The Cake Therapist

A fiction debut that will leave you wanting seconds, from an award-winning cookbook author. Claire “Neely” O’Neil is a pastry chef of extraordinary talent. Every great chef can taste shimmering, elusive flavors that most of us miss, but Neely can “taste” feelings—cinnamon makes you remember; plum is pleased with itself; orange is a wake-up call. When flavor and feeling give Neely a glimpse of someone’s inner self, she can customize her creations to help that person celebrate love, overcome fear, even mourn a devastating loss. Maybe that’s why she feels the need to go home to Millcreek Valley at a time when her life seems about to fall apart. The bakery she opens in her hometown is perfect, intimate, just what she’s always dreamed of—and yet, as she meets her new customers, Neely has a sense of secrets, some dark, some perhaps with tempting possibilities. A recurring flavor of alarming intensity signals to her perfect palate a long-ago story that must be told. Neely has always been able to help everyone else. Getting to the end of this story may be just what she needs to help herself.

The author of The Cake Therapist returns with another sweet and emotional tale featuring Neely, the baker with a knack for finding exactly the right flavor for any occasion... A crisp tang of citrus that is at once poignant and familiar, sharpening the senses and opening the mind to possibilities once known and long forgotten... Claire “Neely” Davis is no ordinary pastry chef. Her flavor combinations aren’t just a product of a well-honed palate: she can “taste” people’s emotions, sensing the ingredients that will touch her customers’ souls. Her gift has never failed her—until she meets a free-spirited bride-to-be and her overbearing society mother. The two are unable to agree on a single wedding detail, and their bickering leaves Neely’s intuition frustratingly silent—right when she needs it most. Between trying to navigate a divorce, explore a new relationship, and handle the reappearance of her long-absent father, Neely is struggling to make sense of her own conflicting emotions, much less those of her hard-to-please bride. But as she embarks on a flavorful quest to craft the perfect wedding celebration, she’ll uncover a family history that sheds light on both the missing ingredients and her own problems—and illustrates how the sweet and sour in life often combine to make the most delicious memories...

Ruth loves to bake cakes. When she is alone, she dreams up variations on recipes. When she meditates, she imagines herself in the warm, comforting center of a gigantic bundt cake. If there is a crisis, she bakes a cake; if there is a reason to celebrate, she bakes a cake. Ruth sees it as an outward manifestation of an inner need to nurture her family—which is a good thing, because all of a sudden that family is rapidly expanding. First, her mother moves in after robbers kick in her front door in broad daylight. Then Ruth’s father, a lounge singer, who she’s seen only occasionally throughout her life, shatters both wrists and, having nowhere else to go, moves in, too. Her mother and father just happen to hate each other with a deep and poisonous emotion reserved only for life-long enemies. Oh, yes indeed! Add to this mix two teenagers, a gainfully employed husband who is suddenly without a job, and a physical therapist with the instincts of a Cheryl Richardson and you’ve got a delightful and amusing concoction that comes with its own delicious icing. One of Jeanne Ray’s specialties is giving us believable, totally likable characters, engaged in the large and small dramas and amusements of life. Eat Cake is whimsical, warm, and satisfying. Eat Cake is Jeanne Ray at her best. Pull up a chair and eat cake!

"Molly suffers from depression, and when she finds out that the exotic fishstore she works at is closing down, her whole life, which is already hanging on a thread, starts to crumble"--

Colorful, flavorful home-baked treats just say "happy," and Bake Happy is all about adding a bit of joy back into your kitchen. A sweet baking book that will bring a smile to the dessert table, Bake Happy includes 100 recipes for cheerful cupcakes and cookies, bars and brownies, tarts and turnovers, and delicious cakes that are speckled, marbled, and striped. This cookbook can be used year-round and will satisfy your sweet tooth and your soul. Whether you're in the mood for creamy chocolate, colorful cake layers, tasty cake batter, or special occasion desserts, you'll find recipes for Citrus Glazed Sunset Cake, Rustic Cherry Pudding, Secret Filling Devil's Food Cupcakes, and more. There are also various options for color and flavor combinations, and 30+ full-color photos throughout.

If you asked people to post a status update on their relationship with food, most would say "It's Complicated." We aspire to eat healthfully but find ourselves making hasty food choices driven by stress and convenience. Or we treat ourselves to a decadent dessert but feel so guilty we don't even enjoy it. The truth is we can't make good food decisions if we don't deeply examine our relationship with food. In The Food Therapist, Shira Lenchewski offers readers an ongoing one-on-one food therapy session, revealing the root causes of our emotional hang-ups around food and providing the necessary tools to overcome them. This practical and judgment-free guide helps readers hone the skills needed to put their get-healthy intentions into daily action, such as planning ahead wisely, tuning into their fullness cues, and harnessing willpower (even when life gets messy). Lenchewski also offers easy-to-follow, tasty recipes aimed at rebalancing our hormones and conquering our cravings without deprivation. The Food Therapist is a refreshingly modern resource that helps us finally un-complicate our relationship with food and our bodies. We can then focus our efforts on making thoughtful, healthy choices, day in and day out, which serve our ultimate goals, whatever they may be.

Solution-focused therapy is often misunderstood to be no more than the techniques it is famous for—pragmatic, future-oriented questions that encourage clients to reconceptualize their problems and build on their strengths. Yet when applied in a "one-size-fits-all" manner, these techniques may produce disappointing results and leave clinicians wondering where they have gone wrong. This volume adds a vital dimension to the SFT literature, providing a rich theoretical framework to facilitate nonformulaic clinical decision making. The focus is on how attention to emotional issues, traditionally not emphasized in brief, strengths-based interventions, can help "unstick" difficult situations and pave the way to successful solutions.

The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B.A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in The Therapist—a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret. When Alice and Leo move into a newly renovated house in The Circle, a gated community of exclusive houses, it is everything they’ve dreamed of. But appearances can be deceptive... As Alice is getting to know her neighbours, she discovers a devastating secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before. Alice becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened two years before. But no one wants to talk about it. Her neighbors are keeping secrets and things are not as perfect as they seem...