A notice about her grandmother's funeral prompts Mae Townsend to travel to North Carolina in the hope of connecting to her Black relatives, despite the many things left to do for her three-week-away wedding to her white fiancé Connor Parker. His parents have a highly planned event with many small details in mind, which neither Mae nor Connor really want. Also, Mae is uncomfortable with the Parker parents, never really sure if certain of their comments and questions are honest curiosity, or micro aggressions or outright racism, like those from her white mother's side of her family.

Her mother and her dad loved each other a lot, but Mae's father always kept her apart from his family, for no reason Mae ever understood. Even though she knows crashing the funeral, and then the reception, are uncomfortable for everyone involved, Mae decides that she really wants to meet the family she never knew.

Things are uncomfortable, with no one telling her what has kept her separated from them, but she does discover that there was a longstanding grudge between her paternal grandmother and her maternal grandmother. This is after Mae decides to invite everyone to her deceased grandmother's place for a 4th of July barbeque, and a desire to divine the secret of what made her grandmother's mac & cheese so special so she can serve it at the get together.

Mae experiences some hiccups to her new relationships along the way, but she and her cousin Sierra, aunt Barbara as well as others begin warming up to Mae, as she has everyone taste test her attempt at recreating her grandmother's mac & cheese. Then Mae learns a shocking secret about the family, and the real reason for the estrangement, and decides to do her best to mend fences, even while managing from afar Connor's anxiety about the upcoming wedding and a possible job offer, and preparing her grandmother's place for the upcoming barbeque.

I loved this book. Author Shauna Robinson's prose evoked so many strong emotions in me as we followed Mae forge new connections: from the discomfort of Mae's early attempts to connect with standoffish relatives, her happiness when people agreed to come to the barbeque, the frantic feel of late nights perfecting a recipe while preparing her grandmother's home for the get-together, the exhaustion of also working full time, the shock of the family revelation, and the warmth of the wonderful ending. This book made me happy.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Sourcebooks for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Shauna Robinson's delightful and poignant book "The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster" is on the lives of the Townsend family, their tribulations, and the ties that bind them. The novel, which takes place in a tiny town where everyone knows everyone, is told from a variety of points of view and provides an insight into the difficulties and intricacies of familial relationships.

Shauna Robinson's "The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster" is a poignant examination of personal development and familial bonds in a small-town context. For those who like novels about family interactions and the complexities of small-town life, the novel is recommended despite its pacing and predictability difficulties due to its superb characterization and vivid representation of communal life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

i found this to be a sweet story about discovering who you within and despite of your family. The MC is getting married in a few weeks and invites her father's family to her wedding. All this is normal, right? Wrong. She'd never really known her dad's family. So when she discovers her grandmother has passed away she decides to go to the funeral to get to know her long lost family and find a place she belongs.

Though there were times the MC bugged me (and I thought she put her fiance through it in her dogged search for family) I still enjoyed the book a lot.

This was great book about family and all the drama each family has. No matter the circumstances at the end of the day we all love our family. A very moving book and easy read.

This novel has it all: relatable characters, delicious descriptions of food, humor, and drama. Mae has a White mother and Black father, with a divided family. Mae is Black and always felt out of place with her mother’s family, with their micro aggressions mixed up with some of their loving ways. Mae was kept away from her father’s family, unaware of the deep resentments. When her grandmother Althea dies, even though she only met her once or twice, Mae decides to attend the funeral. What follows is the search for what family really means. At the same time Mae is planning her wedding to Connor, a White man, and holds herself back from his family afraid that they may say something racist. The book was well written and a fast read. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was very well written and I appreciated the honest conversations about race and biracial heritage that took place in here and really set it apart from other books with similar themes.

A great audio book about family, new and old. It was a perfect 4th of July read for me because of the happy coincidence of book timeline and the recent holiday, but I would also recommend this book on a cold day with a large bowl of macaroni and cheese.

Mae is a young biracial woman who on the verge of her wedding, experiences a identity crisis as she grapples with her childhood experiences and her future marriage to a white man. It is further compounded by the death of her paternal grandmother which highlights her missing link to the Black side of her family. She decided to take an impromptu visit to the funeral in an attempt to get to know her family. Initially met with hostility she attempts to try and learn more about her family and herself in the process. She volunteers to throw the big Townsend Family BBQ that her father always flew home to attend and in the process learns much more than she ever anticipated about her family.

The family secrets are released slowly, after the first one, I knew there had to be more. I enjoyed Mae’s journey although she is very naive and it was frustrating at times thinking this was a grown woman about to get married who seemed to lack maturity. Like girl, you really thought this was about a July 4th BBQ? Watching the situation with her PTO was so frustrating- I wanted to yell WOMAN UP. but I guess, she was raised by folks who avoided reality and conflict so what else could she do?

There was a lot of the storyline wrapped up in Mac and cheese. Almost too much. I love mac and cheese as much as the next person but it felt like there were pages about it and it was too much. And then, there wasn’t even the recipe ( iat least n the ARC I reviewed!) if you are going to spend that much of a plot on something, at least include the recipe.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy

A complex Interracial family drama that centers around a wedding. This book was ok and wasn’t my favorite work by the author!

Special thanks to the author & @bookmarked for my advanced e-ARC‼️

This one had a lot of potential but fell a little short on what I expected. I was waiting for a disaster to happen like something major and while we do get some family drama and some secrets I still felt like something was missing.

Mae was getting married soon and after all these years of not connecting with her father’s side of the family she decides now is the time. Longing for a connection from those who look like her and she could relate to reconnecting with the Townsend’s would give Mae just that. But what Mae doesn’t realize is you can’t just walk back into someone’s life expecting open arms when you don’t know them and they really don’t know you.

When Mae showed up to her grandmothers funeral whom she barely knew I figured some of the family wouldn’t take it well. Mainly Sierra she didn’t let up off Mae nearly the entire book. Read it and you’ll eventually understand why. But I kept thinking wtf is this girl issue with Mae y’all family but don’t know each other enough to have all this animosity. Barbara was passive asf just inviting Mae to things without informing the rest of the family. They were acting funny and looking upside her head when all she wanted to do was get to know them. I don’t know what side of the family was worse her dad’s or her mother’s.

I kind of wished the author dove deeper into the whole spill of being biracial and how it is growing up having a white mom who can’t really relate to you. I liked how she touched on some of the microaggressions Mae dealt with from her mom’s family though.

Overall,the book was okay but it had a slow start. There were a few characters we could’ve done without like Madison. I thought the big reveal wasn’t as big of a surprise but it explained why the Townsend’s were acting funny with Mae. I also blame her father and mother for the division she had with her estranged family. But if you’re looking for a fun read with lots of family drama you might like this book.

Rating: 3.75/5⭐️

Mae Townsend has always dreamed of connecting with her estranged Black family in the South. She grew up picturing relatives who looked like her, crowded dinner tables, bustling kitchens. And, of course, the Townsend family barbecue, the tradition that kept her late father flying to North Carolina year after year, despite the mysterious rift that always required her to stay behind. 

Mae is about to get married so suddenly not knowing the Townsends hits her like a blow. She's not sure where she belongs so when news arrives that her paternal grandmother has passed, she decides it's time to head South. 

What she finds is a family in turmoil, a long-standing grudge intact, a lost mac & cheese recipe causing grief, and a family barbecue on the brink of disaster. Not willing to let her dreams of family slip away, Mae steps up to throw a barbecue everyone will remember.

This is a story about family and the desire to belong. But first you need to know your family. It's a sweet but slow story. There are no major plot twists or action. We follow Mae as she works through things.

The book was a little slow for me and I was expecting a little bit more light. The writing style also didn't quite work for me, but I think it will for other readers.

I really enjoyed this one. I was nervous about where it was heading but by the end I was pleasantly surprised. It would have been awesome to have recipes at the end considering how much food was a part of this novel but I know its not a cozy mystery 🤣

This was a great story! I was unsure where the story was going to go but it ended much better than I could have expected. This was about Mae going to find her dad’s side of the family she was never close with after the death of her grandmother. I love how all the relationships played out, especially between Mae and all her relatives. I was surprised there was such a big twist, I was not expecting something like that. The author did a great job showing Mae dealing with racism and feelings about being mixed, I really liked the evolution of those topics throughout the book. The ending was so sweet and such a great representation of the characters. Overall, a 4 star read for me! Thank you to Sourcebooks for this ARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I was back and forth on how to rate this one because there were a lot of things I loved about it, but there were also some things I didn’t care for.

I really enjoyed the focus on family and community. The large family gatherings had a wholesome vibe to it, even though the idea of a giant family barbecue every year is my idea of a nightmare.

I also liked how the author discussed the micro-aggressions that Black people have to face. A lot of people make racist comments that they think are little or harmless, and this book explored how damaging these comments can actually be.

The writing style itself was amazing. It all sort of flowed together and had me captivated several times throughout the story. But I also felt that the book dragged on quite a bit and was missing something more from the plot that I needed to keep my interest.

I was also really bothered by the MC. Most of her decisions didn’t make any sense to me, and I found her to be pretty cringey at times.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for my gifted copy!

Mae’s story made me think of the best parts of coming-of-age novels, where the main character becomes a whole person before our eyes. Only in this case, Mae is a grown adult who is ready to get married. I wouldn’t say Mae is immature at all, but she is missing a piece of her story—a big one. The book isn’t only about Mae’s journey to connect with her estranged family, but also how that family found their way back together.

Raised by interracial parents but estranged from her father’s southern, black family, Mae is missing something she can’t put into words. She pictures big, messy, boisterous family dinners and bustling kitchens. She pictures people who look like her and provide her a level of comfort she doesn’t quite have in the white, Californian community she was raised in.

Mae becomes more conscious of the microaggressions and racial incidents that she had grown accustomed to from her mother’s side of the family. She feels an incompleteness, particularly when it comes to her father’s family and her ties to the black community. Mae’s father used to travel back to North Carolina for a family barbecue—one he never let Mae tag along for. Mae is on the cusp of getting married to a white man named Connor, and it’s bringing up the gap she feels when she thinks about family. When her paternal grandmother passes away, Mae decides to finally go to meet her father’s family in North Carolina.

It turns out that popping into the funeral of the family who you’ve long been stranged from isn’t as smooth as you’d expect. The warmth and love that she pictured is in a state of turmoil, though. Some won’t let go of their grudges, some are holding secrets, and a long-lost macaroni and cheese recipe threatens to be the final straw tearing their family barbecue apart. Mae won’t let her family slip away from her, and she sets out to plan the best 4th of July barbecue the Townsends have ever seen.

I enjoyed this book immensely, both the parts I could relate to from personal experience and the parts that I was learning about through Mae’s experience. The emphasis on food sounds cliched, but there is a reason food is central to many of the ways we connect as people. It is love, comfort, and part of how we gather together. Food is in some ways a great social connector—it can teach us about family, culture, tradition, and expressions of love.

A sense of community and a sense of belonging are core to Mae’s journey in the novel, and what she is most seeking when she goes to reconnect with her father’s family. There is also a theme around the importance of having a safe space, however we define that.

Heartfelt!

Thank you to Sourcebooks for my copy. Opinions are my own.

This book at first glance seems like a bit of fluff, but in all actuality has some serious, thought provoking themes underneath. Don’t get me wrong, this book is fun; the characters are larger than life and some of the things they say and do make you laugh out loud. However, by the end, the reader should learn a few lessons on topics of race, family, and honesty. I recommend this book, especially to those who may feel uncomfortable within their own extended family.

Family recipes are so much more than just a list of ingredients - they are love, history and culture passed down through the generations. Much like a family tree, they are complex, filled with secrets and forever updating. The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster follows a family in mourning as they search for the missing ingredient of a beloved recipe, and also in their lives.

🔐 Family Secrets
🧀 Mystery Mac & Cheese
⏳Countdown
💍 Wedding Bells
❤️‍🩹 Healing
🥘 Delicious Food
🫶 Family & Friendship

Shauna Robinson has whipped up another perfect recipe for a heartfelt novel! It’s full
of tough conversations, decades old secrets, love, loss and beautiful connections. 10/10 recommend!

Thank you so much Sourcebooks & Spotify Audiobooks for the gifted copies!

I love Shauna Robinson! After reading her first novel I knew I had to request this one. She is a great storyteller and knows how to get you to connect deeply with the characters and care about them. I hope her new book is successful. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

This is a great summer read - I was hooked from the very first line! You’re going to want to grab a snack (at a minimum you will crave mac & cheese) and dig into this book!

I immediately felt for Mae Townsend as she is planning a wedding and it brings up so many feelings regarding her family. She decides to try and reconnect with her estranged Black family in the south after her paternal grandmother passes away. She dreams of this amazing connection, but family dynamics can be complicated at best - throw in grudges, a funeral, secrets, and race relations and Mae finds herself in a tough position.

There were some surprises in the story that I didn’t see coming and I definitely felt so many different emotions! This story is ultimately about family, and sometimes family dynamics are complicated. I love how food and a barbecue help bring them together (and of course an elusive mac & cheese recipe.)

There are some really great characters in this book! I was rooting for Mae and her family! Even as the book is tackling difficult topics, the author weaves humor and love throughout the story. Overall this is a really heartwarming story! I will definitely be checking out this author’s other books!