White Truffles in Winter: A Novel
“(A book) to carry you away.”
––Good Housekeeping
“Wondrous Winter Read.”
––Real Simple
“Can’t get enough...”
National Geographic Traveler
“A sumptuous work of fiction.”
––Barnes and Noble’s Review
“There is a moment during a perfectly paced, perfectly executed meal
when everything transcends. The diners look up from their plates —wine-drugged, conversation-lulled—and gaze at each other in wonder. Reality has shifted, and everything is beautifully, impossibly suspended.
White Truffles in Winter is the literary equivalent of that moment.”
“A wonderful, unforgettable
read”
––New Books Magazine
A breathtaking novel, rare and moving, about the world’s greatest chef and his unruly heart.
White Truffles in Winter imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier, (1846–1935) who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at The Savoy and The Ritz. A man of contradictions—kind yet imperious, food-obsessed yet rarely hungry—Escoffier was also torn between two women: the famous, beautiful, and reckless actress Sarah Bernhardt; and his wife, the independent and sublime poet Delphine Daffis who refused to ever leave Monte Carlo. Set in the last year of Escoffier’s life, in the middle of writing his memoirs, he has returned to Delphine, who requests a dish in her name as he has honored Bernhardt, Queen Victoria, and many others. How does one define the complexity of love on a single plate? Kelby brings us the sensuality of food and love amid a world on the verge of war in this work that shimmers with beauty and longing.
••••
"Beautifully layered and lovingly detailed, White Truffles in Winter is a tale of extraordinary people entangled in a captivating love story. Filled with lush and decadent longing, this novel will dazzle the mind as well as the senses."
Diana Abu Jaber, Birds of Paradise
“I was instantaneously drawn into this novel, and all of its exquisite writing about food. It also contains one of the more unique and affecting seduction scenes I have ever read, and for its uniqueness, utterly believable."
Pam Houston, Cowboys Are My Weakness
“White Truffles in Winter is a seductive, voluptuous journey into the heart of French cuisine. I wanted only to linger longer at this luscious feast that brims with passion and yearning.”
Lauren Belfer, City of Light
“Through rich description based on careful research, Kelby offers intriguing possibilities regarding the life of the great Escoffier and gives us a novel well worth reading.”
––Library Journal
“Readers are left dizzied but alert to a tantalizing swirl of the senses.”
BookPage (Fiction Pick of November)
“Readers in search of an evocative and sensual read will be well satisfied.”
––Publisher's Weekly
“White Truffles in Winter’’ is a lot like the meals it so lavishly portrays: elaborate, densely composed, a bit too rich, but never less than entertaining, and just as often captivating.”
–––Boston Globe
“The sensuality of food-centered seductions beats even the famous scene from Tom Jones....lusciously rich as the truffles and foie gras that dominate Escoffier’s recipes.”
––Kirkus
“The descriptions of the food are amazing, beautifully detailed and evocative. It is a little slice of food history, wrapped up in a story of love and desire, ambition and creativity.”
––Waterstones
“The human appetite for love, for life, for food is so beautifully delicious it makes one weep.”
“A vivid and detailed reconstruction of a bygone era'.”
–– The Independent
“Bursting with sensuality”
–––Lovereading
September 2012 Book of the Month.
Large Type edition published by Center Point Publishing. Audio Book by Random House Publishing. UK edition by Alma Books. Australian edition by Bloomsbury. Croatian translation by Skolska Knijga. Russian translation by Eksmo. Polish translation by Liternova of Znak. Norwegian rights to Juritzen Forlag. Italian translation by Frassinelli. Bulgarian edition by Kragozor.
