The Flavours Of Love - Dorothy Koomson || Review

'I'm looking for that perfect blend of flavours; the taste that used to be you. If I find it, I know you'll come back to me.' It's been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I've decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I'm coping so well without him - they have no idea what I've been hiding or what I do away from prying eyes. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed something so devastating it could destroy our family all over again, and my husband's killer has started to write to me claiming to be innocent, I know it's only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I've done is revealed to the world. My name is Saffron Mackleroy and this is my story.

Review

It took me 3 years! YES 3 YEARS! to actually finish this book, i have started it and restarted it so many times, and i have no clue why - because its so good. Maybe the timing wasnt right, the first at least 5 times. Who knows, then i started it and went on holiday  but finally - i have finished it. It was so worth the wait, all the times i didnt finish it.

When Saffron is called into school one day, her whole world is changed up and thrown around again, already still reeling from the unsolved murder of her husband, and now this?! Everyone thinks she is coping, but behind closed doors it is a completely different matter. She perhaps isnt. 

As we meet Saffron and her family, you really get the vibe of what she is like, i feel like she is one of those people, you just know - if you get what i mean. She has so much to deal with and i just wanted to help her, my heart hurt for her. Koomson has always done a wonderful job in portraying emotions in all her characters, creating family values and gripping the reader till the end. 

As we went on this journey with Saffron, i felt like i was tossed and turned and tumbled all over the place, with so much going on - i was shocked by some of the outcomes to the situations, some i would never of guessed in the first place so it threw me a major curveball.

This was a wonderful book, that is hard to review - because i dont want to spoil the experience for anyone else!

Rating

4/5

Author Info

 I wrote my first novel called There's A Thin Line Between Love And Hate when I was 13. I used to write a chapter every night then pass it around to my fellow convent school pupils every morning, and they seemed to love it.

I grew up in London and then grew up again in Leeds when I went to university. I eventually returned to London to study for my masters degree and stayed put for the following years. I took up various temping jobs and eventually got my big break writing, editing and subbing for various women's magazines and national papers.

Fiction and storytelling were still a HUGE passion of mine and I continued to write short stories and novels every spare moment that I got. In 2001 I had the idea for The Cupid Effect and my career as a published novelist began. And it's been fantastic. In 2006, third novel, My Best Friend's Girl was published. It was incredibly successful - selling nearly 90,000 copies within its first few weeks on sale. Six weeks later, it was selected for the Richard & Judy Summer Reads Book Club and the book went on to sell over 500,000 copies. Oh, there I go again, this is meant to be about me, not my novels.

Okay, back to me. I recently spent two years living in Sydney Australia, and now I'm back in England. But I can't say for how long I'll be in the UK for because I've been well and truly bitten by the travel bug