Joel Golby

Juliet Annan

Ella Risbridger

Nina Mingya Powles

Rebecca Liu

Laura Freeman

Rebecca May Johnson

Daisy Johnson

Yemisi Aribisala

A collection to savour and inspire, In the Kitchen brings together thirteen contemporary writers whose work brilliantly explores food, capturing their reflections on their culinary experiences in the kitchen and beyond.

In the Kitchen

At the age of fourteen, Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia. She had seized the one aspect of her life that she seemed able to control, and struck different foods from her diet one by one until she was starving. But even at her lowest point, the one appetite she never lost was her love of reading. As Laura battled her anorexia, she gradually re-discovered how to enjoy food - and life more broadly - through literature. Plum puddings and pottles of fruit in Dickens gave her courage to try new dishes; the wounded Robert Graves' appreciation of a pair of greengages changed the way she thought about plenty and choice; Virginia Woolf's painterly descriptions of bread, blackberries and biscuits were infinitely tempting. Book by book, meal by meal, Laura developed an appetite and discovered an entire library of reasons to live. The Reading Cure is a beautiful, inspiring account of hunger and happiness, about addiction, obsession and recovery, and about the way literature and food can restore appetite and renew hope.

The Reading Cure

Politician Logan Pierce visits Darrow Falls, Ohio, to enlist support for the Union cause. There, he meets the beautiful and strong-willed Jem Collins and insists she remain at home for news of her husband, Ben, after the Battle of Bull Run, but she ignores his advice. Jem knows something is wrong when Ben doesn’t send word he has survived the first major battle of the Civil War. Jem travels to Washington City with Logan to search for news of Ben and uses her nursing skills to care for the wounded. When Logan kisses her, she resolves to remain faithful to her vows of marriage, but can she? Hearing news Ben may be a prisoner, she leaves the federal capital for Richmond but doesn’t return. Can Logan wait, fearing for her fate, or does he risk capture and hanging as a spy by following into enemy territory?

Impending Love and Death

Cass Beecher hopes Sergeant Zach Ravenswood will fall in love with her on an outing to Ford's Theater, only to have their world turned upside down with President Lincoln's assassination. Her romantic plans continue to be thwarted by family, friends, and a mysterious stranger. Can she save the man she loves from the enemies plotting to ruin him? Zach thought with the war over, he could turn his attention to wooing the lovely Cassandra, but a fortune teller's dire predictions begin to come true when a fire disfigures him, a nun poisons him, his uncle steals his inheritance, and he's shot. Is he going mad, or is everything not as it appears?

Impending Love and Madness

Various zoo animals take residence in a young girl's hair as it becomes more tangled and frizzy.

Natalie's Hair Was Wild!

The scruffy-looking passenger turns out to be more trouble than Colleen “Cole” Beecher bargained for, especially when Blake becomes her patient. After a suitor spurns her to marry a rich socialite, she travels to Washington City and throws herself into work to help the Union cause. When Blake offers her a job at his hotel, she takes it for the money, but her heart desires more. When hotel owner Blake Ellsworth boards a canal boat to escape the Cassell brothers, he meets a headstrong beauty who saves his life when he is shot. Despite his attraction to her, Blake is determined to join the Union army once his shoulder heals. Fearing he may make Cole a widow, Blake won’t propose marriage, but eight weeks is a long time to spend with a woman who stirs more than his imagination.

Laura Freeman

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