The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

We get to know the four women and their lives before they decide to compete in a wartime cooking competition, with the winner getting the chance to be the first female presenter of the BBC's radio programme The Kitchen Front.
Audrey is recently war widowed with three sons, living in a ramshackle home making pies in order to repay the loan her sister gave her. Lady Gwendoline, Audrey's younger sister who married money and now lords it over the countryside as the wife of black marketeer Sir Reginald.
Nell is Gwendoline's kitchen maid, extremely shy she is supposedly helping the cook, Mrs Quince, but in reality it is Nell who does the majority of the cooking these days. Finally Zelda, born in poverty in the East End of London, she worked her way up to sous-chef in some of the grandest restaurants in London until she was called up to be head chef at a meat canning factory owned by Sir Reginald.
The book gave us a great insight to the food that was available , and the New ways women had to come up with to make it to further. The recipes were also very interesting.

A delightful historical novel based around the true story of the BBC radio cooking program during WWII. Women from different backgrounds compete to be the first female co-host of the show. I really enjoyed the insight into how they coped with rationing and the inventive ways they substituted ingredients to make meals go further. An easy read when you are looking for something charming and light to relax with.

The Kitchen Front follows story of 4 unlikely women coming together during WW2 and helping each other with Cooking the common binder between them.

I enjoyed reading how Food United them and how the author put a positive spin on the Rationing effecting all the characters. There was warmth, friendship and camraderie between the woman by the end of the story which is always heartwarming to read.

Brilliant debut novel which I hope will continue into a fantastic series. Great to read about the facts of the food shortages in ww2 and of course the recipes authenticity used.
A*
Looking forward to a new instalment

This is the second of Jennifer Ryan's books which I have read and is as enjoyable as the first. "The Kitchen Front" was a real wartime radio show set up by the Ministry of Food with the aim of helping housewives to make the most of rationing, supplemented by what could be grown or foraged. The radio show had a male presenter originally but the MoF decided that a female voice should be added. In the book the choice about who this should be is decided by a cooking contest, judged by the male presenter. The story is about the contest and the lives of the 4 entrants, which are changed completely over the 6 months of the narrative.

This is a tale of love, friendship, the struggles of wartime Britain and the importance of working together and supporting each other. A joyous read.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

Really enjoyed this book about 4 very different women competing in a cooking competition. The story was woven between their narrative and recipes they were making. Very enjoyable!

Really enjoyed this, a delightful read. Thought the characters developed as the story unfolded and loved the unlikely friendship group that emerged. Also interesting to have the recipes at the end of each chapter. My first by this author and will be watching out for others.

What a great read! I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a cooking competition set on the Home Front during WW2. The story begins with the competition set by the BBC The Kitchen Front radio programme- the best cook will get the opportunity to become a BBC presenter for the programme. A great opportunity for women during this period, and soon there are 4 keen competitors. I loved that the author included the actual wartime recipes cooked by the women, so the reader can give them a try too! The writing shows a great depth of research- there is so much detail of what life was really like for women during this period- and this really brings the story to life as we learn more about the competitors lives. An enthralling read- highly recommended!

Two and a half stars.

Four women compete in a wartime cooking competition, with the winner getting the chance to be the first female presenter of the BBC's radio programme The Kitchen Front.

Audrey is a young impoverished widow with three sons, working herself to the bone making pies in order to repay the loan her sister gave her. Lady Gwendoline, Audrey's younger sister who married money and now lords it over the countryside as the wife of black marketeer Sir Reginald. Nell is Gwendoline's kitchen maid, extremely shy she is supposedly helping the cook, Mrs Quince, but in reality it is Nell who does the majority of the cooking these days. Finally Zelda, born in poverty in the East End of London, she worked her way up to sous-chef in some of the grandest restaurants in London until she was called up to be head chef at a meat canning factory owned by Sir Reginald.

Each of the women must create a delicious dish, whilst observing rationing, and hopefully utilising some of the food stuffs which were in good supply (like whale meat or powdered eggs).

This was very slow going for me. I was over a quarter of the way through the book before it started to pull together, before that point we bounced from one woman to the next, not really building a story or any connection with the women. Audrey was a bit of a drip, Gwendoline was spiteful, Nell was a mouse and Zelda was aggressive and shouty. I was giving the book one last try , determined to get at least one-third of the way through, when suddenly the book came together.

Some of the chapters are prefaced by old recipes such as potato peel pie. Unfortunately, in Kindle format they don't really add much, I'd rather have seen a copy of the old government leaflets or newspaper cuttings to give historical heft rather than all the recipes looking the same. Also, they didn't really add to the story, because the chapters described the cooking and preparation (although not in depth) so I would have preferred to have them at the back in an Appendix, maybe with a hyperlink in the ebook, rather than cluttering up the novel.

Sadly the biggest issue with this for me was that it read like a text book narrative, you know the way in which school books could take the most exciting and interesting events in history and turn them into dry recitations of facts? Like that. And don't even get me started on the Hallmark style HEA.

I suppose this might be successful as a way to introduce some of the privations of war and the misogyny of the era to school children, sort of an interactive experience, but I didn't really enjoy this faction.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

A heartwarming story, full of charm and great women characters who form an unlikely friendship. I enjoyed the war being told from a different perspective. I will go and read this authors previous books.

With grateful thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest opinion
Having read many books by this author I was delighted with an early copy.
The characters are slightly far fetched but still a nice read.

A good read which I wasn’t sure if I would like or not! I’ll be looking out to read more by this author. Well done!

Enjoyable story, well-researched history but very obvious characters and overblown descriptions. I liked the use of different recipes throughout.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC. First time reading this author and won't be my last. If you love wartime and family saga books you will love this book. Cant wait to read more by this author

This is my perfect read and I loved everything about it. Set in the Second World War which I find this time very interesting to learn about. Food rationing then was a big thing so to help housewife's a BBC radio program has a cooking competition to win a job on a program called Kitchen Front as the first ever female co host. There are four women who all want to win and we hear about their back stories and why they want to win. There are an interesting mix of characters with all relatable issues. I found it interesting to learn about that time and learnt things I didn't know. I like how the book is set out and there are recipes dotted through out. I felt it was such a good story and it was an absolute delight to read it.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. At first it seemed a bit too light-hearted to be a WWII novel, but as each characters back-story developed, there was enough substance to sustain the novel. Family, friendships, village life - all made for a quick, sweet read.