Erika Marks is not from New Orleans, but you'd never know it by the way she describes Creole cuisine. This delectable debut novel is brimming with descriptions of dishes so vibrant they may as well be characters in their own right. (Marks's husband is a New Orleans native whom she credits for the recipes she charmingly adds as a postscript to the book.)
Little Gale Gumbo centers on voodoo priestess Camille and her teenage daughters, earnest Josie and wild Dahlia, as they escape the abusive clutches of Camille's drunken husband, Charles. Their flight takes them from the French Quarter to a little island in Maine, where Camille soon falls in love with Ben, the broken-hearted single father of adolescent Matthew, and the new couple and their assorted offspring open the Little Gale Café. While Camille's shrimp pie, jambalaya and pralines are a big hit up north, the obsessive Charles eventually tracks her down, threatening the peaceful she's created with Ben.
As the bittersweet tale unfolds over a period of 25 years, Marks adds an unusual love triangle between pseudo-siblings Matthew, Dahlia and Josie. This enriches the plot and leaves you feeling sympathy for all three. No sympathy, however, can be conjured for the disturbing Charles, whom Marks describes with such disgust that you'll want to take a frying pan to his head. When Charles is murdered, you may not wonder who did it, but you'll certainly wonder why they didn't do it sooner. This work leaves you salivating for a second helping of whatever Marks is cooking up next. --Natalie Papailiou, author of blog MILF: Mother I'd Like to Friend