Season of Salt and Honey Review - Charming Depiction of Twists and Turns Life Serves Up

Details

Category: Books

Published on Saturday, 10 October 2015 12:59

Written by Janet Walker

Season of Salt and Honey, a novel by Hannah Tunnicliffe, is another page turner penned with her skillful artistic strokes adding layers of human emotions intertwining untimely heartache and natural healing process with the magic remedies of culinary creations.

Season of Salt and Honey, centers around Francesca "Frankie" Caputo who when we meet her is running, and understandably so. Planning her wedding she is almost and finally married when tragedy strikes. As the celebrating turns to sadness, she runs. Fight or flight took over and flight won.

At this time, the main source of comfort would be complex carbohydrates.  Now with no wedding dress to squeeze into and no photographer to worry about and black being the accepted color of the day, food is the companion.

Of course a time like this could not be complete without, at ones darkest moment, family. And Season for Salt and Honey is no different as Frankie's Italian-American family shows up. Could life get any worse?

A confessed nomad, Tunnicliffe brings in her life experiences as she shapes the character of Frankie and especially her love for the Pacific Northwest, where she escapes after fleeing the funeral of her betrothed, Alex. Even as the families were supportive, the circumstances were more than suffocating, they were strangling her.

A through-line of forgiveness seems to present itself as unknown element of Alex's life unfold, friends unknown to Frankie, a life, home, belief that every aspect of ones life was shared and finding not every secret was shared.  

Tunnicliffe, admits she is a romantic and wanted to push the circumstances to include a relationship and felt it might insult the readers as grief is such a powerful emotion, to walk away so quickly, not that  it can't be honest or true it just didn't ring true for her characters.

Folding in traditional specials recipes into a captivating storyline, Tunnicliffe, uses the recipes as food does in life, breaking the tension, diverting the attention, veering away from the direct.

Season of Salt and Honey is a book club favorite and provides pause points for discussion at the end. As it is a fictionalized, the recipes held together by, in this case the Italian culture, where dinner and families were important and are a way to capture some of the ambiance and mood.

Season of Salt and Honey is an easy and memorable pleasure read. The mixture of a food culture with the story is unusual and a nice way to include portions of these fictionalized characters into a life.

The story in one of intrigue and as it unfold, the hope that the bombshell isn't what one has imagined and then one realizes that life if it is anything often serves the salty and unthinkable seasons with tinges of sweet to keep us just hopeful enough.

My small critique of  Season of Salt and Honey have nothing to do with the story, or imagination of Hannah Tunnicliffe as she completes the story, punctuates each detail, add humor, and paints a realistic picture of life most difficult moments and when the chips are down just how people show up  . . .to pour salt in the wounds.

My critique is with the editing. Personally, even in print, I feel it isn't important to add each detail, which can in reality ruin the moment. Readers do like to use their imagination.  And as articulate as Tunnicliffe is, there are moments when more is just more and her editor should have thought of her audience.

Season of Salt and Honey is enchanting, captivating and inviting. An enjoyable page turner.

Season of Salt and Honey is published by Touchstone Books a division of Simon and Schuster.

For more information: www.simonandschuster.com