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    Friendship Bread: A Novel
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    Friendship Bread: A Novel
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    Friendship Bread: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    Friendship Bread: A Novel

    Written by Darien Gee

    Narrated by Nancy Linari

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.

    One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.

    Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She'd just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.

    When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline's tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.

    In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.

    About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 5, 2011
    ISBN9780307914439
    Unavailable
    Friendship Bread: A Novel

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    Reviews for Friendship Bread

    4/5

    222 ratings67 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I found this book a delight to read. Dealing with friendship, community, grief and forgiveness, it was one of those rare books where, when I reached the last page, I went 'ahhhh'. A truly sweet story.
    • 5/5
      Very enjoyable. An easy read with a good cast of characters. The sort of book you curl up with on a cold wet day in front of a warm fire and hot drink.
    • 4/5
      Healing comes from an unexpected gift: friendship bread. The story follows the lives of five women, all at different painful areas of life and all of them struggling alone from the weight of the pain they are going through. One day, Julia comes home to find a plate with a loaf of bread, and a recipe for friendship bread. Her five-year-old daughter Gracie pleads for her to make the recipe because she wanted her daddy to try some of it. And in 10 days, Julia is left with bags of starter and sends them to school with Gracie. What happens is an epidemic of friendship bread. While the bread is a sweet spot in the story, the pain and grief the women and families that are the focus of the story is not. Ms. Gee has written this story so well that the reader feels the pain and heartache of each character. The reader cannot help but cry, feel hope, smile, laugh, and cry some more while reading 'friendship bread'.
    • 3/5
      Why is it that so many novels about women, (chick lit, arguably) hinge on the premise of one or more central characters being devastated with heartbreak at the start of the novel.
      Show me books where the central plot arcs aren't grieving some giant loss, or catching a romance... with a strong female character at the center.

      This book got good after a lugubrious and sad start- once the baking started proliferating, and eccentric other characters showed up to make the focus feel less sharpened on Julia, it worked for me. Longer review to come on my blog.
    • 3/5
      This book is not as awesome as the ads on Goodreads would have you believe, but it was entertaining... I will be reading the next book set in Avalon.

      Julia is a giant bitch and I was mostly pissed at her character througout the entire book.

    • 5/5
      I cannot believe it took me so long to pick up this amazing book. I am not sure what held me back because once I did start reading I was just blown away by what a charming story it was. I felt like I was a welcomed neighbor, peeking in on the lives of the people in the small town of Avalon. It is so nice to read a book where people make good choices. I was really happy Mark didn’t go the way I though he was heading. The only character that I didn’t like was Eddie, but by the end of the book even she grew on me. Everyone else became so dear and their stories felt so touching and real. I completely loved the ending and how things came together. This wonderful book makes me want to do two things: re-read it so I can make sure I didn’t miss anything the first time and learn to bake bread! I am looking forward to reading more books by this very talented author.
    • 4/5
      Tragedy hits a small Illinois town. The mother can't get past the loss of a child. One day, someone anonymously leaves a bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter dough along with several slices of friendship bread on the doorstep of the grieving family. As we all know, there is no such thing as a single bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter dough and the games begin. This is a story of loss, sadness, joy, friendship and the road to restoration of one's soul.
    • 4/5
      Please write more, Darien Gee!, December 11, 2012 By C. Wong "Book worm" (Allen, Texas United States) This review is from: Friendship Bread: A Novel (Paperback) 'Friendship Bread' by Darien Gee is the kind of book that you would love to read while under a lot of stress or feeling a little under the weather. Reading this book is like cuddling up in a soft, warm blanket. I loved it!The only reason why it isn't five stars for me was that there were too many characters. I was able to keep track of the main ones and the secondary ones but had trouble with the ones with small roles.The bread referred to in this book is called "Amish Friendship Bread" and I received some started from a woman a work in the 1970's. When you bake it is a little on the sweet side so it tastes like a cake. You bake part of it and keep it alive like sourdough bread starter and then give your friends starter. I had to give up making starter as I ran out of friends. So this book brought back memories of my friends at work.The most memorable of the characters was Julia Evarts who had lost her son in the past and was unable to forgive her sister who was supposed to be watching him. Her husband, Mark, is patient but Julia has been grieving for over five years and it feels like their marriage is damaged.Also there is a young Asian America concert cellist, Hannah who hurt her back in an accident and cannot play professionally anymore. Her husband, Philippe, has discarded her for another woman and Hannah doesn't know how to be her own person because she never was before.Madeline Davis is a widow who comes back to Avalon to start a tea shop and enjoy the town she loved so much. She is hiding a secret about her family.I loved all the characters except for a few minor ones. They all seemed so real. Reading this book makes you want to sit down with them in the tea shop with a carefully prepared sweet, sip some tea and talk.I want to know what happened to them and all the secondary characters so I have the sequel to this book on my wish list, `The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society'.I recommend to all women who are having a siege of bad days or an illness that you need to escape from. I really loved this book.
    • 4/5
      Friendship Bread is a charming story. The simple anonymous gift of Amish Friendship Bread starter unexpectedly unites three women, Julia, Hannah and Madeline together in friendship, and a community in time of crisis. Written with warmth and heart it is a celebration of friendship, family and community.While there are serious issues explored in Friendship Bread, namely grief, divorce and family estrangement, the focus is on dealing with, rather than dwelling on, the pain. Julia has isolated herself from her family and friends after the sudden death of her young son and has spent the last five years mired in her grief until she drops into Madeline's Tea House one morning and finds herself in conversation with Madeline and Hannah. Hannah is seated in the salon watching the removal men take away her adulterous husband's belongings when she finds herself in tears, gently consoled by Madeline and Julia. Impulsively, Julia offers Hannah and Madeline each one of the four packages of starter for Amish Friendship Bread from the starter she discovered on her doorstep and a friendship slowly blossoms between the women. It is a friendship that provides them with the support and strength to heal their hurts and make amends for their regrets.Meanwhile, the Friendship Bread starter, which is divided by four every ten days, infiltrates the small midwestern town of Avalon. As the starter is gifted from one person to another, it has the pleasant side effect of bringing townspeople together, sometimes in unexpected ways. That is until it reaches a point where it saturates the tiny town and verges on being a nuisance. However when devastating floods hit a nearby town, the starter unites the town of Avalon in a shining example of community spirit.Friendship Bread is a heartwarming and uplifting novel. It is sure to leave you smiling and the delicious recipes found in the last few pages will be a temptation you won't be able to resist.
    • 4/5
      I first heard of Amish friendship bread in the summer of 1990, when I received a starter from a source I no longer remember. I made it several times that summer and shared it with shut-ins from church. I probably stopped making it when I started graduate school that fall and no longer had time to bake.In Darien Gee's novel, Friendship Bread, the bread is a catalyst for change in a small Illinois town. Julia Evarts is a wife and mother who has been consumed by grief for the last five years. Her grief is associated with the death of her son. Julia is clearly depressed, with little interest in personal interaction with anyone but her daughter, Grace. When Julia and Grace discover several slices of the friendship bread and a bag of starter on their doorstep, Grace's enthusiasm prompts Julia to bake bread from the starter, and to find people to share it with. She forms friendships with two women who have recently moved to the town and who have their own sorrows. A local reporter hears about the bread and thinks she can turn it into a story that would gain national attention. Her investigation leads to surprising results.Having recently experienced a bereavement, I found myself more annoyed with Julia than sympathetic toward her. Granted, I lost a parent rather than a child, but I still think 5 years is much too long for Julia's family and friends to give her “space” and not insist that she seek professional help. I also had a hard time accepting that Julia would pursue new friendships rather than seek the company of long-time friends. That's the opposite of my experience, although I do realize that everyone grieves differently. I also found it a little odd that Julia was more worried about her new friend Hannah's marriage than about her own. I'm not sure I would have reacted to Julia so critically if I had read the book at a different point in my life.As a story about a small town, family, friendship, and baked goods, this is definitely a comfort read. I listened to the audio version, and the reader's voice reminded me so much of Lauren Holly (NCIS fans will recognize her as Director Shepard) that I checked to see if she and Nancy Linari might be the same person. (They're not.) The seeming familiarity of her voice added to the ambiance of comfort.
    • 4/5
      A very warm story about womens' friendship and relationships. The common theme is Amish Friendship Bread which is made and then a starter is given to friends. That brings the characters together. I felt the theme was outdated. This was something that may have been from the 1950s, 60s, 70s. I do not know how the author could have updated it. But it was a warm and fuzzy story.
    • 4/5
      I really love the clear, freshness of Gee's writing. There is a simpleness to it that makes the structure flow, even when the story itself is filled with complexity and difficulty. In short, you can get lost in the story, understanding exactly what you suppose the author meant and wanted for her characters and story.Friendship Bread has a lot of stories going on at once. At times I wanted to just settle down to one, but I finally worked through these narratives to get to the meat of their collective story. The stories felt familiar, with things that women all over the world experience, but in a way that we cared about what happened for each character.In a funny way, the bread starter was the thread that not only pulled the characters together, but it also pulled the story together. That single thread kept families talking and characters intermixing with one another, helping to lift other people along the way. The story surrounding Julia Everts and her family dominates much of the story, and I really cared about what happened to her, especially in her marriage. I almost wish we could have spent more time with them, but I got the overall picture by the end. Although it contains recipes and the cooking and sharing of food, this is really about the characters and how something as simple as a bread starter could pull people out of their busy lives and back into their families and relationships. I liked the book and think that the recipes at the end of the novel are just an added treat. I plan on sharing this one with my mother, who I know will love all the complex stories and friendships. This might just be one of those stories I share with other women I know, just like those bags of friendship bread.
    • 4/5
      An excellent book about friendship and love. You can't read this book without wanting to bake some friendship bread afterwards!
    • 5/5
      I love making Amish Friendship Bread so I was intrigued when I saw this book. A whole book about Amish Friendship Bread? What kind of story could be stirred up with Amish Friendship Bread? Darien Gee does a wonderful job creating this wonderfully warm story about friends and the lives they touch. I was sucked in from the beginning and couldn’t put it down. I loved how real the characters were and how much I cared about them and just when you thought you knew where the story was going-it turned. I will be reading this book again!
    • 5/5
      I highly recommend this book! I borrowed it from a friend but loved reading it so much that I had to purchase my own copy. There are some books that blend their way into your life and this is one of them. The author, Darien Gee, is the master at making the characters "real". Their personalities and life challenges keep you so engrossed in the book that when finished reading it you are craving more. I'm looking forward to a sequel.
    • 5/5
      In friendship bread Darien Gee weaves a story filled with love and friendship. This book grabs your emotions, one minute you're laughing, and the next your crying. I finished it in one day and just couldn't put it down. Beware though, you can't read this without reaching for the flour and sugar and whipping up a batch of delicious friendship bread.
    • 4/5
      Darien Gee’s ‘Friendship Bread’, a taste tempting menu selection for both the emotions and the palate. I eagerly begin each new chapter to discover the next character or plot development rewarding my persistence. Finding myself in various characters, their life stages, or journeys makes ‘Friendship Bread’ realistically readable. How many times have I dreamed of an idyllic rural retreat? Does a peaceful country setting imply peacefulness reigns within hearts and lives? Darien’s disclosure gives us the goods on that speculation as she traces the lives of singles, couples and families caught up in struggles, sorrows, choices, all within the confines of one fictitious town, Avalon. excellent ‘Friendship Bread’ starter and recipe variations are welcome book additions. Enjoy the romance, the mystery and the menu of Darien Gee’s ‘Friendship Bread’ as your next delectable summer read. It doesn’t disappoint!
    • 4/5
      It only takes a second for one's life to change. This is a story about a town, where seconds caused lives to change - Painful changes initially, but ultimately for the better. There's the aunt, who runs home to pick up her sister's borrowed skirt before bringing her nephew home. He gets stung by a wasp and dies, due to an allergy. The mother of the boy, looses her son and in grief, pushes away her sister. A cellist and her husband, settle in Avalon - he returns to New York, leaving her behind. A woman opens a tea shop and begins to worry that it will not succeed. One day, someone leaves a bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter mix, along with some baked bread on Julia's front steps - these seconds begin a new change - not only for Julia, but the town of Avalon, as well.
    • 5/5
      Once you start this delicious novel, you won't be able to put it down. The inter-woven stories of six women in this small, Illinois town are enough to capture any reader. Each of these interesting women has a story to tell; a story of pain or loss. Through the events of this novel, as the Friendship starter is passed throughout the town, each woman slowly learns to trust another with her heart as she looks to heal and move forward. The emotions are real and there isn't a situation here that every reader can't easily identify with. Each character walks a different walk, comes from a different place; cross-generational women, reaching out to help one another. It's a story of sisters, moms, friends, bakers, artists.no one is left out here. This brilliant author has found a way into the reader's heart through these great characters. Darien Gee gives the details and thought that make a book great. A book that will stay with you long after you finish the Epilogue; it will stay in your thoughts and call you back to read it again. In addition, this book is a slam-dunk for anyone that loves food or loves to bake. I was dying to get a nibble of all the great foods mentioned in this book! Don't miss the recipes included in the back of the either. I'm seriously considering whipping up my own "starter" and passing this around my small town! A book to love, a book to give, and a book to remember.don't miss this one!
    • 5/5
      When I first started the book, I was intrigued but not expecting it to be great. I was wrong. I loved the character development. How you felt like you were part of their close knit group and how you could grow with them. I also love how you can be a part of all the fun and mayhem by baking the bread yourself, as the recipes are listed in the back of the book. Above all else, I love a happy ending which this book delivered. Definitely five stars.
    • 4/5
      This is a book that illustrates the healing power of female friendship. I was drawn to the stories of the women in the book who learned to lean on each other in times of sadness, celebrate in times of joy, and band together in times of crisis. I was especially drawn to the character who was shunned by her sister and who learned to stand on her own as a result. At times the story was predictable, but then I'm not sure I would have wanted it any other way. I was really cheering for these women as they rallied from personal hurtful life experiences, and I wouldn't have wanted anything awful to happen to any of them. I am hoping there will be a sequel so I can check back in with my new friends! By the way, back in the 1980's I regularly made Friendship Bread, but I didn't know about the variations on the recipe until now. Maybe I would have continued to bake it had I known? But then again, maybe not. It was awfully hard to resist the temptation to overeat.
    • 5/5
      This book really resonates with a variety of readers, though mostly female ones, I'd think. It's similar to the Mitford series by Jan Karon, in that it focuses on neighbors and friends who develop from perfect strangers at times. The importance of reaching out to love and accept love is woven throughout the different characters' tales, and eventually Darien Gee manages to bring all the different stories together quite harmoniously. It's a satisfying read that really touches your heart. Can't wait for Gee's return to Avalon in 2012!
    • 3/5
      This was cute and exactly what one would expect from such a book. The ending was just a little too neat and clean for my taste, but again was what I was expecting. The grief that Julia Evarts exhibits in the book seems very authentic (though I have not lost a child and therefore do not really know), but the time period of the grief seemed a little unbelievable, that a marriage would last that long through that much. The Amish Friendship Bread was a cute addition to the book, but was a bit overdone at times. The brief storyline with a journalist seemed a bit of a stretch as well. This was a very easy read and enjoyable for what it was; perfect for a weekend.
    • 5/5
      From the Inside Flap:"An anonymous gift sends a woman on a journey she never could have anticipated.One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it.Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread.When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever.In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens." This was a book I had considered for my book club, but hesitated to do so because there are several serious issues in the story and we were looking for something light to read. It's a great book and I might recommend for a later read for the book club. What I liked about the book: You learn a lot about several members in the town, not just the main character. It was rather like reading a series of short stories that made up one big novel. The story has a good flow. And the characters have a lot of depth. They are not perfect, in fact they have many flaws, but that makes them more real. I liked how the author wrapped everything up at the end - bringing the story full circle. And I liked that it included recipes for Amish Friendship Bread.What I didn't like about the book: There wasn't anything that I really didn't like. In the beginning I was a little confused by Julia's treatment of her husband and I wanted some sort of explanation, but as the story went along I realize that things we do in grief, often make sense to others and sometimes there is just no true understanding of it.I listened to this book on audio, but because I wanted to try some of the recipes I quickly grabbed a print copy from the library. I had baked Amish Friendship bread before, but had not tried some of the non-traditional recipes. Of course, I now feel like the town of Avalon - my house has been taken over by AFB starter. My family absolutely loves AFB Brownies, Strawberry Bread, Monster Cookies and Triple Chocolate Bread. These recipes I found on the Friendship Bread Kitchen. They even have a recipe for gluten-free starter, which I tried as an experiment for a friend who has switched to a gluten free diet. The recipes are different, but good.And what will I do with the Amish Friendship Bread Starter that ate Colorado Springs - freeze it. Until I read the book I didn't know that was possible.This is an all around good read - an excellent choice for a beach read or a book club read.
    • 3/5
      A woman, who has suffered a devastating loss, discovers a bag of friendship bread starter on her porch. Before she can throw it away, her young daughter talks her into making friendship bread. And everything changes, for the woman, for her family, for her friends, for her town.A gentle story about the redemptive nature of small acts of kindness and friendship.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely loved this book! Can"t wait to make the bread. Read it in 2 days recovering from surgery! Great story one to be inspired by no doubt! Hope to read more from this author soon.
    • 5/5
      I read this book when it first hit the market, and was so impressed, first, by Darien Gee's marketing savvy! Then I enjoyed the book, cover to cover! I have been a fan of Friendship Bread for many, many years, and have really been excited about the chance to experiment with the recipes in the book and on Darien's webpage. Ms. Gee has helped me learn how to savor each batch of bread, as well as how to temporarily put my starter on hiatus, and how to share both the starter and the bread with fun and friendship.The actual plot of the book is clever and heart-warming. The creation of a community, bound together by not only friendship but hardship, is a true lesson for today. No matter what the economy brings us, we can share our homes, our friendship, and, yes, our bread, with one another to raise hopes and spirits!
    • 5/5
      A great story about three women who find friendship and strength in each other! It makes you value your close friends!
    • 4/5
      Perfectly enjoyable very light reading but nothing great. All the women in the book are at turning points in their lives and the come together in Madeline's Tea Room. It was too saccharine and predictable for me. That said, it was well written and many of interactions among the characters were believable. If you want light and diverting - check it out.
    • 5/5
      I am giving this book a five star rating simply for the fact that it was charming and a real pleasure to read. It was not a literary work, although it did have some depth.What I liked:-Having been caught up in the Amish Friendship bread cycle before, the book was very realistic on that front!-The characters were strong and believable. The book is not only about the bread, but about friendship, love, healing and forgiveness. The book is also about the characters finding themselves and highlights the personal growth they make throughout.-The complexities of the story interweave characters in a charming small town. The book depicts small town life at its finest (and highlights some of the drawbacks too)