The Lost Recipe for Happiness

The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a delightful read that has been a long time coming. It is not your regular romance with your typical happy ending and that's what I love about this book. The secondary characters are just as important in this story as the hero and heroine are.
Elena Alvarez is an executive chef at a restaurant in Vancouver who tragically has been through so much in her life, more than anybody has a right to go through, and being a chef in a busy restaurant only adds pressure to her broken body and her spirit. Obtaining a new job in Aspen, Elena has to overcome new challenges, new obstacles not one of which is befriending a lovable little girl who just happens to be the daughter of the owner of the restaurant, Julian Liswood.
Julian Liswood is a Hollywood producer who has a side job buying up crumbling restaurants and fixing them up with new staff and clientele. The Orange Bear is his newest project in the resort town of Aspen. Julian knows what mixing business with pleasure will get you, but he just feels that Elena was born to be his wife...actually his fifth wife to be matter of fact. And it turns out Elena is not a very typical heroine either, Elena Alvarez like most females of this world falls in love with pretty much every guy she goes out with and so she doesn't really know what true love is until she meets Julian and a catastrophic event almost forces the two to part.
With a host of characters interlaced throughout this book, and ghosts helping to move the story along, you will not get bored with this read. In fact, The Lost Recipe for Happiness was one of the best reads I have read this year. The recipes interlaced throughout this book do not hurt either. Five stars.