jack decide to give parenting a try. Unfortunately for Mira the new Mâitress d’ at their restaurant “Grappa” had different ideas and near to the birth of her daughter she discovers her husband’s indiscretion. Suddenly the life she thought she had falls out from beneath her and she’s left picking up the pieces all while raising her newly born daughter.

How many times have I said I love when food and writing meet in a great book? Probably too many. I’m positive quite a bit of my appreciation comes from a weekend writing conference I took where each participant had a less-than-stellar “food scene”. It’s quite a talent to be able to incorporate food into a novel in such a way that has you salivating, but not drowning in pools of gravy. In her debut novel, Aftertaste, Meredith Mileti has proven that she has discovered the exact recipe for a successfully appetizing novel.

Not only does the novel incorporate food that has you wishing you knew more about food, but Mileti even incorporated her own recipes in the back of the book. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try all of them, but my husband has been dying to try the “Mira’s Cacao Nib Cookies” recipe. Fortunately for me, he’s a baker! Having read the novel and also Meredith’s article for us last week, I was much more appreciative of all that goes into creating not only a fantastic novel but a recipe to compliment it. Meredith created one for each “course” in the book, five total! This is definitely a novel for foodies, but also for those out there who love food and the way we interact with it in our lives.

As for the novel outside of the food aspect, it was wonderful. Normally I get a bit bored of the continual mention of adulterous men, but the way in which the story was told I didn’t feel the focus placed so heavily on that aspect of the story. Obviously it was still one of the main plot devices, but there was so much more focus on Mira and how she would move forward that I didn’t pay much attention to the adultery aspect as much. Mira’s character was wonderfully believable. She missed her husband, her restaurant the way it was, her life and all of those things that normal people do. Not only that, but she was able to overcome it in a way that wasn’t over the top and still very powerful. It was incredibly refreshing!

Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti is a stunning debut novel! From the first course through the very last she takes readers through the life of a woman, Mira, who came to life through her struggles and triumphs. Everything about Aftertaste, from the recipes and food to it’s characters draws you in and has you savoring each page. Meredith Mileti is absolutely a new Chick Lit author I’m eager to read more from and I can’t wait to share Aftertaste with everyone I know. A simply wonderful debut!

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