The Saturday Supper Club
Wanted: Four amateur cooks to compete in a supper-club contest
Rules: Four strangers, four weeks, four houses, four dinner parties.
You might win: a cash prize. You might lose: your heart.
Eve had her world torn apart three years ago when the love of her life, Ethan , disappeared and she never found out why. But now her life is rosy. With a lovely new boyfriend, Joe, and a cafe-opening on the cards, things finally seem to be falling into place... until she agrees to take part in a supper-club competition for a local newspaper. Eve is cooking the first dinner and who should turn up on her doorstep expecting a three-course meal, but her long lost love?
Bratley successfully gives a depth to her characters that helps you relate to the characters. You instantly warm towards some and feel indifferent towards others.
The storyline itself has so much family drama, it makes an Eastenders plot at Christmas look like a mild falling out. It really kept me turning the page and as Eve develops friendships, I found myself warming to characters that on first introduction, I disliked. As the story progresses I found that Bratley touched on emotions we all go through at some point during our lives, it explores the different ways in which we cope with situations of love, loss and heartache but in a very upbeat and optimistic way, using her bright eyed, happy go lucky character Eve.
The Saturday Supper club really delves into the age old dilemma of ‘Do I go with my heart or my head?’ It touches on several emotions such as jealousy, guilt, longing, love, forgiveness and does so in a way that is relatable to most women. The ending was slightly predictable and broke through the image of Eve’s happy – go – lucky nature; which did ruin the book slightly for me.
I highly recommend this book, but be warned, once you pick it up, you may not be able to put it back down.