About the Book
Title: The Saturday Night Supper Club
Author: Carla Laureano
Genre: Christian fiction/romance fiction
Release Date: February 6, 2018
Denver chef Rachel Bishop has accomplished everything she’s dreamed and some things she never dared hope, like winning a James Beard Award and heading up her own fine-dining restaurant. But when a targeted smear campaign causes her to be pushed out of the business by her partners, she vows to do whatever it takes to get her life back . . . even if that means joining forces with the man who inadvertently set the disaster in motion.
Essayist Alex Kanin never imagined his pointed editorial would go viral. Ironically, his attempt to highlight the pitfalls of online criticism has the opposite effect: it revives his own flagging career by destroying that of a perfect stranger. Plagued by guilt-fueled writer’s block, Alex vows to do whatever he can to repair the damage. He just doesn’t…
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My Review:
I absolutely loved " The Saturday Night Supper Club" by Carla Laureano. This is a clean romance but I have to say there is little hints that that the characters are having impure thoughts but again I stress that the book is clean.
This book is about a chef and a writer but I think more than the obvious plot of the story there is a deep meaning to me throughout the book ,it is that God loves us just as we are. This book is not preachy and the characters aren't prefect. My review is going to be different then others have written because I am going to just share quotes that I think would make perfect memes.
"Here the thing about dreams. Everyone thinks if something is meant to be, it's going to come easy. It's isn't supposed to be. Doing something worthwhile takes sacrifice."
"Nothing's wasted. Not with God. Sometimes you just need to have faith that He's got what's next."
" You are not the sum of your accomplishments or your failures. You have absolutely nothing to prove...... If God had wanted you to be anything other than you who are and what you are, He would have made you that way."
" Whatever decision you make, be sure you're doing it because it's what God would have you do, not simply because it's most comfortable."
"I'm not going to be happy trying to be something I'm not. God made me this way for a reason, and it's time to embrace it. See what else He has in mind for me."
I recommend this book to all readers but it might make you hungry because it is about a chef after all.
To me this story is about the characters finding out who they really are and being happy being just who they are supposed to be and not trying to live up to other's exceptions of them.
I was given a complimentary copy by the author and Celebrate Lit. These opinions are my own. To me this story is about the characters finding out who they really are and being happy being just who they are supposed to About the Author
Carla Laureano is the RITA® Award-winning author of contemporary inspirational romance and Celtic fantasy (as C.E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons, where she writes during the day and cooks things at night.
Guest Post From Carla Laureano
I’ve got a confession to make: I have a cooking problem.
It started early and innocently enough, flipping through my mom’s cookbooks and marking things I wanted to try. Making cakes and muffins from a mix. Flipping frozen steak patties. Doctoring canned spaghetti sauce.
It wasn’t long before I got into the hard stuff: muffins from scratch, slow-cooked marinara, cast-iron seared and oven-finished rib eyes. Over the years, I tried to kick the habit numerous times, but every time things got tough, I found myself falling off the wagon and heading back into the kitchen. Even hosting dinner parties. Yes, dear reader, I pulled my hapless friends into my madness. To my shame, I even got some of them hooked with their own addiction.
Before I knew it, my obsessions started creeping into my day job. No longer was it enough to write contemporary romance about normal people who order take-out. No, I had to write chefs and passionate home cooks and describe the food in the books just as lovingly as I did a first kiss. And then the final straw—a book series centered entirely on food and the culinary profession, beginning with The Saturday Night Supper Club.
All joking aside, cooking really is an addiction that I haven’t been able to kick. As a writer, I spend hours locked in my own imagination, creating things out of words and ideas. And while it’s immensely fulfilling, it’s a long, painstaking process that takes months, even years, before I can release the final product into the world. While there’s a large amount of planning and analysis involved in creating a book, the work is still mostly in my head.
Which is why I find cooking to be such a relaxing creative pursuit. Dicing a pile of vegetables into perfectly uniform cubes may take the same concentration and precision, but it’s concrete and measurable. It becomes a personal challenge to do something better than last time, improving by tiny, nearly imperceptible increments. It’s the closest to meditation that my always-on brain ever experiences, clear of all thought except for my activity at the present moment.
And yet, simultaneously, food is ephemeral. Mistakes last only as long as it takes to eat them or toss them directly into the trash can, depending on the nature of the mistake. If a sauce breaks, I toss it and start over. If I burn something, I either cut off the burned part or I order takeout and try again the next day. There’s an element of experimentation and instinct and whimsy that isn’t hampered by the pursuit of perfection. Let’s face it, a mediocre chocolate chip cookie beats a perfect celery stick any day of the week.
It was natural, then, to write a chef heroine who had dedicated her entire life to the pursuit of culinary perfection and explore all the ways that food makes our lives and relationships richer. How it anchors our memories. How we nurture others by feeding them. How a simple meal becomes meaningful not because of the food, but because of the connections we form with others over the dinner table.
In the end, I guess my cooking problem isn’t that much of a problem after all. If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.
Blog Stops
Rachel Scott McDaniel, February 20
A Baker’s Perspective, February 20
Just Commonly, February 20
Mommynificent, February 21
Among The Reads, February 21
A Greater Yes, February 21
proud to be an autism mom, February 21
Fiction Aficionado, February 22
Quiet Quilter, February 22
The Power of Words, February 23
Christian Chick’s Thoughts, February 23
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, February 23
Janices book reviews, February 24
C Jane Read, February 24
Faery Tales Are Real, February 24
All of a Kind Mom, February 25
Inklings and notions, February 25
Jeanette’s Thoughts, February 25
Carpe Diem, February 26
Smiling Book Reviews, February 26
Book Bites, Bee Stings, & Butterfly Kisses, February 26
Splashes of Joy, February 27
Its Storytime with Van Daniker, February 27
Simple Harvest Reads, February 27 (Guest post from Mindy)
Radiant Light, February 28
Moments Dipped in Ink, February 28
Baker kella, February 28
Pause for Tales, March 1
Book by Book, March 1
Bigreadersite, March 1
The Fizzy Pop Collection, March 2
Have A Wonderful Day, March 2
Reader’s Cozy Corner, March 2
Bibliophile Reviews, March 3
Two Points of Interest, March 3
Reading is my Super Power, March 3
Texas Book-aholic, March 4
amandainpa, March 4
Singing Librarian Books, March 4
By The Book, March 5
Neverending Stories, March 5
Pursuing Stacie, March 5
Giveaway
To celebrate her tour, Carla is giving away a grand prize of a $200 Visa Card for the winner and a friend to attend a cooking class!!
Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! https://promosimple.com/ps/c9b4
Thank you for sharing your review of Carla Laureano's book with us, Debbie! My favorite part: "" You are not the sum of your accomplishments or your failures. You have absolutely nothing to prove...... If God had wanted you to be anything other than you who are and what you are, He would have made you that way." Amen!
ReplyDeletethat was my favorite part also
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really great--I'd love to read it. And I love to cook too.
ReplyDeleteWhen you get to be my age, cooking is the last thing that I want to do.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for take-out.
Janet E.
von1janet(at)gmail(dot)com