Did you create it yourself? Did you consider yourself a baker to begin with, or like Zell, did you need to experiment, starting from scratch, until you got it right?ĪB: Over the years I’ve become a fairly competent cook, but baking does not come easily to me.

You’ve included a very important recipe in Simply From Scratch. The plot in your novel centers partly on a cooking contest the main character, Zell (Short for Rose Ellen – love that!) and her young neighbor, Ingrid, decide to enter together. But I live and listen and love and try to be humane. I think absolutely everything in my personal experience prepared me to write Simply From Scratch. I purposely inject my characters with humor and hope and a gleeful curiosity about life in general. Did anything in your personal experience prepare you to write the grieving process in this way?ĪB: Right! Just because a book centers on a sad event doesn’t mean the reading experience is necessarily depressing.

Your story, while bittersweet in spots, was overwhelmingly hopeful. I absolutely loved that you employed humor so frequently in Zell’s grieving process. My first thought was, “Oh, dear, two grieving widows in a row might be a little more than I can handle.” BUT. I had just finished reading another novel whose point-of-view character was a young widow when I began reading Simply From Scratch. JK: Alicia, we’re so glad you could stop by What Women Write! Congratulations on your debut. Simply From Scratch is Alicia’s first novel. A pianist and freelance writer, she and her husband, novelist Matthew Quick, live near Philadelphia with their adopted racing greyhound, Stella. with a truly lovable heroine.'Īlicia Bessette was born and raised in central Massachusetts and graduated from La Salle University in Philadelphia. And from Kirkus: 'Fans of Cecelia Ahern’s PS, I Love You will find a lot to like here. It's an international bestseller (so far, four straight weeks on the Spiegel bestseller list in Germany) and a People magazine Great Read. About Simply From Scratch: Simply From Scratch is a tender-hearted debut novel about a young widow, a nine-year-old girl, and a baking contest that will change both their lives. I had the pleasure of reading an advance review copy from Dutton, her publisher, and talking with Alicia about her novel and writing. Alicia’s debut novel, Simply From Scratch, released August 5. What Women Write is thrilled to introduce Alicia Bessette to our readers.

Simply from scratch alicia bessette