An up-and-coming journalist and food writer in California sends a fan letter to a magazine columnist in Washington, and a rich, intimate, life-affirming friendship begins. This short epistolary novel is an absolute joy, like a hug in book form. It made me want to have pen-friends again!

I fell in love with this book since the first pages and couldn't put it down. It's a riveting and compelling story of a friendship but it's also the description of an era. It talks about private life, cooking, but also what was happening in the world.
The heroines are two clever and witty women and I loved them.
Great storytelling and character development.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

1960s America and young Joan is just starting out on her career as a writer in Los Angeles. She admires the work of Ingrid, an older woman based in the Pacific North-West. Through their shared love of food a strong friendship develops and each has profound effects on the other's life.
This is a very short novel, I read it in little over an hour, and it is perfectly pleasant without being overly memorable. The two main characters are nicely juxtaposed and there are some interesting plot diversions but nothing seems to be fully developed. It's an enjoyable diversion only.

Love & Saffron is the story of two women, Imogen and Joan, who begin exchanging letters due to a mutual love for cooking and cuisine. They describe their culinary adventures while detailing updates in their lives, career news and romance, and the friendships they've begun with people they meet on their hunt for new recipes.

While I appreciate the concept, and while I do think the visuals in this book are lovely, this was not the book for me.

I understand that this book is aiming to capture the inner lives of women in the 60's, however they're just not the type of women that I'm interested in reading about. I feel that this story has been told time and time again, and frankly it was uncomfortable to read. The two main characters are white, (upper) middle class women, and every side character described is a person of color used as a plot device to further the emotional and culinary enlightenment of these women.

It may be an odd parallel to make, but the entirety of this book reminds me of the scene in Alice Pung's Lucy and Linh where Lucy's white classmate's mother insistently invites her to teach her and her friends how to cook Vietnamese food (despite her actually being Chinese), which caused obvious discomfort to Lucy and put her in an awkward position. I can only imagine this is how every side character in Love & Saffron felt.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I know what it's like to be treated like a cultural specimen and, even with the best of intentions, it is uncomfortable.

To avoid ranting, I'm going to end my review here.

I understand that this story has good intentions, and I appreciate the love of cuisine that the characters have, however, this is not something that I would seek out knowing what I know now, nor would I recommend it.

Delicate, delicious and delightful. What more is there to say. Settle down with a nice glass of wine and enjoy.

A lovely book a story of friendship ,relationship to old in the most involving way.I got so caught up with the characters their lives and add in recipes this was a truly wonderful read,#netgalley#johnmurraypress

For readers who enjoyed the charm and character of 84 Charing Cross Road,Love & Saffron is the most perfect little novel. Heartfelt and charming with the most memorable characters. It just reaffirms the importance of connection and friendship and how it can impact your life. I loved the added element of recipes and food and how they connected all of the characters.
Kudos to Kim Fay for creating this treasure!

This wa ssuch an interesting and enjoyable read, it was full of vivid and long descriptiond which sometimes feel tedious but it just added a layer to this book that made it better. A great read.

Loved this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read a digital arc in exchange for my feedback.

I absolutely loved this! What a fantastic plot, beautifully written, intertwining the relationships between the characters in such an ingenious and realistic way.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A charming and unusual book. So evocative of the 60's, and Proustian in its descriptions. Never said that in a review, before and no I don't mean long winded rather that sharp sense of description that provokes a jolt of recognition in the reader. Absolutely loved it.

In the early 1960s America, Joan Bergstrom, a food-loving, 27-year-old staff writer in LA, pens a fan letter to Imogen Fortier, the author of her favourite magazine column. Joan encloses a gift of saffron and, despite their 30-year age gap, their distance (Imogen lives in Washington) and their very different life paths, they strike up a deep friendship spanning a number of letters, years, life events, world events, cultures and cuisines.

I loved this reading experience, completing the book in one sitting. I laughed, I cried and I felt nostalgic for a time and place I've never known.

Without explicitly intending to, this wonderful story explored a number of complex themes, authentically for its time period, but that have enormous relevance today.

For example, Love & Saffron carries its own flavour of quiet, sturdy feminism right from page 1. The characters' many unconventional-for-the-21st century takes are a welcome reminder, that in our time of "this way or no way", feminism should always be first and foremost about choice.

All of the characters are woven together through exploration and celebration of food. But the two main characters don't storm about imposing themselves and breaking cultural boundaries.

Rather, they are curious about them. They peek over the parapet, quenching their fascination with studious enquiry. They walk through the doors opened to them with deep gratitude and, finally, meld with the boundaries to create wonderful new connections.

As a mixed-race woman, I found this book to be a gentle invitation to treat the enquiries of others with care and nurture. To take the curiosity and roll it around on the tongue, tasting its flavour before deciding to close my mind to it immediately, or else I risk allowing world-weariness to harden my heart and lose potentially beautiful new friendships.

Everyone generally comes from a place of good. People discover the real stories of others when they are permitted to meet them where they are. Love and Saffron's message is clear: we should take more loving chances on one another.

Nothing says it better than my favourite quote: "The less we cement ourselves to our certainties, the fuller our lives can be."

Many thanks to NetGalley, Kim Fay and the publisher for the opportunity to review an ARC.