Review: Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B?

Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B? by Terri-Lynne DeFino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! I don't know if this is the best book I will read this year, but it is sure the best book I've read so far...at least in this genre! Women's Fiction.

This book had me salivating, learning, thinking about going to downtown New Haven, which I haven't been to in years (I'm from CT!), and really getting into the characters.

As you can see from the excerpt, this book is about Queenie B and her notorious downfall from the top of the Chef's heap. But although Queenie B is supposed to be the main character, this book adds another main character named Gale. He, too, has had a magnificent fall from grace; he's just not famous...yet!

A poignant, sometimes heartbreaking story with a happy ending in more ways than one. This book teaches us that all of us can overcome nearly anything with determination, will, and the love of cooking and eating a great Italian meal.

*ARC supplied by the publisher, William Morrow, and the author, as well as NetGalley and ATTL/Edelweiss.


View all my reviews

SYNOPSIS - "For everyone who loved The Bear! An utterly winning, crowd-pleaser of a novel about a disgraced celebrity chef, her striving protégé, and their path through the kitchen to redemption.

Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips.

She had it all. Until she didn’t.

After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up her husband, her son, and the fame that she’d fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans.

Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale’s future dreams don’t hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal—it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair.

Gale doesn’t recognize Regina, the soup kitchen’s cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It’s been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale’s talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing.

Teaching Gale, Regina’s passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show, Cut!, it’s a turning point for them both.

It’s Gale’s time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding…"