Bread Alone: A Novel - Hardcover

Judith Ryan Hendricks

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060188952 ISBN 13: 9780060188955

Publisher: William Morrow, 2001

Synopsis

A deliciously magical and mouthwatering debut, Bread Alone is the uplifting journey of a woman whose entire life changes course when her husband announces one evening that their marriage no longer works for him.

Not suited for teaching high school and hopeless at selling real estate, thirty-one-year-old Wynter Morrison long ago gave up trying to find a suitable career and drifted into the role of a trophy wife -- mainly to suit her husband's desires. An ambitious advertising executive, David had encouraged Wyn to spend her days among other society wives at wine tastings, French films, and trendy restaurants -- improving their social Rolodex and his array of business contacts. So, after seven years of marriage, when David informs Wyn that he feels confined and that their marriage was a mistake, she is left emotionally devastated and without direction, wondering how she let herself become so dependent.

Desperate for a change of scenery, Wyn leaves behind her posh, pampered life in Hancock Park and ventures north to Seattle, where she spends aimless hours at a local bakery, sipping coffee and inhaling the sweet aroma of freshly made bread. These visits bring back memories of her apprenticeship at a French boulangerie, when her passion for bread-making nearly led her to leave college to become a baker. Once again the desire and ambition to bake bread consumes Wyn's thoughts, and when offered a position at the bakery, Wyn quickly accepts, grateful for the comfort of a routine.

Arriving at the bakery just before midnight and working long hours among the bakery's cluster of eclectic women -- Linda, the irascible bread baker; earth mother Ellen and her partner Diane; Tyler, the blue-haired barista -- Wyn awakens to the truths that she missed while living the good life in Hancock Park. And soon she discovers that making bread -- the kneading of the dough, the heat from the ovens -- possesses an unexpected and wondrous healing power, helping her to rediscover that nothing stays the same: bread rises, pain fades, the heart heals, and the future beckons.

Inspiring and beautifully rendered , Bread Alone is an uplifting debut novel -- dusted in the gentlest of magic, full of humor, and guaranteed to warm the heart.

About this title

About the Author:

A former journalist, copywriter, computer instructor, travel agent, waitress, and baker, Judith Ryan Hendricks is the author of three previous novels, including the bestseller Bread Alone. She and her husband live in New Mexico.

From Publishers Weekly:

The First Wives Club acquires a junior member in this pleasant if unremarkable first novel. When 31-year-old Wynter Morrison finds herself locked out of her house by her handsome, spoiled husband, David, who has taken up with a beautiful blonde, she is devastated. With only three years' experience teaching high school, one year in real estate sales and seven years experience as the "Executive Wife" and "Charming Hostess," Wyn has little success fending for herself at first, but a growing self-awareness emerges slowly once she leaves her old lifestyle in Los Angeles. After visiting a friend in Seattle, Wyn moves there to take a job at a local bakery. No longer dependent on David, Wyn finds solace in living a spartan existence and working hard in the early morning hours baking bread, though she is frustrated by the unimaginative veteran baker. Her memories of a year abroad in Toulouse during her sophomore year at UCLA where she learned to bake bread in a family bakery are sprinkled throughout the story, as are her favorite bread recipes. Over the course of this long, convoluted tale, Wyn transforms from a "willfully ignorant," betrayed wife living in sunny L.A. whose greatest worry is what to wear to the next symphony ball, to a flannel shirt-wearing bakery owner living in the rainy Northwest who finds love with a bartender-turned-writer. In this engaging novel, Hendricks creates a compelling narrator whose wry, bemused and ultimately wise voice hooks the reader. Even though Wyn's story is predictable at times, this is a well-written, imaginative debut. Agent, Deborah Schneider.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060188952
• ISBN 13: 9780060188955
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368