A Table By the Window

I had to write a little about this book because it helped me get out of my book rut. A Table by the Window was an impulse checkout because I wanted to add a little variety to my multiple Lisa Scottoline books. (Remember, I was in a book rut!) The cover intrigued me, so I picked it up to carry it around and debate on it.

See? Isn't it so inviting? Plus it offers recipes. Who can pass that up! 

After reading the description of the book on the back, I was sucked in! 

The youngest heir to a French-Italian restaurant dynasty, food writer Juliette D’Alisa has spent her life negotiating her skill with words and her restaurant aspirations. When her brother Nico offers her a chance to open a restaurant together, she feels torn—does she really have what it takes? Should she risk leaving her journalism career?
 
After the death of her grandmother, Juliette discovers an antique photograph of a man who looks strikingly like her brother. As the truth behind the picture reveals romance and dark secrets, Juliette struggles to keep the mystery away from her nosy family until she can uncover the whole story. 

See? I just HAD to check it out. I hoped that this would be the book that got me out of my book rut, and it absolutely was. I wanted to write a quick blurb about it because I saw many people online saying they wished the story lines were wrapped up more. I feel the exact opposite.

I was glad that the story line of the mystery man in her grandmother's life was wrapped up, but I feel many of the other storylines were wrapped up enough to leave me feeling whole. Juliette went through many life changing events that led to her searching her own soul for what it was that she REALLY wanted out of life. Haven't we all been there?

Maybe it's because I'm at a similar point in my life where I'm evaluating what it is that I REALLY want in life. It's not easy to sit down and evaluate your life, which works, and make the decision to abandon a life that works for one that may provide you more happiness than you have right now.

Sometimes the scariest thing is to admit what it is that we actually want out of life. In the end, through her soul searching (that may not have seemed like soul searching the reader or even to the character at the time), she knew that she wanted to work in restaurants and that she wanted Neil in her life. For me, that was enough.