FROM SCRATCH by Rachel Goodman-Review and Giveaway

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date July 20, 2015

A down-home, feel-good debut Southern romance, From Scratch explores one woman’s journey back home to Dallas, Texas, where her family is cooking up a plan that doesn’t quite suit her tastes…

Thirty-year-old Lillie Turner grew up with maple syrup stuck to her skin and bacon grease splattered on her clothes, courtesy of working in the family diner. Thank goodness she escaped all that when she moved to Chicago five years ago. Now a successful strategy consultant and newly engaged to a man who complements her like biscuits and gravy, she has everything she wants.

When an urgent phone call about her father’s health pulls Lillie back to Dallas, she soon learns it was a ruse to bring her home so she can run the diner she’d rather avoid and compete in the Upper Crust, an annual baking competition, with no option to withdraw. Lillie is furious and ready to run back to Chicago, but her father’s haggard appearance makes her wonder if he’s hiding something. Things go from bad to worse when Nick, her handsome ex and the only man she ever truly loved, reappears, looking as scrumptious as ever.

Lillie’s trip home forces her to question the path she’s chosen, find her place in the family she abandoned, and wonder if the life she left behind is what she wants after all.

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REVIEW: FROM SCRATCH is a romantic, contemporary storyline from first time author Rachel Goodman that focuses on a second chance for two people destined for one another but torn apart by anger, stress and lies from the past. This is professional consultant Lillie Turner, and Nick Preston’s storyline.

Told from first person point of view (Lillie) FROM SCRATCH follows the rekindling of a relationship between Lillie and Nick, as well as Lillie’s return to her hometown of Dallas, Texas. Five years earlier, following several months wherein Lillie and Nick’s relationship started to implode, Lillie walked away, leaving Dallas behind, and starting fresh in Chicago, Illinois. Struggling to make ends meet, Lillie gets her MBA and focuses on a new life and new career never forgetting the people she left behind. But an urgent message from her father, demanding her return to Dallas, finds Lillie torn between helping her father or running from the man that broke her heart.

Lillie and Nick were childhood friends, high school sweethearts, and eventually lovers but everything began to fall apart as Nick’s internship at the local hospital began to eat away at his personality and his relationship with Lillie forcing a heartbroken Lillie to make a decision that would destroy any hope of a future together. Leaving Nick and her father behind, Lillie embarked on a new direction, and thought she found what she was missing in a new town.

FROM SCRATCH has a large ensemble cast of strong and charismatic characters including Lillie’s friends Annabelle and Wes-a couple whose own relationship is crumbling around them. We are introduced to Lillie’s father Jack Turner, and the local busy body Sullivan Grace who may or may not have designs on Lillie’s dad. There are also numerous friends, extended families, and the local band whose name is beginning to rise on the country music circuit. Lillie’s competition for Nick’s heart is a vindictive woman who targets Lillie with hatred and malice.

FROM SCRATCH is an emotional storyline where small town mentality finds our heroine the object of scorn and derision; gossip and innuendo by the local townsfolk that frequent her father’s diner. There are secrets and stories of which Lillie becomes aware, and in this she no longer feels welcome in the town where she grew up. Lillie is verbally attacked on more than one occasion-and my heart broke for a woman who wanted love and acceptance from the man who pushed her away. There is a happily ever after but the path was not easy for Lillie and Nick. I shed a few tears throughout the story.

Rachel Goodman’s first novel touched on my emotions. Although I wasn’t always a happy camper with the treatment of Lillie Turner, there are always demons to overcome, and bumps in the road in any romantic storyline.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy

Rachel Goodman and her publisher are offering an ecopy of FROM SCRATCH to THREE (3) lucky commenters at The Reading Cafe.

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8. Giveaway open to international

9. Giveaway runs from July 28 to August 1, 2015