Publisher's Synopsis
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER (GLOBE AND MAIL, VANCOUVER SUN, TORONTO STAR)
"A brilliant, brooding, timely novel, fraught with tension, that packs a punch. Brown knows how to keep readers riveted until the very last page." --Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl
When Alice Hale reluctantly leaves New York and a career in publicity to follow her husband to the suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. But after she finds a vintage cookbook buried in a box in the old home's basement, she becomes captivated by the book's previous owner, a 1950s housewife named Nellie Murdoch. As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realizes that Nellie left clues about her life amidst the recipes--including a mysterious series of unsent letters penned to her mother.
Soon Alice learns that while Baked Alaska and Meatloaf Five Ways seem harmless, Nellie's secrets may have been anything but. When Alice uncovers a more sinister--even dangerous--side to Nellie's marriage, even as she grows increasingly dissatisfied with the mounting pressures in her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own.
