Three sisters. One trip to Italy. The chance to change their lives. When their beloved grandfather passes away these sisters are forced to take another look at their lives. These three sisters are about to embark on a journey of self-discovery that could just lead them down a road of romance (with a little help from the kitchen)!

A fluffy cozy read with food and family?! Sign me up! I really liked this book! I loved the recipes throughout the book especially! They look so good!

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A sweet book but I found it sickeningly sweet to the point where even the characters were getting involved in the sickeningly sweet nicknames. Real people don't talk like that. Just couldn't get my head around it.

For me this book was just average. I thought in the main, while it was enjoyable, it was very predictable and a bit repetitive.

Amanda, Sabrina and Louise are three sisters who are part of a very close family with Italian heritage. Amanda is a foodie, Sabrina manages a band in America and Louise is trying to find her way in life after dropping out if University. When their beloved grandfather dies they travel to Italy with their family and it is there the real story begins.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Can you drown in coziness & fluffiness? Apparently, you can.
Maybe I am just getting too old for this chick-lit type of romance, but I found it repetitive & boring.

I really wanted to like this book, because the it seemed to be appealing on all levels: Christmas, Italy, baking, romance.... These are all tropes I like. It was also clear that the author had a very personal connection to all this. Still, I found the execution altogether weak: it was always telling and never showing. You could not really make a real difference between the sisters.

Thank you thank you to NetGalley and HQ Digital for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  I was so excited when I got this and am sorry that it took me a while to read it!

So, I have to admit that the first thing that shouted out to me for this book was the cover.  I have been on a kick of reading books and just being attracted to books that have cute or cozy covers.  There was just something about the comforting cream color with all the cute baking stuff at the top that just called to me.  I am also a huge fan of culinary romance, to not say the titled did anything for me would be a lie.

I think that for a lot of people, myself included, reading and cooking or at least eating baked goods go so well together.  Both are such cozy and comforting activities.  Having a book that is focused on baking and friendship/sisterhood just has its own little air of comfort that is almost magical.  It is as if the entire thing is dusted with powdered sugar and sparkly sprinkles.

I love how much food is scattered all throughout this book, and even better, it is almost always Italian food, so it has very specific names.  I love learning about different foods for different cultures and enjoyed seeing how important food was for the culture.  And on top of that, I loved how each chapter started off with a recipe.  I am not sure if they are actual recipes that you can follow to make something, but it was cute how it included little notes from Amanda (I assume) about things to ask her grandmother and grandfather about the recipes.  It was cute and really tied the recipes to the story.   

Secondly, I loved all the smaller stories in this book; the love stories are sooo sweet!  I did cry a lot at the major story about the Grandfather because I am sentimental and I was impressed with how well the author wrote the relationship between the girls and their grandfather; I could feel those emotions.  While it did make me sad, I still loved it.  On a similar topic, I loved the little love stories for each of the sisters.  I think my favorite was Luca and Louisa just because for some reason I can picture Luca more than the other guys, and let's be honest, who hasn't thought of the perfect little movie-scene meeting between strangers in a small town in Italy!  

I'm going to give this one three stars, not because it was bad.  In fact, it was a great little read.  The three-star score is basically because I just wanted the characters to be developed just a little more and I wanted the dialogue to be a little more realistic.  I think that this book wanted to do a lot as it was set in multiple places around the world and encompassed several different cultures and languages.  I feel like this story maybe would have been a little more realistic if it had either toned down the drastic jumps between locations and cultures or did more to incorporate these things even more into the overall story.  But regardless of my ideas, I loved this story.  For some reason, I didn't realize it was a Christmas story (even though it is clearly in the subtitle...) and wish I would have read it during the holiday season!  Maybe I will re-visit this one later in the year when I start reading my annual Christmas reading.

First of all, I just want to say a huge congratulations to Lucy on her debut book! 'How to Bake a New Beginning' is about three sisters who are all at very different stages of their lives and after the loss of a family member, come together to pick each other up. The three sisters reunite with a bit of tension in the air for multiple reasons; one being that Sabrina jetted off to LA to pursue her career managing the very successful band 'San Francisco Beat', destroying all hopes and dreams that one day the sisters would all live side by side.

When it comes to having multiple POV's in a book, I start to freak out thinking I'm never going to remember who's story-line I'm following, however, within the first three chapters, I had become hooked on these 3 women and immediately fell in line with each of their stories. They are all such loveable characters and although they have their differences, they still support one another no matter the situation. Lucy embraced sisterhood so passionately in this book that it made me slightly jealous I don't have a sister of my own! You can just see that the bond of sister's is unbreakable and not to be messed with.Each girl has such passionate dreams that was truly inspiring - Amanda inherited her grandfather's love for cooking and is creating a cookbook to honour him, Sabrina is living a fancy lifestyle working for a publicity and talent management firm with one of the hottest boybands in the world and Louisa is hoping for a career in fashion. However, although their lives seem as perfect as can be, all of their dreams are being halted one way or another, making it impossible for them to see the light at the end of a long dark tunnel.

What I love most about books that whisk you away to a different country is that you really start to feel like you are in that country with the characters and what better place to be, than Italy! Being able to read about Italy in the Winter was so comforting and cosy, along with all of the delicious recipes Lucy shares with us as well. What made the recipes so unique throughout the book was that there was little quirks here and there that explained the exact way the three girls grandfather cooked his food.

The love of food in this book is quite a central point to the story-line and also to the family. They really cherish and make sure that food and recipes are remembered highly in their grandfather's life, which was incredibly touching and a great way to keep him alive inside of them. So many different generations of the family had an input in to the making of these recipes and it was just really wonderful to read about! (Also making me extremely hungry in the process)

Let's wrap this review up talking about none other than the beautiful romances talked about in this book! First off, Lucy completely won me over by creating a man based on the appearance of Harry Styles - swoon worthy straight away! All of the men involved were so charming and supportive of the girls and the loss of their grandfather, especially as some of them also had grown a bond with him too in the past.I don't know who's romance I wanted more - Falling for my best friend, falling for a rockstar or falling for an actual Italian man whilst in Italy itself! These three ladies definitely had a lucky break, but it wasn't all sunshines and rainbows for these romances - there was plenty of obstacles they had to overcome along the way.

'How To Bake A New Beginning' is an incredible debut book from an extremely talented author, who deserves to continuously have this amount of love also for their future books! Lucy really has stolen the hearts of many readers with this book, mine included, and I can't wait to see what she has next in store for us!

Very predictable, but fun escapism. Ultimately forgettable though and I found it repetitive and boring. I wouldn't have wasted my time reading it had it not been free.

An easy read with a very sweet story arc and heart wrenching in places. I found the plot a little too slow moving however, and the simple recipes throughout felt out of place and slightly try hard.

I very much enjoyed this title. At points it had me in floods of tears and at others I just couldn't resist aahing at the romance of it all. As a foodie, I loved that the Italian food was practically a character within itself and the recipes at the beginning of each character were a nice touch. If I was capable of baking/cooking I would definitely have been inspired into the kitchen, unfortunately my skills are limited so I had to be content with my imagination. The connection between certain dishes, smells and family is explored beautifully within the story and made me nostalgic for my childhood. A romantic food and family orientated read.

This is a feel good read, nothing too complicated so if you fancy something you can cosy up and enjoy without having to think too hard this book is for
you. A fun read with some lovely relationships between characters. I’d recommend as a pleasurable way to pass an afternoon!

I really enjoyed this book - a rollercoaster of emotions in this story of three sisters. I loved the beautiful location of the book - set in gorgeous Italy. The recipes in each chapter and food mentioned throughout made my mouth water. The characters were well written and I could easily relate to them.

A lovely story of heartbreak, family, relationships and food. A delight! I can't wait to read more from Lucy Knott.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Intertwining three sisters, their love for their grandfather and his cooking, this is a warm and heartfelt tale. It does have a Christmassy element, so I think it marks my first Christmas book in 2018!

An easy read with simple recipes (sometimes too simple) to whet your appetite and the intermingling of the girls’ lives.

Nothing too deep and meaningful, but a warm story to snuggle up with and leave you smiling at the end. A feel-good tale that will make you long for an Italian treat.

An enjoyable read - 3.5*-4*

Just couldn’t get into the story. Could be the characters, the Italian terms or just the story. Gave up to read something better.

Oh this book was sweet, like a bad christmas romantic film, it warms your heart but not your brain. It was fun because it was all about sisterly relationships, some good bits about career, but mostly a lot of fun romantic moments. Some of the encounters made no sense and plotting was too easy, as everything just magically works out, but it's okay to suspend reality for a quick easy read.

Three sisters Sabrina, Louisa and Amanda are all living very different lives but are all brought back together by the death of their beloved Grandfather in Italy. A trip to his village is a time to reevaluate their lives and there are definitely a lot of emotions involved!

I loved this book with the great location backdrop, I enjoyed the different characters of the sisters and how they interacted......a warning though don't read this book if you are feeling hungry!

I enjoyed the premise. Three sisters reunited visiting their grandad who sadly passes away and they travel back to his native Italy to reunite the family and lay him to rest, fixing their own lives along the way. However these relationships are intense, so intense at times its just a bit sickly. On the plus side there are fabulous descriptions of Italian food and recipes to boot!

I absolutely loved this book and find it hard to believe this was a debut novel!

The whole story is based around the sisters, food and their Italian heritage. I loved Amanda's love of cooking and how important good homemade food was for these sisters.

A brilliant story that I absolutely loved and has made me want to nibble on Italian treats. How to Bake a New Beginning is the perfect book to curl up with on a chilly evening and I look forward to seeing what Lucy Knott releases next definitely an author to look out for!

Heart warming, funny & the perfect book to read on my sun lounger got through it in a day, look forward to reading more by this author in the future. Thanks for the preview.

This book is pure, sweet, full of love and heart warming. This is a wonderful book to escape to Italy without leaving your house

Oh this book! I really enjoyed the humour, the warmth, the family dynamic. It’s very much of its time, The here and now. Three sisters who couldn’t be more different. Three sisters who couldn’t be more similar. Or both. It’s fun, easy to read, quite light and ideal for an autumn afternoon in front of the fire