Beautiful writing! Great balance between personal struggle of main character (Liesl, bread maker)and historical information about bread. Even includes recipes (which I won't be attempting). ( )

Liesl McNamara’s life can be described in one word: bread. From her earliest memory, her mother and grandmother passed down the mystery of baking and the importance of this deceptively simple food. And now, as the owner of Wild Rise bake house, Liesl spends every day up to her elbows in dough, nourishing and perfecting her craft.

But the simple life she has cultivated is becoming quite complicated. Her head baker brings his troubled grandson into the bakeshop as an apprentice. Her waitress submits Liesl’s recipes to a popular cable cooking show. And the man who delivers her flour—a single father with strange culinary habits—seems determined to win Liesl’s affection.

I loved the way she interspersed a lot of information about baking and recipes in with the story. And this is serious baking, not just making chocolate chip cookies, the kind where ingredients are weighed and specific types of flours are used and specialized tools are sometimes needed. That's what I remember most, all the stuff I learned about baking. But the story was pretty good too. ( )

Running her own bakeshop, the Wild Rise, will finally fill the void in 30-something Liesel McNamara’s life—won’t it? She sure has wagered all her dough on it—and the array of artisan sourdough starters, some as old as her history itself.

An artisan bakery in Billingston, Vermont is the setting for Christa Parrish’s latest novel, Stones for Bread. It is a story of a woman seeking to find herself after an adolescent tragedy. A chance to compete on the Good Food Network for $10,000 (enough for Paris!), the revelation of a life-changing secret, and the possibility of the love of a good man are all plot elements that pulled me through this fabulous book way too fast.

The characters were a highlight for me. Besides Liesel there is single father Seamus and his five-year-old daughter Cecilia, Xavier—Liesel’s 71-year-old head baker, Tee—the Ukrainian cook, and lots of others. All are richly drawn, believable and sympathetic. Parrish’s handling of the tiny-bit-spoiled five-year-old Cecilia was, I felt, especially well done.

Parrish weaves her magic in many ways. The story is told solely through Liesel’s eyes. Each chapter begins with a scene from her history, helping us piece together why she is the way the she is. And how is that? Here she sees herself in contrast to co-worker Gretchen: “Perhaps it’s who she is, relaxed and round and fizzy. I have too many angles to get close” – Kindle Location 230.

Parrish also includes lots of information about bread, its lore, its place in history and religion, and actual recipes from Liesel’s notebook, complete with her own notations of how to make it right (bread geek that she is). I’m tempted to try some of these—only using my bread machine (please don’t tell her though).

A Christian worldview foundations and subtly pervades the book throughout. Many wonderful allusions to the bread imagery in the Bible make it all the richer.

The writing is wonderful too. Here are two bits I highlighted:

“…Oma’s (hair) with streaks of soot gray where her youth has burned away” K.L. 333.

“Seamus looks smaller. His size hasn’t changed, but the layer of pride we all have beneath our skin, the one reminding us how well we care for our own, that has lost some of its girth” K.L. 909.

Stones for Bread is a perfect read for a cold winter night by the fire, or consume it as a side with soup and dark pumpernickel.

I received Stones for Bread as a gift from the publisher, Thomas Nelson, for the purpose of writing a review.

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Stone for Bread by Christa Parrish

From goodreads.com:
What do you do when the gift you thought was bread turns out to be stones?
Liesl McNamara’s Wild Rise is not only a popular bakehouse and café in Vermont, it’s an extension of herself. Liesl is an artisan bread maker, like her mother and grandmother before her. Even though she lost her mother to suicide when she was eleven, she keeps this maternal bond alive as she bakes.
Liesl prides herself on living an uncomplicated, unattached life. But that changes when Seamus walks through the door of Wild Rise, lugging the large bags of whole wheat flour from the local food co-op. He and his daughter Cecelia have recently moved to the country seeking simplicity. Despite her best effort, Liesl becomes attracted to this teddy bear of a man who laughs easily and eats strange sandwich concoctions—on her bread, much to her dismay.
Her simple life is further complicated when a popular cooking show features her bakery. The publicity increases her business and brings several offers from larger businesses, all of which she turns down. But it also brings a completely unexpected phone call, one from a woman claiming to be her half-sister.
Liesl’s sense of identity dissolves as everything about her relationship with her mother—and the bread that held them together—comes into question. Has she been given stones rather than bread? And how can she ever take these crumbs and make them whole again?
Paperback, 326 pages
Published November 5th 2013 by Thomas Nelson Publishers



Leona's Review
Stones for Bread by Christa Parrish
This is the story of Liesl McNamara who has become a baker. Bread is the main staple in her life and I find she is afraid to let people become close to her. The book is told in past tense and goes from the present time to before the death of her mother. Liesl's mother committed suicide when Liesl was only 12 years of age.
I had a hard time reading this book and it took almost a week to do so. I found it emotional and a reminder of how I miss my mother. Liesl owns a bakery, Wild Rise, in a small town. She makes breads of all kinds and there are some wonderful recipes in the book and very detailed.
I loved the characters of Tee and Cecilia the most. All had a place in the book but these grabbed my heart. The other main characters are Xavier, her main baker who also loves the bread making; Gretchen, who works in the bakery; Jude, a drop out who lives with his grandfather, Xavier, and becomes an important part of the story; Seamus, the father of Cecelia; Oma, the dead grandmother of Liesl who is often so part of Liesl and so important; Claudia, the mother of Liesl and Alistair, the father of Liesl.
Liesl is part of a cooking show called Bake- Off. I could almost see Bobby Flay there and especially when the host of the show, Jonathan, says "awesome". Gretchen has signed her up for the show and I will let you read about the outcome.
The book does flow quite well even with the back and forth on the time periods. It is a Christian book and is good for those who have wandered from God and the Church and find they need to re-connect. Lots of sad times so keep the tissues handy. It is one to read about someone who seems lost and needs to open up to people, especially her father. I did like the outcome of the book and will give it a 4 star because of the characters, the feelings I felt for the characters, the history of bread and also the recipes.
Oma's crock with her sourdough in it, which must be fed, is also a very important part of the story of Liesl.
Liesl's bread recipes are for: Barley-Wheat Sourdough, Cecilia's Dark Chocolate Pain au Levain, Claudia's Christstollen, Liesl's Orange Chai Boule, Pumpernickel Onion Sourdough Bread, "Stick to Your Buns" Sticky Buns, Wild Rise Petite Baguette, Wild White Sandwich Bread and Wild Yeast Starter.
The book is dedicated to: For Chris, If I could choose again, I'd choose you.
I received a complimentary copy of Stones for Bread to read and review from Litfuse Publicity . This is published byThomas Nelson Publishers. The opinions are my own.
Leona Olson
http://www.mnleona.blogspot.com
Christa Parrish may be reached at www.christaparrish.com
She is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christa-Parrish ( )

Liesl McNamara was a bread maker by trade but it was more than that. Making bread was a family tradition that was passed from generation to generation. She learned to make bread at the hands of her mother and grandmother, Oma, from the time she was a little girl. When she found her mother dead at the age of only thirteen, Liesl closed herself off from the world eventually turning to bread making as an escape from the memories that haunted her. Now, years later, she hides from the past in her bake house, Wild Rise. Because her apprentice sends in an application for the TV show Bake-Off, Liesl sons finds herself in the middle of production with some hard decisions to make. But a little girl and her father have worked their way into her life and heart and Liesl has to decide if she is willing to let go of the past and look toward the future.
Seamus Tate is the new flour delivery man for Wild Rise bake house. After his wife walked out he found himself as a single father trying to raise a six year-old alone. When his daughter, Cecelia, becomes attached to the bakery owner he soon finds himself becoming attached to her as well. Liesl has worked her way into his heart and when his mother becomes ill and needs constant care Seamus has no choice but to return to Tennessee. Is his love enough for Liesl? Can she give up the one thing she has always used as a balm to her wounds? Or will she give up the only true love she has ever known?

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this book. I like for a book to wrap itself around me until I feel like I am a part of the story and I just didn't feel that with this book. I love the traditions ingrained in Liesl's family. The bread making that was passed from generation to generation is something to be admired because it brought a closeness between Liesl, her mother and grandmother. Bread making was their solace and that is a beautiful thing. There are a lot of descriptions on bread and bread making all throughout the story. So much so that I feel like bread makers will be more likely to get the most out of the story. I loved her mix matched "family" though. They are described on page 211 like this, "...odd, growing Wild Rise family of immigrants, high school dropouts, nerdy engineers, flirty artists, fundamentalist farm girls, and everyone else." This is such an accurate description and you can't help but love the characters. Xavier and Tee especially. It also covered an issue that is seldom discussed and that is, self-inflicted pain. Kids often inflict pain upon themselves as a way of dealing with the problems going on in their lives. In Liesl's case she would beat her legs with a hairbrush until she was black and blue. I feel it's a problem that should be addressed more and I give a thumbs up to Christa Parrish for bringing it to light.

I am a romance junkie at heart, though, and I feel like the one thing I love took a backseat to everything else. The romance between Liesl and Seamus was slow in developing and I really like that but I wanted to read more about it. I wish it had been woven into the story more often. Seamus was such a sweet, teddy bear of a man and I would like to have seen more of him. Also, all throughout the book the story would just stop and there would be a section connecting Jesus, the Bread of Life, to the bread we consume daily and then the story would resume where it left off. While I completely agree with this theological concept, it somehow seemed misplaced for me. I'm still struggling with how to classify this book as well. Is it romance, self-help or women's fiction maybe? I'll let you be the judge. I also feel like there was a loose end. I like my books all tied up in neat little packages but I felt like there was a loose thread left hanging. If you are a romance junkie like I am, while you might like the sense of family this book evokes, you may not love the story as a whole quite as much. However, if you are a bread enthusiast I do recommend it as you will most likely love it because it has a lot of references to and instructions on bread and bread making and it also includes several recipes.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review. The opinions stated are mine and mine alone. I received no monetary compensation for this review. ( )