Lizzy & Jane by Katherine Reay, © 2014

You're creating more than a meal; you're creating sustenance and meeting needs that are way beyond nutritional.
   --Cecilia ~ Lizzy & Jane, 139

Being moved out, or being moved to? Elizabeth Hughes leaves her successful chef expertise to a flamboyant entering chef at a New York City restaurant; while at least it was successful a few months back, now clouded with the current thoughts of her sister beginning chemotherapy in Seattle. An unsettled past relationship lack brings them back together. Separated after the death of their mother and her older sister, Jane, leaving for college, Elizabeth returns to their Oregon family home after fifteen years. Apart from Christmas visits in Seattle, joined by their dad, a retired fire chief, they have been distant. Elizabeth goes to Seattle to stay two weeks while her brother-in-law, Peter, is traveling for business; to go to chemo with Jane and cook for her and her niece and nephew.

Nevertheless, it's never about the food––it's about what the food becomes, in the hands of the giver and the recipient.
   --Elizabeth ~ Ibid., 172

Elizabeth arranges to stay an extended two weeks while Peter is on his last scheduled business trip before staying home with his family. Continued happenings hold her heart near.

This is a story about forgiveness, acceptance, and love. Need brings them together, love keeps them.

A wonderful story of learning to share feelings, to not be afraid of acceptance or expression of self. So many wonderful phrases.

"I'm beginning to think the best dreams need others to help build them."
   --Elizabeth ~ Ibid., 204

[Note to author Katherine Reay: I would love to have your Chicken Potpie recipe described on the bottom of page 259.]

I especially like how everyone is letting their guards down and just l~i~v~i~n~g with their hearts wide-open. Transparency in being who they are, with strengths and weaknesses exposed to release and open to receive.

~*~

Sometimes the courage to face your greatest fears comes only when you've run out of ways to escape. At the end of a long night, Elizabeth leans against the industrial oven and takes in her kingdom. Once vibrant and flawless, evenings in the kitchen now feel chaotic and exhausting. She's lost her culinary magic, and business is slowing down.
   When worried investors enlist the talents of a tech-savvy celebrity chef to salvage the restaurant, Elizabeth feels the ground shift beneath her feet. Not only has she lost her touch; she's losing her dream.
   And her means of escape.
   When her mother died, Elizabeth fled home and the overwhelming sense of pain and loss. But fifteen years later, with no other escapes available, she now returns. Brimming with desperation and dread, Elizabeth finds herself in the unlikeliest of places, by her sister’s side in Seattle as Jane undergoes chemotherapy.
   As her new life takes the form of care, cookery, and classic literature, Elizabeth is forced to reimagine her future and reevaluate her past. But can a New York City chef with a painful history settle down with the family she once abandoned . . . and make peace with the sister who once abandoned her?

Katherine Reay has enjoyed a life-long affair with the works of Jane Austen and her contemporaries. After earning degrees in history and marketing from Northwestern University, she worked in not-for-profit development before returning to school to pursue  her MTS. Katherine lives with her husband and three children in Seattle, WA.
Dear Mr. Knightley was her first novel.
Twitter: @Katherine_Reay
Facebook: katherinereaybooks
Website: http://www.katherinereay.com

***Thank you to BookLook Bloggers for inviting me to be a part of the blog tour for Katherine Reay's second novel ~ Lizzy & Jane. This review was written in my own words. No other compensation was received.***