Hunger

Anna Rossi grew up in a home where every meal was boiled until the flavor was gone. Now, years later, a gifted cook, she finds her own appetite draining away as her marriage dissolves into blandness. Desperate to hold her lawyer husband's attention for more than five minutes, she convinces him to go on a second honeymoon in New Hampshire - only to find that, in the end, they have nothing left to say to each other.

Taking her six-year-old daughter, Sara, Anna begins a new life as a kitchen assistant in a friend's busy ski-area New Hampshire restaurant. With the help of the critical sous chef, James, Anna begins to rediscover the simple pleasures of a life lived on one's own terms - along with the sweetness of fresh blueberry jam, the salty tang of blue cheese, and the warm, comforting and earthy taste of mushrooms. But just as Anna's appetite begins to make a healthy reappearance, a phone call from her less vibrant past forces her to make an important choice. Anna's decision may change the way she has come to view the world, and have devastating effects on the flavor of her future.

Jane Ward is the author of HUNGER (Forge 2001) and THE MOSAIC ARTIST (shortlisted for the 2015 Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize). Her third novel, BRILLIANT RISING (She Writes Press), releases in fall 2021.

Jane graduated from Simmons College with a degree in English Literature, and began working almost immediately in the food and hospitality industry, trying her hand at catering for Creative Gourmets in Boston, planning corporate parties at The 95th Restaurant in Chicago, and baking on the weekends at Quebrada Bakery in Arlington, Massachusetts. She has been a contributing writer to the online regional and seasonal food magazine, Local In Season, and blogger for and occasional host of cooking videos for MPN Online, an internet recipe resource affiliated with several newspapers across the country.

Although a Massachusetts native, Jane recently settled in Chicago after returning to the US from Switzerland.