This book is the definition of a five-star read to the point where I debated not writing a review beyond that because nothing I say would be as good. But I have Thoughts.

Briefly, a delicious life is told through the eyes of Blanca- a girl who died in Mallorca at a young age and now stays in that town as a ghost. For four hundred years she has been living in this confusing existence between life and death with the same families but different people. That is until, foreigners come to live in her hometown. Foreigners who dress up as men and live together with children out of marriage, that is. Blanca falls in love immediately with George, a mysterious woman who wears trousers and smokes cigars. Blanca also builds a connection with George’s lover Chopin and her two children, Maurice and Solange.

This book was captivating to put it simply, there was something so grounded and relatable unlike anything I’ve read before even though it is a story centered around a ghost. It was also the smartest use of alternating point of views I have read. It’s perceived by most as a romance book, which it is, but that doesn’t encapsulate enough that this story is about love- love and loss and grief and yearning and all that makes us human. Everyone is so amazingly complex and nuanced because no one, especially not Blanca, is a reliable narrator. You get to beautifully learn and fall in love with these characters while Blanca does as well. You get their history as well as hers, you yearn with Blanca while she yearns, and you learn to understand these deeply flawed human beings through Blanca’s eyes but also their own and each other’s.

I sadly cannot spoil anything so I must contain myself from writing more but, once again, I cannot stress enough how beautiful and compelling this story is. I cannot wait to read more from Stevens and I’m overjoyed I was able to read this as an advanced reader copy.

Nell Stevens full length fiction debut was worth waiting for. This book was sweet & kind to it’s characters, which is not something you can say about almost any novel that comes my way. I’m not going to make any food puns here, but Lawd Knows when this book is released they are coming from every outlet.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is, sadly, another case of a gorgeous cover being wasted on an average book. Surprisingly humorous yet unbearably unemotional, Stevens failed to squeeze out the full potential of her book's premise, instead creating a dull and bland narrative that brings nothing new to the supernatural and/or historical fiction genre. What drew me in at first was the idea of the Blanca, the ghost narrator, falling in love with George, the eccentric, full of live foreigner, but this aspect of the story was underutilized and barely developed in favour of a boring narrative about George's children and lover. The tension between the family and the village folk was also incredibly unintersting, and coupling that with Blanca's backstory, which was completely unimaginative, it made for a boring read that I probably should've just DNF'ed.