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    Angelina's Bachelors: A Novel, with Food
    Angelina's Bachelors: A Novel, with Food
    Angelina's Bachelors: A Novel, with Food
    Audiobook7 hours

    Angelina's Bachelors: A Novel, with Food

    Written by Brian O'Reilly

    Narrated by Xe Sands

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Sometimes the shortest distance between two people is the length of a kitchen table...Far too young to be a widow, Angelina D'Angelo suddenly finds herself
    facing a life without her beloved husband, Frank. Late one night
    shortly after the funeral, she makes her way down to the kitchen and
    pours all of her grief and anger into the only outlet she has left-her passion for cooking. In a frenzy of concentration and swift precision, she builds layer upon layer of thick, rich lasagna, braids loaves of yeasty bread, roasts plump herb-rubbed chicken; she makes so much food that she winds up delivering the spoils to the neighbors in her tight-knit Italian community in South Philadelphia. Retiree Basil Cupertino, who has just moved in with his kindly sister across the street, is positively smitten with Angelina's food. In a stroke of good fortune, Basil offers Angelina (not only husbandless but unemployed) a job cooking for him-two meals a day, six days a week, in exchange for a
    handsome salary. Soon, word of her irresistible culinary prowess spreads
    and she finds herself cooking for seven bachelors-and in the process discovers the magical power of food to heal, to bring people together...and maybe even to provide a second chance at love. Filled to the brim with homemade warmth, Angelina's Bachelors is a sweet tale of overcoming grief, redefining family, and following your heart-through food.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 30, 2011
    ISBN9781452675930
    Author

    Brian O'Reilly

    Brian O’Reilly is a writer and producer.  He was the creator and executive producer of Food Network’s Dinner: Impossible.  Angelina’s Bachelors is his third book and first novel, after Mission: Cook! and Impossible to Easy.  His culinary collaborator is his wife and partner, Virginia, a lifelong cook and culinary producer of their production company.  In a perfect world, they believe, there’d be pie every day.

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    Reviews for Angelina's Bachelors

    3.5/5

    47 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Novel is a light story of a woman's life after the sudden death of her young husband.It follows her through a fairly cliched plot with visit to psychic Madame Sousatska the first deviation, as wellas the addition of many bachelors attracted to the breakfasts and dinners she eventually offers in her house. Sample: "She took to motherhood like mashed potatoes to gravy and quickly got back into the swing of things...."Many enticing recipes are offered. Most are very complicated and not for vegetarians.Heavy on Catholic traditions. Weak on character development.As well, we have no idea which, if any of the prospective bachelors she actually feels attracted to, yet readers are expected to agree that when Jerry decides to wear a tie, she will fall in line.
    • 3/5
      This book was exactly what I needed this weekend. I had just finished a nonfictio book on poison and needed a palate cleanser. Angelina's Bachelors fit the bill perfectly. A fun fast novel that didn't need anything from me.
    • 4/5
      One of the most delightful and charming books I've read this year. Everyone I've recommended this book to has fallen in love with Angelina and her seven bachelors. How a young widow captures the neighborhood fellows with her creative cooking and saves her own sanity in the meantime. A must read for romance, light fiction fans and cookbook fanatics (yum - the recipes are luscious..)
    • 4/5
      Young widow begins cooking for neighborhood bachelor to make ends meet...recipes.
    • 4/5
      When Angelina's husband dies of a massive heart attack at only forty and while sneaking a piece of her "Dream" cake, you would think she would be put off of cooking forever. But to Angelina, her cooking and baking gives meaning to her life. She obsessively creates new recipes and through her loves of food brings her new friends. This story should be really sad, but I found myself totally charmed by the characters that come to inhabit Angelina's dining room as she tries to make ends meet by serving food to several bachelors with questionable eating habits. These men come to encourage her through their friendship and she keeps them in line with her food. It wonderful to read something encouraging and have happiness appear through unlikely places and people. This book is not leaving my house and deserves a place of honor among my cookbooks! The story is interwoven with wonderful recipes that help tell Angelina's story and will have your mouth watering just reading them. The recipes go into detail that a lot of cookbooks don't even begin to cover with step by step instructions that are easy to follow. You can tell that the author truly loves food and I really wonder which came first: the recipes or the story. If you are a fan of food and looking for something a bit different for your book group, I think this one should be at the top of your list. It would be really fun to make a few of the recipes for your book club meeting.
    • 4/5
      Married for only five years, Angelina and Frank have a loving and solid marriage. They work hard at their jobs and are close to friends and family. Their future looks to be one of happiness and contentment. But then Frank dies suddenly and Angelina, still quite a young woman, must go on without him. As if she hasn't suffered enough, immediately following Frank's death, she loses her job. In a coping strategy, she cooks up all the food in her home, despite having a plethora of casseroles and dishes galore from well meaning friends and neighbors after the funeral. Rather than waste the food, she delivers it to grateful folks around the neighborhood. And this isn't just any food, Angelina is a very accomplished amateur cook, a gourmet really. It is through her cooking that Angelina will find a way through her grief. Not long after offering her creations to neighbors, Angelina finds one neighbor's bachelor brother on her doorstep offering to pay her to feed him breakfast and dinner 6 days a week. Basil is not the only one willing to pay for Angelina's tasty home-cooked concoctions. Soon she is cooking for a diverse group of men, trying new recipes out on them, figuring out what sorts of things each likes to eat, and finding her way back to a new sort of happiness. The bachelors span all ages and all offer Angelina their friendship and support (and empty stomachs to be filled) as she comes to terms with the Frank-shaped hole in her life. O'Reilly has created a charming and sweet tale complete with recipes developed by wife Virginia. He has done a good job evoking the tightly knit community of South Philadelphia and captured the ethnic quirks of the Italians living there. Reading some of the descriptions, I was transported to my late grandmother's row home, enjoying the memories this triggered. The plot is fairly predictable in this gentle food-centered tale. Recipes are sprinkled throughout the chapters within the text itself, running the risk of pulling the reader out of the story, necessitating a re-immersion into the storyline after each one. It would probably have been stronger had the recipes simply followed each chapter rather than splitting them. But the premise of the book is a good one and the characters are all appealing. Not quite a stick to your ribs hearty lasagne of an offering, this is a fun and warming sort of book that will likely have you salivating at some point.
    • 4/5
      This novel is a perfect read for any season anywhere. The author, Brian O'Reilly, is a creator and executive producer of Food Network's Dinner: Impossible among many other accomplishments. His abilities shine through in this novel-containing recipes and descriptions of the main character baking and cooking. The main character, Angelina, will connect with the reader within the first few pages. Newly widowed, Angelina expresses her anger and sadness through her baking and cooking. She strikes good fortune when Bail Cupertino hears of her amazing feats in the kitchen and hires her to cook for him. She meets several men, including two possible love interests (Jerry and Guy), in search of her cooking after the word spreads even further of her skills. Angelina has several shocks during the novel, some mediocre and some very good, that the reader will be happy to experience with her. Angelina is a kind, caring, active character who the reader is sure to enjoy reading about. The secondary characters, with their quirks, are just as fun to get to know. This novel contains recipes with steps of how to make the dishes in every chapter-many that even an unskilled baker/cooker could try his/her hand at. This novel is recommended for adults who enjoy novels with a strong theme (cooking/baking) and fiction.