Nellie’s chapters all start with a recipe and I loved seeing what she was making.

Although I think it’s often easy to view the past with rose-tinted spectacles, I wouldn’t have wanted to live in such unenlightened times for women. I’m usually slobbing around in my slippers. I have to say that the idea of me putting kitten heels on before my partner comes home is laughable. There are dark elements to them, particularly the 50s story when a wife was supposed to pander to her husband, be there with a welcoming smile, wearing her kitten heels with a cocktail ready for him when he comes home. In books such as this I usually have a favourite of the two stories. We flit between the two times as we watch Nellie’s marriage to Richard sour, alongside Alice’s own marital difficulties. The house they move to has a décor that is stuck in the 1950s which is when the previous owner, Nellie Murdoch, first lived there. Having had a career in PR she now thinks that she wants to write a book. Nate wants a baby but Alice isn’t sure what she wants. In the 2018 story Alice Hale and her husband, Nate, are about to move from the city to the suburbs of New York. It has a domestic setting, it’s dual timeline and it has recipes! Recipe for a Perfect Wife has all the ingredients I like in a book. When Alice uncovers a more sinister, even dangerous, side to Nellie’s marriage, and has become increasingly dissatisfied with her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own. Soon Alice learns that while a Baked Alaska may seem harmless, Nellie’s secrets may have been anything but.

As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realizes that within the pages Nellie left clues about her life. But when she finds a vintage cookbook buried in the basement, she becomes captivated by its previous owner: 1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch.

When Alice Hale leaves a career to become a writer and follows her husband to the New York suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. My thanks to Lucy Chamberlain from Legend Press for the place on the tour and for sending a copy of the book for review purposes. I’m sharing my thoughts about this book with you today. Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown.

Recipes for a perfect wife