The book, Cooking for Ghosts was appealing to me, as I have been on The Queen Mary many times, and lived in Long Beach, Ca. for 10 years. Ms. Davis did an excellent job of describing this ship and the area in which it is docked. She also did her research on the history of The Queen Mary. Her story, of these very different women that had come together to open a restaurant on the ship was a clever idea. Initially, I had a little difficulty figuring out who the various characters were, but I found that as I got more into the book, the character development was successful. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the mystery that evolved. Since it is October, I was even more intrigued to read about the ghosts on the ship. I have heard that the ship is thought to be haunted, and was pleasantly surprised at the author's ability to weave these ghosts into her story. This book is an easy read and I recommend it to anyone that likes mysteries or ghost stories. I would like to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Four very different women meet on a food blogging site and decide to partner up and open a restaurant on The RMS Queen Mary cruise ship that has been docked in Long Beach, California, and is now a floating hotel. Each of the women – Cynthia, Angela, Jane, and Rohini – has secrets, and each is suffering a bit because of them; the ship, of course also has secrets. The Queen Mary is known to have ghosts, and the women have some encounters with them. There were some unsolved murders that occurred on the ship during the 40s, also, and the women discover some of the clues leading to solving the years’ old mysteries.

Davis is an excellent storyteller, and the story will hook readers from the first chapter. She also does a good job of developing the characters who have several conflicts during the planning and execution of readying the restaurant for opening, as well as throughout. Another character besides the women is an ex-con, Cris, who admits he was guilty of murder and served ten years in prison; he had been thought of by many as a prodigy chef before going to prison, and the dishes he (as well as Angela who is the pastry chef) comes up with are amazing. At first Jane doesn’t want to hire him, but she changes her mind as the facts come out, and Rohini’s (she is an expert herbalist and adds some herbs to the dishes) secrets put all of them in danger and their very lives are threatened.

The only real problem with this excellent first installment of The Secret Spice Café Trilogy, is that there are so many mouthwatering dishes coming out of the kitchen, and no recipes for them. If this were a culinary mystery, the recipes would be there, but this really isn’t a cozy, so the author can get away with leaving them out.

The story is good. The characters are good. The suspense builds throughout, and readers will like the fact that there is so much diversity in the not only the characters, but the scenarios.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

First of all, being from the east coast and never having ventured over to the west, I thought it was absolutely amazing that a cruise ship with so much history is available to go visit. What a very unique setting for the novel. There are also a few other factual parts of the story that I found very interesting. I won’t mention them because I don’t want to give any spoilers. But if you enjoy reading fictional stories based on actual events, this is for you!

I loved each of the women for their own reasons and Patricia did a wonderful job of making each lady individual and sharing the backgrounds in which they were raised. Obviously, as with every novel, we have our favorite characters and Jane was mine. I didn’t always like her but overall, she won my heart the most. Her story was so heart breaking, however all of the women had a tough life that they had to overcome.

One thing I wasn’t crazy about while reading was all of their expressions in their native languages. I understand that it was meant to show that they were real people coming from different backgrounds however, I didn’t care for it.

Overall this is a wonderful novel about friendships, justice, love and most importantly healing. Each of the women in this book found their own way to heal and live a happier life than when they started their venture into the restaurant business.

It's well written but I couldn't connect to the characters and the book didn't keep my attention.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I liked the way the ghosts and history of the queen mary were incorporated in this story. I thought the story itself was slow in parts and I had a hard time distinguishing the 4 main partners but otherwise it was enjoyable. I liked how everyone's main problem was resolved by the end of the book. #CookingForGhosts #NetGalley