Thursday, June 26, 2014

Review: "The Cook's Temptation" by Joyce Wayne

HF Virtual Book Tours invites you to join Joyce Wayne as she tours the blogosphere for The Cook's Temptation! Enter the giveaway to win an eBook of The Cook's Temptation or a $10 Amazon Gift Card!

02_The Cook's Temptation
Publication Date: February 1, 2014 Mosaic Press
Formats: Ebook, Paperback

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Joyce Wayne brings to life the complexities of Victorian life, first in County Devon and then in London’s East End. The ‘big picture’ is about one woman’s life, class conflict, religious intolerance, suspicion and betrayal. The central figure is Cordelia, a strong-minded Jewish woman who is caught between her desire to be true to herself and her need to be accepted by English society.Cordelia Tilley is the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Anglican father. Her mother has groomed her for a life in English society while her father, a tough publican, has shown no tolerance for his wife’s social climbing or the conceits of their perspicacious daughter. Cordelia’s mother dies from typhoid fever, she tries to run the family ‘s establishment, she falls prey to a local industrialist, she gives birth to a son, she is tormented by her husband and his family. Finally, she is rescued by suffragette friends and sets off to start a new life in London.The Cook’s Temptation is about a woman who is unpredictable, both strong and weak willed, both kind and heinous, victim and criminal. It is a genuine Victorian saga, full of detail, twists and turns, memorable scenes, full of drama and pathos.

My Thoughts

"The Cook's Temptation" follows the life of Cordelia Tilley, the daughter of a well-bred French Jew and her low-born publican husband. Cordelia is nurtured by her mother, not only mentally, but also in the kitchen where fancy cooking is the seal of the Devil's Stone Inn. When her mother dies from an outbreak of Typhoid fever, Cordelia is forced to marry the gentlemanly Frederick Wendice. With promises of a pampered life as his manor's chatelaine, she soon learns that leading the easy life is anything but easy.

"The Cook's Temptation" is hard to categorize. It's not a black and white novel. None of the characters are particularly endearing. The reader sympathizes with Cordelia until she becomes a villain in her own right. The story brings to light the old tale of Mary Brown or "Typhoid Mary" as she was known to Americans in the early 20th century. Can illness be carried around by asymptomatic carriers and delivered to victims as swiftly as a bottle of poison? It's a compelling premise and for the most part, well executed throughout most of the novel. The ending is somewhat rushed and the story suffers as a result. The beginning could have been easily truncated and the tumultuous life that Cordelia embarks upon in the end elaborated on. Despite this, "The Cook's Temptation" will appeal to those readers who enjoyed Michael Faber's "The Crimson Petal and the White" and other such novels that shine a light on the lurid side of prim and proper Victorian England.

Praise for The Cook's Temptation


“Joyce Wayne’s debut novel, The Cook's Temptation, has the stately bearing of a nineteenth century novel – the mercilessness of Thomas Hardy, the black allegory of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the tense marriages of George Eliot. It is a story of how people become what you blame them for being.” – Ian Williams, poet and fiction writer, short listed for the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize

Buy the Book

Amazon CAN
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Amazon US (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble
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Mosaic Press

About the Author

JW 2

Joyce Wayne has an MA in English literature, has taught journalism at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, for twenty-five years, and lives in Toronto, Ontario. She was a winner of the Diaspora Dialogues contest for fiction and the Fiona Mee Award for literary journalism. She is the co writer of the documentary film So Far From Home (2010), a film about refugee journalists persecuted for their political views, and various of her other works have been published in Parchment, Golden Horseshoe Anthology, Canadian Voices, and TOK6.

For more information please visit Joyce Wayne's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. She is happy to participate in Books Clubs by phone and Skype.

Virtual Tour & Book Blast Schedule


Monday, June 9
Review at 100 Pages a Day

Tuesday, June 10
Book Blast at Bab's Book Bistro
Guest Post & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, June 11
Book Blast at History From a Woman's Perspective

Thursday, June 12
Book Blast at WTF Are You Reading?
Book Blast at I'd So Rather be Reading

Friday, June 13
Book Blast at Literary Chanteuse

Saturday, June 14
Book Blast at A Bookish Affair
Book Blast at Griperang's Bookmarks
Book Blast at Just One More Chapter

Sunday, June 15
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Obsession

Monday, June 16
Review at Book Nerd

Tuesday, June 17
Review at Seaside Book Corner
Book Blast at Lily Pond Reads

Wednesday, June 18
Interview at From the TBR Pile
Book Blast at Historical Tapestry

Thursday, June 19
Review at Flashlight Commentary
Book Blast at Kelsey's Book Corner

Friday, June 20
Interview at Flashlight Commentary
Book Blast at The Mad Reviewer

Saturday, June 21
Book Blast at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Sunday, June 22
Book Blast at Book Lovers Paradise
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Connection

Monday, June 23
Book Blast at History Undressed
Book Blast at CelticLady's Reviews

Tuesday, June 24
Book Blast at Mina's Bookshelf
Book Blast at Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, June 25
Review at Svetlana's Reads and Views
Book Blast at Broken Teepee

Thursday, June 26
Review at Caroline Wilson Writes

Friday, June 27
Review at Historical Novel Review
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Giveaway


Up for grabs are 3x eBooks of The Cook's Temptation and 3x $10 Amazon Gift Cards! To enter, please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Giveaway is open to US & Canada residents only.

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on June 27th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on June 28th and notified via email.
Winner have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.


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