Spotlight on The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake

The Cover:

#TheSecretofOrangeBlossomCake #NetGalley

From the publisher:

A magical cookbook and a summer on her family’s Italian olive farm help a brokenhearted social media chef cook up a satisfying new life in this delectable novel from the bestselling author of Recipe for a Charmed Life.

Rising star Jules Costa loves re-creating vintage recipes for her popular online cooking show. When personal and professional disaster strikes though, her only chance to save her career is to complete her new cookbook before the end of the summer. Panicked, Jules returns to her family’s beloved olive farm on the shores of Italy’s stunning Lake Garda. Seeking culinary inspiration, she’s hoping to convince her spunky eighty-year-old nonna Bruna to share her precious collection of family recipes.

Jules’s plans quickly go awry as she discovers that Nonna’s cookbook has magical and unpredictable powers. It reveals only one recipe at a time, offering a cooking experience guaranteed to satisfy the chef’s palate and bring clarity to their life. Yet the pages remain stubbornly blank for Jules. To make matters worse, the olive farm is in deep financial trouble, and Jules soon uncovers a web of family secrets involving the cookbook and a lost recipe for Orange Blossom Cake that holds the key to everything. Then there’s Nicolo, the boy next door, who broke her young heart years ago. He is now all grown up, even more attractive, and the only person poised to help Jules find answers. 

In a whirlwind summer beyond her imagination, Jules begins to unravel the mysteries baked into her family’s history and discovers the essential ingredients to create the future of her dreams.

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About the author:

Rachel Mae Linden (who also writes as Rachel Linden) is a novelist and international aid worker whose adventures in over fifty countries around the world provide excellent grist for her writing. She is the author of Recipe for a Charmed Life, The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie, and several other novels. Currently Rachel lives with her family on a sweet little island near Seattle, WA where she enjoys creating stories about hope, courage and connection with a hint of romance and a touch of whimsy.

To learn more about Rachel Linden, visit her website or find her on Facebook or Instagram.

How it begins (with thanks to Berkley):

Chapter 1

The summer that changes my life begins with a bright orange molded Jell-O salad.

“A Jell-O salad just feels perfect for June, don’t you think?” I chatter breezily to my roommate and cohost Drew as I set out grated carrots, crushed pineapple, and a big box of lemon Jell-O on the kitchen counter of our apartment, arranging all the ingredients in a pleasingly photogenic way. “Now that we’re finally getting some sunshine, I think a molded gelatin salad is just the thing for this last segment.” Only this week did it finally feel like summer in Seattle after months of gray drizzle.

Drew adjusts the lights and recording equipment, fine-tuning before we start shooting. It’s late afternoon on a Sunday in mid-June, and we’re getting ready to record the last of the short cooking show segments we release each week on Instagram. We’re using our day off to film an entire month’s worth of segments for our show The Bygone Kitchen, just as we have once a month for the past five years.

“I just don’t get the appeal of Jell-O salad,” Drew admits. “It feels like old lady at a church potluck type of food.” He shoots me a wry, dimpled grin. “I’d go for a craft brew IPA and some cheese curds over Jell-O any day.” (Drew is from Wisconsin, a state in which cheese features prominently in the comfort food category.)

“Scandalous!” I gasp in mock outrage, rearranging a few ingredients on the counter so I can grab everything easily as we are filming. “Clearly, you don’t understand the positive power of Jell-O salad. I’m convinced any sadness or disappointment in life can be helped by a nice big scoop. And there are so many to choose from. Sunshine Salad, cherry cola Salad, strawberry pretzel Salad, orange sherbet Salad, broken glass Salad . . .”

My thoughts:

This is a lovely story about adapting to change, questioning assumptions, planning life’s next steps, family, loss, food, Italy, and romance. So much to like in these pages.

As the story opens Jules feels as if things are going well. Along with her roommate, she does a short video each week that features recipes from the past-think jello mold for one. Jules thinks that a big break is about to come-does it? Find out early in the story.

Jules has faced loss. Her mother left the family for a new relationship. The subsequent death of her father was a real cause of grief. In this novel, she will come to understand more about her family and herself and will put her life pieces back together.

One thread of the story centers on the cookbook contract that Julia must fulfill. She has a summer to do it but is very stuck. The novel brings her and her half sister (whom Jules had thought had a perfect life-but does she?) to Italy. Here Jules will spend time with her beloved grandmother and try to unblock and create her book. Still, she wonders, why can’t she see the pages of her grandmother’s beloved recipe book which are blank to her but not her grandmother.

In Italy, Jules will again meet her teenage first love. Yes, readers will want to know how this goes. Oh, and don’t forget the book’s title-what is the significance of the orange blossom cake?

There are many reasons to pick up this book. The pages turn in this appealing novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for this title. All opinions are my own.

Pub date: 30 September 2025

384 pages

Romance-Women’s Fiction-Sci Fi and Fantasy