The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig

For readers of Chocolat and The School of Essential Ingredients

A Flavorful Debut Novel

THE CAKE THERAPIST

by Judith Fertig

Coming This June 2015

Buy your copy today – http://www.amazon.com/Cake-Therapist-Judith-Fertig/dp/0425277321/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433249487&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=the+cake+thearapist

People and places can be made up of layers: stories that give shape to our lives, loves, and secrets. For Judith Fertig, these layers are both as figurative and as literal as those in a stunning rainbow layer cake.  An award-winning cookbook author, Fertig’s food and lifestyle writing has appeared in more than a dozen publications, including Bon Appetit, Saveur and The New York Times.  Having attended La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris and The Iowa Writers’ Graduate Summer Workshop, she teaches cooking classes across the country.  This June, Judith Fertig adds another layer to the cake of her life: that of a novelist. THE CAKE THERAPIST is Judith Fertig’s debut novel, where she combines her expertise in baking with her passion for storytelling, resulting in a tale that shows just where food and healing intersect.

In THE CAKE THERAPIST (Berkley Trade Paperback Original; June 2, 2015; $16.00), Claire “Neely” O’Neill is an extraordinarily talented pastry chef.  But at a time when her life outside her kitchen seems to be falling apart, Neely moves back to her small Midwestern hometown from NYC to open a bakery and work through the heartache that caused her to flee her life in New York. The bakery, Rainbow Cake, named after her signature ROYGBIV confection, is perfect, intimate, and just what she’s always dreamed of.

But Neely has a special gift beyond making the perfect Rainbow Cake: while every great chef can taste shimmering, elusive flavors that most of us miss, Neely can “taste” feelings—cinnamon makes you remember; plum is pleased with itself; orange is a wake-up call. When flavor and feeling give Neely a glimpse of someone’s inner self, she can customize her creations to help that person celebrate love, overcome fear, even mourn a devastating loss.

As she meets her new customers, Neely has a sense of secrets, some dark, some perhaps with tempting possibilities. A recurring flavor of alarming intensity signals to her perfect palate a long-ago story that must be told.  As she tastes her way through others’ mysterious pasts, she largely ignores the pain and uncertainty in her own.  Neely has always been able to help everyone else, but getting to the end of this story may be just what she needs to help herself.

Chock full of colorful flavor, THE CAKE THERAPIST combines the spice of mystery with the bitterness of pain and loss and all the sweetness of small town charm, and is a debut that is not to be missed.

Praise for THE CAKE THERAPIST:

“A dash of complex romance stirs up a cast of characters linked through time by a precious bauble in a delicious setting. This sweet charmer of a story made me hungry for more.”

~Jeanne Ambrose, award-winning Taste of Home Magazine editor

Visit Judith Fertig online at: http://alfrescofoodandlifestyle.blogspot.com

Twitter: @judithfertig

Facebook: Judith Fertig, Author