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    Lizzy and Jane
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    Lizzy and Jane
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    Lizzy and Jane
    Ebook396 pages5 hours

    Lizzy and Jane

    By Katherine Reay

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Lizzy and Jane couldn’t be further from Jane Austen’s famous sisters for whom they are named.

    Elizabeth left her family’s home in Seattle fifteen years ago to pursue her lifelong dream—chefing her own restaurant in New York City. Jane stayed behind to raise a family. Estranged since their mother’s death many years ago, the circumstances of their lives are about to bring them together once again.

    Known for her absolute command of her culinary domain, Elizabeth’s gifts in the kitchen have begun to elude her. And patrons and reviewers are noticing. In need of some rest and an opportunity to recover her passion for cooking, Elizabeth jumps at the excuse to rush to her sister’s bedside when Jane is diagnosed with cancer. After all, Elizabeth did the same for their mother. Perhaps this time, it will make a difference.

    As Elizabeth pours her renewed energy into her sister’s care and into her burgeoning interest in Nick, Jane’s handsome coworker, her life begins to evolve from the singular pursuit of her own dream into the beautiful world of family, food, literature, and love that was shattered when she and Jane lost their mother. Will she stay and become Lizzy to her sister’s Jane—and Elizabeth to Nick’s Mr. Darcy—or will she return to the life she has worked so hard to create?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateNov 4, 2014
    ISBN9781401689742
    Author

    Katherine Reay

    Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and three children. You can meet her at katherinereay.com; Facebook: @KatherineReayBooks; Twitter: @katherine_reay; Instagram: @katherinereay.

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    Reviews for Lizzy and Jane

    3/5

    4 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      "The cake and I faced each other - the last two elements of a discarded celebration. I covered it, shoved it into a corner, and started to wipe down the counters."Elizabeth is making it in New York as a chef, but something's not quite right and she can see the writing on the wall of her restaurant. She decides to fly home for the first time in 15 years to visit her widowed father and her sister, who's struggling with cancer. Can Elizabeth cook the family back into happiness, and will prickly Jane let down her defences enough for Elizabeth to help?This reminded me so much of The Love Verb, that it's not funny. Also a little bit of Helen Garner's The Spare Room (although really the only connection there is the friend as impatient patient). The writing isn't very demanding, but pleasant enough; it tugs on the heartstrings every now and again and there is the occasional plot twist, but much of it predictable and comforting. Like hot chocolate. What I did particularly like about this is that while it looks like it's going to be an Austen retelling, it actually wasn't; in fact, even though the two main characters are named for Austen's most famous sisters, neither of them is (I thought) particularly like Austen's Bennet girls. They are much more alike, both hot-tempered, proud and indignant, but capable of great compassion.Instead, the Austen reference is about the experience of having read Austen - what the reader learns from Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion (and I was glad to see some references in there to Persuasion which I think is a vastly underrated Austen novel!).The New York setting doesn't feel that strong - but we don't spend very long in New York. Seattle felt very small-town - they seem to walk nearly everywhere or take very short car rides - is it really that small? That said, culturally it was a pleasant and consistent depiction of a relaxed way of life contrasting with New York's hecticism (I may have just made up that word).One niggle (and it's possible that this is fixed in the print version, but it wasn't in my eGalley): in The Love Verb and other cooking-related fiction (e.g. Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe), the author included the recipes. I would really have liked the recipes to be included in the book so I could replicate some of them at home!Enjoyable, light; it won't stay with you long but it's a very pleasant read while you're at it.
    • 4/5
      I am officially a fan of this author and will now join the ranks of people who will be waiting with baited breath for her next book. This one didn't reach out and grab me quite as firmly as Dear Mr. Knightley , but I still loved it. It may be because I am kind of the opposite of a "foodie" and I have gotten so that I really hate to cook, so all the food references/descriptions held no allure for me. Oh, and I was disappointed to find that Katherine Reay and I actually disagree on an author. Hemingway? Really? (Insert smile emoji here.) Other than that, I loved the characters, even though both Lizzy and Jane were a little hard to like at different parts of the story. But that is very understandable with all they are going and have gone through. I loved all the other characters as well, up to and including the "dystopian library" of people. I think it takes a pretty amazing author to get you invested in people's lives that you only meet for a few pages. I cried over a character I had only met a couple of times. Well-done! As with the author's other book, this one was also heartwrenching, heartbreaking, insightful, touching, and it stayed with me when I wasn't reading it and made me think. I loved the book references (except Hemingway), and the name of this book aside, it didn't make me want to start reading Pride and Prejudice again, but rather to go to my personal Austen favorite, Persuasion , because that ending melted my heart. And last but not least, I loved the settings. It is no secret that I adore The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, The City So Nice, They Named It Twice..... yes, I'm always in a New York State of Mind. But I was also very excited about the Seattle setting, since I am in the throes of planning a trip there in a couple of months. Win-win!! So, cuddle up on the couch and give this one a read.On to Persuasion and the long wait for Katherine Reay's next book.
    • 2/5
      Lizzy is a chef in new York and takes time off when it is suggested she is losing her touch in the restaurant and needs to rediscover her passion. She goes home to Seattle to see her sister Jane, who is having chemotherapy for breast cancer. She ends up staying longer than planned and cooks meals for one of Jane's fellow patients at the infusion centre.There were things I liked about this novel, including the Seattle setting and some of the details about cancer treatment and how it affects whole families. However, I never really believed in Lizzy the high-powered chef, and she was so thoroughly unpleasant to every one she met that it was hard to root for her. At first I thought she was going to become nicer as the novel progressed, but she was still selfish and mean at the end. I'm not sure why Nick fell for her - she certainly didn't deserve him. Much was made of how Jane and Lizzy's mother had died of cancer and Lizzy had been there, while Jane stayed in Shanghai. Then, after her death Lizzy went to New York and never came home and Jane came home and was close to their father. This seemed to be intended to be the root of all their problems and talking it over was meant to bring healing and a fresh start, but I couldn't really grasp the logic of all the emotion flying around and, once again, I just think Lizzy was a really nasty person. One star deducted for the rewrite of Wentworth's proposal (from Persuasion) at the end.