With most of us besotted by The Great British Bake Off this lovely book comes to further nurture our appetite. It is indeed about baking, but its heart is about relationships, about being wives and mothers. It’s a dual-time telling of the life of the Queen of Baking in the 60s and the lives of the five amateur bakers competing for her crown today. It is a nice device to illustrate diverse lives and the reasons behind the contestants’ desires to win the title. A good slice of social history and the contrast of the periods are produced alongside a lot of emotional trauma; a great title for reading groups.
A 'Piece of Passion' from the publisher...
From the very first page of The Art of Baking Blind I just knew I had to publish it. I was gripped by the characters and the way their stories play out, by the novel’s unflinching emotional honesty, by what Sarah Vaughan has to say about women and what is important to us – today and in Mrs Eaden’s time – and by the warmth, compassion and inventiveness of the writing. This is a genuinely democratic story, sophisticated and yet also accessible, that appeals right across the generations - whoever we are, whatever baking means to us and however we live our lives. It’s a book to pass on to your friends, to your mother, to your sister and to your daughter – the equivalent of the most delicious lemon sponge you have ever tasted: rich yet more-ish - and with just the right amount of bite...' - Kate Parkin, Editor, Hodder & Stoughton
There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her facade shouldn't slip. As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest choux bun seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn - as Mrs Eaden did before them - that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life.
Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After eleven years at the Guardian working as a news reporter, health correspondent and political correspondent, she started freelancing. THE ART OF BAKING BLIND is her first novel and she is now working on her second. Sarah lives near Cambridge with her husband and two small children.