The Dead Husband Cookbook is a wickedly satisfying feast of justice

Some recipes call for salt, sugar, and spice—but in Danielle Valentine’s The Dead Husband Cookbook, the secret ingredient is retribution. When infamous chef and TV personality Maria Capello’s husband vanishes under suspicious circumstances, the whispers never stop. The media paints her as a murderer, a woman who cooked up her culinary empire on the bones of her missing spouse. But Maria never talks. Not for decades. Not until now.

Thea Woods, an up-and-coming writer, gets the job of a lifetime: working with Maria on her explosive memoir. She’s whisked away to the Capello family’s secluded farm, where the air smells faintly of nostalgia—and something far more unsettling. It doesn’t take long before Thea realizes that Damien Capello isn’t the only man who has gone missing in this family’s orbit. And the deeper she digs, the more she begins to understand that Maria’s perfect “coastal grandmother” persona hides a recipe of equal parts love, loyalty, and something darker.

This novel is about family and the lengths we’ll go to protect the people who matter most. It’s also about the flip side—what happens to people, mostly men, who believe they can do whatever they want to their wives and children, inflict years of abuse, and then walk away without consequences. Women rarely get to simply leave. But Maria Capello? She’s rewriting the rules.

Darkly funny, tense, and brimming with the satisfaction of a well-plated dish, The Dead Husband Cookbook is a perfect addition to my Books About Women Serving Up Justice to Bad Men collection at Elderfly Books & Gifts. Fans of Chelsea G. Summers’ A Certain Hunger will devour this one.

If you could create a “recipe” for justice, what would your secret ingredient be? Let’s chat in the comments below!

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Related Content

• Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine (C.E. Andrews Blogs)
• BLOG TOUR: The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine (Emma’s Biblio Treasures)
• A Practically Perfect First Page by Danielle Valentine (Good on Paper)

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Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.