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    The Lost Recipe for Happiness: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Lost Recipe for Happiness: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Lost Recipe for Happiness: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Lost Recipe for Happiness: A Novel

    Written by Barbara O'Neal

    Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In this sumptuous new novel, Barbara O'Neal offers readers a celebration of food, family, and love as a woman searches for the elusive ingredient we're all hoping to find. . . .

    It's the opportunity Elena Alvarez has been waiting for-the challenge of running her own kitchen in a world-class restaurant. Haunted by an accident of which she was the lone survivor, Elena knows better than anyone how to defy the odds.  With her faithful dog, Alvin, and her grandmother's recipes, Elena arrives in Colorado to find a restaurant in as desperate need of a fresh start as she is-and a man whose passionate approach to food and life rivals her own. Owner Julian Liswood is a name many people know but a man few do. He's come to Aspen with a troubled teenage daughter and a dream of the kind of stability and love only a family can provide. But for Elena, old ghosts don't die quietly, yet a chance to find happiness at last is worth the risk.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 27, 2009
    ISBN9781415954485
    Unavailable
    The Lost Recipe for Happiness: A Novel
    Author

    Barbara O'Neal

    Barbara O’Neal is the author of eleven novels of women’s fiction, including How to Bake a Perfect Life and The Lost Recipe for Happiness. Her award-winning books have been published in a dozen countries, including France, England, Poland, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Brazil. Barbara lives in the stunningly beautiful city of Colorado Springs with her beloved, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent.

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    Reviews for The Lost Recipe for Happiness

    4/5

    107 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Delicious....made me hungry while reading. Anyone who loves Sarah Addison Allen's books will love this one. Will look out for more of her books.
    • 4/5
      Elena Alvarez is finally offered the chance to be head chef at a restaurant in Aspen, Co. For many years, she has been slowly climbing the ladder and now developing her own recipes for a first-class restaurant is within her grasp. She brings her share of ghosts with her – she was the lone survivor of a car accident in her teens which left her with lingering problems which she mostly chooses to ignore. The owner of the restaurant is a famous film director and he comes to Aspen with his teenage daughter to get her away from LA as well as to open the restaurant. Of course, he becomes the love interest in the book. There are difficulties with the other chef who was kept on as well as the headaches of getting a staff up to speed and a few other entanglements I won’t mention here. Overall a good book – the writing style drew me right in and I couldn’t wait to finish it. There are also a few recipes sprinkled here and there in the book.
    • 3/5
      Had potential to be a better book, but seemed rushed at the end.
    • 5/5
      Elena's a woman in a man's world, and when she's offered an executive chef position is a new restaurant directly after being fired by a former lover, it seems almost too good to be true. Haunted by a traumatic car accident in which she was the only survivor, she's forced to reconsider her lifelong resolution to keep others at a distance when she finds herself irresisitably drawn to the restaurant's owner, a famous movie director.I enjoyed this, and put aside other books I've been reading in order to focus on this one. Similar to Like Water for Chocolate and Garden Spells (minus most of the magical realism), and also to The School of Essential Ingredients, food in this book is almost magical, has an otherworldness that I find fascinating. The many characters in this story are brought together through their love of preparing and experimenting and showing their love through recipes.Elena and Julian's (the film director) form the main love story, and theirs is compelling and very steamy, but also intriguing is the relationship between Elena's tempermental sous chef, Ivan, and Patrick, one of her longtime friends. Much of their relationship is conducted offscreen, but it too is complex and a bit steamy.While I could take or leave the many recipes sprinkled throughout the book, I really enjoyed the peek into what it takes to "build" a restaurant, from the vision, to ingredients, to decor, to menu.Recommended.
    • 4/5
      The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a story about love lost, love found and learning to love oneself.Elena Alvarez was the soul survivor of a tragic car accident 20 years prior and she has trouble letting anyone in. As Elena gains a "family" of friends, she also finds her soul-mate and herself.Ivan Santino grew up in an abusive home until the death of his mother when he was left in the care of his aunt. Ivan had been shaped by loss, anger and abuse. Becoming a drunk led to Ivan losing the executive chef position at his restaurant, to Elena.Julian Liswood is a famous Hollywood director with a troubled teen daughter and 3 ex-wives, one he married twice. Julian has several restaurants and his latest venture "The Orange Bear" is where the story takes place. Julian hires Elena after she is fired from another one of his restaurants. Elena goes from sous chef, to fired, to executive chef all in the course of several hours. At this restaurant these three lives intersect and through good times and bad they become a family and make each other whole again.
    • 4/5
      This book created a really warm feeling and tangible emotion within its pages. The characters were wholesome and powerful within the story. Romance on a very mature and believable level. The story of a broken woman who falls into her dream of running a high end restaurant. A very determined and strong person who has had to fight her way to achieve along the way. Along comes a deep relationship and she needs to decide which way to jump. More than a surface chick lit read!!!
    • 3/5
      I thought this would be a quick chick-lit read and was very surprised by the depth of the characters and the immense sadness which is woven throughout the plot. The story is filled with great characters, all of whom have difficult pasts which they must overcome. The plot is fast paced, but the complexity of it is overwhelming. There are secrets, lies, romances, fate, soul mates, murder, car accidents, ghosts, recipes, and teenage angst all rolled into one story. Barbara O'Neal's writing is wonderful, but is sometimes overshadowed by the tremendous plot.
    • 4/5
      I'm really enjoying this book. It feels very alive to me. I love Elena and her relationship with food, with her broken body, with men and with ghosts. I find her interesting and enjoyed spending time with her. I liked all of it - the recipies, the description of food, the sex, the love, the crisis. It all felt possible and true to me. A good romance warms the soul and that's what this is doing for me.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I've read yet this year. Touching story of one woman's loss and the discovery of herself. Soul searching and so touching that I closed the books with tears. Wonderful story. I felt like I knew Elena and all the characters like family. Great find!!
    • 4/5
      Good story, good read.
    • 3/5
      This is the 2nd book I've read by Barbara O'Neal, loved the first one, and was not happy with this one. It had all the right ingredients to make me want to read it: cooking, recipes, a dog, great settings and captivating dysfunctional characters. I basically grew up in restaurants; so a story about a broken woman, who is an talented chef and gets an opportunity to run her own restaurant in Aspen, Colorado was really intriguing. The food was spicy, but the sexual content had too much Chile pepper spice for me. Enough said.
    • 4/5
      I loved the premise of this novel. theauthor is extremely descriptive when describing the food being served in the restaurant that the main character Elena is opening. While opening a restaurant, she is also having very bad pain from an accident that she was the only survivor. Lost myself in this book after a very long dry spell of just okay books.
    • 5/5
      I have to admit when I first skimmed the book description, I thought the plot would be: girl breaks up with current boy, relocates to new city for a fresh start, meets new boy, not sure if she should get involved with new boy, ends up getting involved with new boy and they begin new relationship. Ok, so maybe The Lost Recipe for Happiness can be summed up that way. But honestly, it’s so much more than that.Elena Alvarez is a complicated character, but extremely likable. She’s haunted by her past and cannot rid herself of her tragic accident. She’s left not only with physical pain from the car accident, but immense survivor’s guilt. She’s the lone survivor of a car accident that killed her high school boyfriend and two sisters.After the accident and a long period of physical therapy and healing, she left her hometown and explored her passion for cooking. Training in the best restaurants prepared her to become chef of her kitchen. While mastering the art of cooking, Elena simultaneously distanced herself from intimate relationships. Yes, she had plenty of boyfriends, however she never allowed them in, always keeping them at arm’s reach. Of course this changes when she meets Julian.Julian Liswood is a single father with several marriages under his belt. He’s trying to raise his teenage daughter the best he can while maintaining his professional life. He’s immediately smitten with Elena, but tries to keep their relationship purely professional. After all, he is her boss.Ms. O’Neal did an excellent job bringing these characters to life. The chapters are told from both Elena’s and Julian’s perspectives. The secondary characters round out the story with issues of their own that only contribute to the depth of the plot.If you’re looking for something different, I suggest you pick up The Lost Recipe for Happiness. Elena is a character that you will root for and in the end you will walk away satisfied.4.5 Stars