The Lost Recipe for Happiness

by Barbara O'Neal

In this sumptuous novel, Barbara O’Neal offers readers a celebration of food, family, and love as a woman searches for the elusive ingredient we’re all hoping to find. . . .

It’s the opportunity Elena Alvarez has been waiting for—the challenge of running her own kitchen in a world-class restaurant. Haunted by an accident of which she was the lone survivor, Elena knows better than anyone how to survive the odds. With her faithful dog, Alvin, and her grandmother’s recipes, Elena arrives in Colorado to find a restaurant in as desperate need of a fresh start as she is—and a man whose passionate approach to food and life rivals her own. Owner Julian Liswood is a name many people know but a man few do. He’s come to Aspen with a troubled teenage daughter and a dream of the kind of stability and love only a family can provide. But for Elena, old ghosts don’t die quietly, yet a chance to find happiness at last is worth the risk.

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Chick Lit, Food, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Magical Realism

452 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2008

About the author

Barbara O'Neal is the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling writer of women's fiction. She lives in Colorado with her partner, a British endurance athlete.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another author wrote: "As dark and deep and sweet as chocolate...I wanted to live in this book."

This is how reading "The Lost Recipe for Happiness" by Barbara O'Neal felt.

You have Elena who has had a dream to open her own restaurant, she is an experienced chef – she has a dog – she has overcome and survived an accident – but she has ghosts – a past – and so much to overcome.

Will she?

And that is what readers get to experience. Food. Smells. Dog-love. Rich cultural history. Starting over. Maybe some romance, too?

[Briana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited about this book - I liked the premise and the story about characters overcoming tragedy and choosing to take risks. I have also been reading some other non-fiction about food, so I enjoyed the fictional tie-in with all the recipes and narrative about creating new food in the restaurant.

I was, however, put off by a few things. First of all, if an author is going to write a character who speaks Spanish, get an editor for the Spanish!! 75% of what Elena said was completely incorrect...not just "funny" as the narration suggests. Instead of "Nice to meet you," she says "I like myself"; when another character asks her "How are you?" in Spanish, she responds with "bueno" instead of "bien" - a very common mistake for novice speakers, but one that also has different meanings in various countries, ranging from "I am good-looking" to sexual connotations. Secondly, I was very put off by the graphic love scenes (I just skipped them), but I was sorry that the book was tainted with sleeze whose purpose is solely pornographic.

[Shonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit when I first skimmed the book description, I thought the plot would be: girl breaks up with current boy, relocates to new city for a fresh start, meets new boy, not sure if she should get involved with new boy, ends up getting involved with new boy and they begin new relationship. Ok, so maybe The Lost Recipe for Happiness can be summed up that way. But honestly, it’s so much more than that.

Elena Alvarez is a complicated character, but extremely likable. She’s haunted by her past and cannot rid herself of her tragic accident. She’s left not only with physical pain from the car accident, but immense survivor’s guilt. She’s the lone survivor of a car accident that killed her high school boyfriend and two sisters.

After the accident and a long period of physical therapy and healing, she left her hometown and explored her passion for cooking. Training in the best restaurants prepared her to become chef of her kitchen. While mastering the art of cooking, Elena simultaneously distanced herself from intimate relationships. Yes, she had plenty of boyfriends, however she never allowed them in, always keeping them at arm’s reach. Of course this changes when she meets Julian.

Julian Liswood is a single father with several marriages under his belt. He’s trying to raise his teenage daughter the best he can while maintaining his professional life. He’s immediately smitten with Elena, but tries to keep their relationship purely professional. After all, he is her boss.

Ms. O’Neal did an excellent job bringing these characters to life. The chapters are told from both Elena’s and Julian’s perspectives. The secondary characters round out the story with issues of their own that only contribute to the depth of the plot.

If you’re looking for something different, I suggest you pick up The Lost Recipe for Happiness. Elena is a character that you will root for and in the end you will walk away satisfied.

4.5 Stars

[Tattered Cover Book Store]

This isn't "Sex in the City" chic lit--this one actually has some seriousness and some heft. Elena, the lone survivor of a horrific car wreck that killed a number of her family and her boyfriend, is a chef now, living with her damaged body and her more damaged soul in the tough, male dominated world of high end cuisine. She's offered her first executive chef position with the challenge of renovating and recreating a restaurant in Aspen. I absolutely FELL into this book. I identified with the kitchen challenges, Elena's loneliness, the fact that it was set in Colorado for the most part, and drooled over the many wonderful culinary creations in the book (recipes delightfully included). It's a love story (two, actually--there's a fun "side" story about a gay couple forming from what seems like polar opposites in the kitchen), but for many of the characters it's more about healing and taking chances. There's even some politics about immigration and "guest workers" in this country. And several ghosts. It's hard to pigeon hole this book, but not hard to enjoy it!

Jackie

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Icky enough that there was a romance shoe-horned into this downer tale of a VERY broken woman and her ghosts - but even more off-putting was the fact that the hero was the boss, and the heroine was trying to prove herself in a male-dominated field, and he pretty much hired her knowing he wanted to sleep with her. Yay for uncomfortable power dynamics!

As if that wasn't depressing enough - I could not get past the physical descriptions. The hero was described as pale, spindly, big nosed, black-eyed (and wears black jeans and silk shirts - shudder)but is...hot? I had a weird image of Marilyn Manson that I could not shake.

While the heroine is blonde, blue-eyed, petite with an impressive rack...and apparently ugly? The hero marvels over her flaws and how unattractive he finds her, musing (MULTIPLE TIMES) over her sallow skin, wrinkles, and bad hair. OKAY.

[Jeanne Adamek · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am giving this book 3 stars, instead of 4 for 2 different reasons. First, the author used the F word way too much and it was always in such a crude manner that it was disgusting every time it was used. The second reason is that most of the book was clean and told a good story...until it hit about halfway through the book when the author decided she all of a sudden needed to add disgustingly descriptive sex scenes. All I can say is thank goodness I was listening to the audio book so I could fast forward when it got a little uncomfortable. Other than those two issues I really enjoyed the story. I just wish the above mentioned issues weren't issues. I loved the recipes in the beginning of the chapters. I wonder how good they really are. I did feel bad at how tragic the lives were of the two main characters but reading about their lives and seeing them heal each other was my favorite. I loved the story.

Elena is a wonderful chef but is working as a souse chef for a restaurant she helped build up. When a magazine article focuses more on her rather than the male head chef, the chef fires her. As she's walking home Julian, an actor/director/restaurant owner hires her to be the head chef at his new restaurant. Elena must create a menu, find staff and design the new restaurant alongside the owner, Julian. Elena must overcome her own tragic past to discover that it's okay to move on and be happy.

[Vickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal was much different than what I expected! It wasn't light and fluffy but real and somewhat dark. So many characters with so many flaws, both physical and emotional, and I loved them all. My favorite of all: Ivan! I would love to sit next to him at a dinner party. Pick this book up if you want a couple of days filled with laughter and tears!

Go Cards! L1C4!!

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time through, I still feel it is a wonderful book. It was long for the genre but it never, for even ONE page, felt too long, I wish it had been longer! The main characters were well drawn. Just loved it!

[Theresa Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is filled with a sumptuous setting of Aspen, Colorado, and sumptuous recipes. Screenplay writer Julian Liswood hires Elena Alvarez to open a new restaurant in Aspen. Here, she’ll be the executive chef in charge of designing the menu herself. Though Elena is blond and blue-eyed, she grew up with her paternal grandmother and those are the South West recipes she uses, combined with her time studying cuisine in Europe.

A horrible car accident twenty years earlier continues haunt to Elena physically and mentally. Physically because of her chronic pain and mentally by the deaths of her sister and the man who was the great love of her life.

What makes this book enjoyable is that the characters are likeably flawed. They are imperfect people trying to do their best. Julian is trying to guide his teenage daughter away from the excesses of Hollywood, and Elena is licking her wounds from another failed relationship, while doing her best to launch a successful restaurant. Elena is also likeable because she’d a tough woman in what is traditionally a man’s job and she speaks fluent Spanish, which comes in handy when running a kitchen.

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Books like these, where suddenly the male character is inexplicably, devastatingly in love with the female character just leave me feeling flat. I wish the writer had better developed the characters, written characters I could care about, and somehow shown why these two people fell in love. The story just felt incomplete to me. And the sex scenes seemed really forced, thrown in because it's a "romance," I guess. They added absolutely nothing. Revealed nothing about character desire or about the characters' relationship. Just merely the act. Boring and awkward.

I wish more of these writers would write developed stories instead of formulaic romances. At least the cover wasn't of a shimmering man with huge pecs holding some object over his groin area. Oy.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an airport book, good for nothing more than a long flight. Elena wants to be executive chef of a really cool restaurant and have everybody think she's The Shit. But she is Haunted. By the ghosts of her sister and her Soul Mate. Any author that can use the words "soul mate" over and over again, without a single soupcon of irony, is not an author anyone wants to read anywhere but on a very boring flight.

And also, there is a LOT of sex in this book (spoiler alert: she even gets all sexy with the ghost). There is so much sex in this book that it rapidly becomes incredible tedious sex (for all the gasping, stroking and moaning)and eventually (about half-way thru the book) I had to start skipping over the sex scenes in much the same way that I always skip the battle scenes in War and Peace. So I skipped hundreds of pages of sex! Imagine that? Maybe that's the real reason I only gave this loser one star.

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I loved each and everything about it. The characters were written so that you grew attached to them and felt their stories.J The food was amazing. I could close my eyes and taste the food along with the story. The character of Elena was so real to me, I know how she couldn't let anyone in too close, because I was like that for years. Amazing book! Bravo Ms. O'Neal!

[BJ Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lost Recipe for Happiness was my first book by O'Neal. It has a romance interwoven into the story, but this is basically a story of survival, and knowing when to finally let go of what might have been so you can embrace what might be even better. It's a heart-wrenching story but I liked it a lot and gave it 4*

[Kimberly Kincaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give this book a BILLION stars if I could, and it is easily on my list of Top 5 Books I'd Want if Stranded of a Desert Island. What an amazing, poignant, sensual, wonderful book! From the minute I picked it up, I was hooked- the characters are fabulous and perfectly flawed, the plot is well-thought-out and engaging, and the book moves incredibly well.

I had empathy for Elena right from the beginning, but she's anything but a poor woe-is-me character. I loved her sense of strength, loved that she was still vulnerable beneath it, loved her complexity and her rawness. Julian was a great hero- not overpowering, but definitely powerful (I'd call him a quiet hero- and boy did he suit Elena to a T!), and the chemistry between them was incredible. And don't get me started about Ivan, who was my favorite character in the book. Oh, my heart ached for him every time he was on the page, even when he was being a jerk!

I won't give away any spoilers here, but the plot was multi-layered and kept me turning the pages well past bedtime to see what would happen. There were just enough teasers to make it impossible to put down, and O'Neal gave out tidbits at regular enough paces that I was satisfied at every turn.

Clearly, an absolute ton of research and detailing went into this book. It was well thought out and the details were rich and rang like a bell. O'Neal's love for food is so obvious, but not in your face, and some of the prose itself in this book just made me cry because it was just that beautiful (like when she describes Ivan's voice on that first day that Elena meets him- oh! It just took my breath away).

I loved every word of this book- Barbara O'Neal, you have a fan for life! Highly, highly recommend.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't "Sex in the City" chic lit--this one actually has some seriousness and some heft. Elena, the lone survivor of a horrific car wreck that killed a number of her family and her boyfriend, is a chef now, living with her damaged body and her more damaged soul in the tough, male dominated world of high end cuisine. She's offered her first executive chef position with the challenge of renovating and recreating a restaurant in Aspen. I absolutely FELL into this book. I identified with the kitchen challenges, Elena's loneliness, the fact that it was set in Colorado for the most part, and drooled over the many wonderful culinary creations in the book (recipes delightfully included). It's a love story (two, actually--there's a fun "side" story about a gay couple forming from what seems like polar opposites in the kitchen), but for many of the characters it's more about healing and taking chances. There's even some politics about immigration and "guest workers" in this country. And several ghosts. It's hard to pigeon hole this book, but not hard to enjoy it!

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this book had been a mass-market paperback, without having the pretense of being anything but an incredibly cheesy romance novel (with the "romance" being some of the worst written ever)...it would have still be no more than two stars. But, at least it would be honest about what it is. Still, the plot isn't horrible, and it is definitely not a contender for "worst book ever" (see Breaking Dawn, The Saturday Wife, and a few others). This is ok--but, a little less than, because of the pretense at being a real novel rather than a beach read. (Plus, again, some of it is really poorly written.)

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for this book. The story line was interesting and I liked the recipes that were stirred in between the chapters, but it just didn't live up to my expectations, became highly predictable, and the "romance" was a little too sappy and border-line trashy. I was happy to be done with it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wanted a "good" book to read.

[Marleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was extremely moved by this book. The characters were beautifully written; they were flawed, broken, hurt. I could really feel the pain they had in their souls because of past tragedies. There's despair and disillusionment, but not to a point where they had given up all hope – just nearly.

Although I'm not that familiar with this cuisine, I enjoyed the pages with all the recipes on Southwestern cooking. Normally I’m not too fond when there’s a lot of cooking and talk of food in a novel, but here it was never boring – it was colorful and spicy. It fit with the story and I just liked it.
The main character is Elena Alvarez, an interesting female chef with origins in New Mexico, but who travelled the world to perfect her skills as a chef. 20 years ago, Elena was the sole survivor of a tragic car accident that took away 4 of her family members, and to this day she has not been able to let go. Also because the accident left her the scars, a crooked back and a lot of daily physical pain.

On a side note, I have to point out the book blurb & the synopsis on Goodreads doesn't do the book justice. There’s so much more to this story. For instance, the restaurant owner’s daughter isn’t a troubled teenager – she’s just a normal, sweet girl who feels a bit lost. I wonder if the people writing book blurbs read the book?
I liked many of the male characters; among them the guys working in the kitchen, especially Juan, Ivan and Patrick, the sommelier.

To conclude I thought this was a beautiful and poignant read with authentic and well-thought-out characters. The interactions & dialogues resonated with me and I fell in love with Southwestern food! Also, it reminded me a bit of a Jo-Ann Mapson book - and I love that author. I think Barbara O'Neal/Barbara Samuel is just as great.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book. It was a little more slow-paced than I like, and a little more "flowery" in the language, but overall, I enjoyed reading it. (If a section got a little hard to plow through, I just skipped ahead. I read for story...)

The heroine is a chef. She's in pretty bad physical shape, with a bad scar down her back, and she's just broken up with her chef boyfriend-boss. There's a tragedy in her past, but she doesn't like to talk about it. When the story opens, an article about her in the paper inflames her ex's vanity into jealousy, and he fires her. But she doesn't have long to be shocked or hurt--as she's leaving the kitchen, the restaurant owner approaches her with an offer to help him open a new restaurant in Aspen. She's no dummy. She jumps at the chance.

The book is a slow, syrupy (not as in too sweet, but as in thick) wallowing in wonderful food and textures and the gradual revelation of what brought Elena Alvarez to this point. Her past is revealed, along with her fears, friends and ghosts, and the story follows her struggle to heal from the emotional scars left behind by the tragedy that caused her physical wounds. I loved the recipes. I'm going to make the steak and onion thing sometime soon... I think I like my own carnitas recipe better, tho.

I'm reading my way through the 2010 RITA finalists. This book is a finalist in the NOVEL WITH ROMANTIC ELEMENTS category, and well deserves the position.

[Holli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Just absolutely loved this book. About 60 pages in I started slowing down my reading of it just so it would last longer. The characters were excellent....even down to people in her past and her dog. All of them were meaningful and important. This is definitely not a cute, light read... it's more edgy and lightly explores a lot of subjects that some consider controversial. None of the topics bothered me though...

The writing felt true to life and the characters have stuck with me since I finished it. I almost want to read it again just to be back there in that world with them. I love reading about food and cooking and restaurants and what goes on behind the scenes in them. This was a great book for that and the author even includes recipes I want to try to make!!

Good summer novel.......

[Sonja H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally a book I really liked and I finished! Elena is a woman who has suffered tragedy and survived. She is strong and focused on her career in a man's world of restaurant chefs. The story follows her as she has the opportunity (after being fired)to pursue her dream of being the head chef of her own restaurant.
I loved the character development, the fact that everyone was not perfect and how they each dealt with their own issues. I am not a cook, but the recipes woven through out the story make me want to try making the tamales and mexican hot chocolate and other goodies.

[Sutton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get over all the cultural appropriation. Everything Hispanic felt wrong. And the author talks about the protagonist's breasts more than any male writer. If it's to be a queer romance, by all means, write an LGBTQ romance, but it's weird in an ostensibly cis-het couple to be constantly reminded that she does, indeed, have mammary glands.

[Bookworm LLC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, just not as much as the others I have read by Barbara O'Neal. Still enjoyed it, but seemed a bit disjointed.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book pleasantly surprised me. I enjoyed it. First book by this author, and I want to read more of hers. Food, recipes included, romance (it's spicy at times), family, trauma, grief, friendships, and recovery. It does have threads of magical realism in it as well.
I did not realize that the food industry was still male dominanted. Most high-end restaurants have a male chef.
I, too, like the main character, have chronic back pain from surgery - not from a car wreck, though. It's a struggle to do things you love, help others, and to set aside time for essential things that keep you healthy/ mobile (extra rest, massages, stretching, exercise, heat therapy). I don't talk about it much, but it's frustrating at times to balance it all. I appreciated it being in a book where the character is strong/ independent because of it instead of being a victim.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The measure of a good book, to me anyway, is that you still really love it when it centers around something you don't have strong feelings for, in this case cooking and higher end cuisine. The author is a very excellent story teller that develops several great characters in this book and keeps it all going with ease and descriptions that keep you turning that page.

[Jac (For Love and Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading How to Bake a Perfect Life (also by Barbara O'Neal) I had to have more of her stories! Based in Colorado, and in the kitchen - her writing style is perfect for this amateur baker from the Southern Front Range! The Lost Recipe For Happiness sounded cute, a chef in Aspen? And the cover was gorgeous too, so I dove right in. And I couldn't put it down!

Barbara O'Neal's writing is breathtaking, vivid and passionate. As you are turning the pages, you can clearly see the kitchen in the Orange Bear (Elena's Restaurant in Aspen, Colorado) and you feel her aches and pains as well as her emotions. And the tamale's that Ivan created? I can taste them, and left me with a craving for the real thing that would not go away until I had satisfied it with a tamale from my favorite local Mexican Eatery!

How to Bake a Perfect Life is a character driven novel, Elena has ghosts (literally) from her past and is struggling to overcome a tragedy that made her who she is. Julian is also filled with ghosts, and ex-wives that haunt him. Together? This is a couple that I could not get enough of, and found myself terribly saddened when the story was ending. I loved each and every one of the characters in this book, for different reasons. But one thing I have to give huge BRAVO to Miss O'Neal for is her Hispanic Characters!! Living in a highly Hispanic population, it's rare to find such a great piece of fiction (especially romantic/chick-lit) that depicts the culture, passion and dedication as well as this story has!

This story had me craving tamales and a drive into New Mexico for days after finishing it! I absolutely adored every moment of my time spent inside these pages and found myself sad as it was coming to an end. Barbara O'Neal has quickly become a favorite of mine, and I highly recommend her books to anyone who loves a good character driven novel with a few delicious recipes thrown in!!

[KCM73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this food lovers' novel, Elena Alvarez is an accomplished Santa Fe-trained chef with Mexican roots and a Southwestern flair to her elegant food. When she is offered the opportunity to become the executive chef at a new restaurant in Aspen, Colorado, owned by a Hollywood director who dabbles in the restaurant business, Elena jumps at the opportunity. But the process of opening the restaurant and developing the menu turns out to be more challenging than Elena expected. She must deal with Ivan, the surly former executive chef who has been demoted to her sous chef and who, despite his culinary brilliance is battled alcohol and personal demons. She also must deal with her intense attraction to Julian Liswood, her boss and, as a Hollywood hottie, someone Elena thinks is totally out of her league (as well as a father to a 14-year old troubled teen). In addition, Elena has physical and emotional scars from a catastrophic car accident from her childhood and both pose obstacles to her ability to realize her dream of running her own successful kitchen.

This is the first book I've read by Barbara O'Neal and I was surprised by how much depth and complexity there was to both the plot and characters. I adore books about food, cooking, chefs and the like so the book was a natural draw for me but I was expecting it to be more light-hearted and so its deeper, more complex approach was a welcome surprise. The characters, particularly Elena and Ivan, are deeply scarred but strong and passionate and determined. The book is filled with funny and insightful glimpses into professional kitchens and cooking in a way that is inspiring, rather than intimidating. Overall, a very impressive and enjoyable read.

[Lynne Spreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover of this book doesn't begin to convey how deep of a story this is. Elena Alvarez, raised in New Mexico and trained in France, is a top chef in the testosterone-fueled, high-risk world of Michelin rated restaurants. Elena has suffered deep, deep loss, and her nearly 40-year-old body is badly broken from a horrific car accident in her youth. She hasn't come to grips with the grief yet, and there's an element of magical realism in the story, given she still communicates with the teens who died in the wreck (they appear to her as ghosts, some quite graphically.)

She is no blushing heroine, though, and is as tough as a superhero when dealing with her new nemesis, Ivan, passed over for the exec chef job in the high-end Aspen restaurant she is asked to helm. But Barbara O'Neal rarely writes characters as one-dimensional, and we soon see why Elena takes a chance on him. Indeed, one of the best aspects of this story is her strong leadership at the restaurant. She is the boss we all want to have. Throw in a billionaire boyfriend (also her employer), who just happens to have a needy teen daughter, who just happens to cotton to Elena, and you've got a great romance.

[Brandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out very intense, but then quickly lost my attention for the first half. I'm not a foodie - so all of the food descriptions that went on and on started to make me lose interest. I also felt a little lost when, out of no where, the ghost of Isobel showed up without any explanation or introduction. Only later on did I start to understand that Elena was seeing her ghost and why. Determined not to give up, I kept going and around the halfway point, things started to come together and unexpected things started happening. I was hooked and couldn't put the book down...forcing myself to stay up and finish it in one sitting! What started as something I didn't think I would really get into, ended up being a very surprising read. I enjoyed it, and would recommend!