The Summer Kitchen, Lisa Wingate
The Summer Kitchen, Lisa Wingate
6 Rating(s)
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
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The Summer Kitchen

Author: Lisa Wingate

Narrator: Staci Snell, Karissa Vacker

Unabridged: 12 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/07/2020


Synopsis

From the author of A Month of Summer, an inspiring new novel in the Blue Sky Hill series about one woman's effect on a struggling Dallas neighborhood.

With her adopted son missing and the rest of her family increasingly estranged, Sandra Kaye Darden is drawn to the little pink house where her Uncle Poppy once provided security. What begins for Sandra as a simple painting project, meant to prepare the house for sale, becomes a secret venture that eventually changes everything.

Cass Blue is having trouble keeping food on the table since she ditched foster care. When Sandra Kaye shows up with lunch one day, Cass has no way of knowing that the meeting will lead to the creation of a place of refuge that could reunite a divided community.

In this moving story of second chances, two unlikely allies realize their ability to make a difference...and the power of what becomes known as the Summer Kitchen to nourish the soul.

About Lisa Wingate

We have all heard attributes given to a certain elementary teacher or teachers when an individual attains a certain high level of success. For author, Lisa Wingate, it was her very special first grade teacher in Northboro, Massachusetts, named Mrs. Krackhardt. She saw talent in a shy little girl who had just transferred into her class. She read Lisa's stories to the class, and Lisa was hooked on the attention of an audience.

Even though writing was always a career goal, Lisa Wingate had other priorities to also accomplish. She decided to wait to pursue her writing career in earnest until she had graduated college, gotten married, held a position as a journalist and technical writer, and had children. She had wanted girls, but got two boys instead, and was immediately in love with each one.

One day when the first Wingate baby was small, Lisa's grandmother came for an extended stay visit. During that visit, her grandmother was sitting with the baby, when she began to tell Lisa the story of her life. They had interrupted the planting of flower beds to go inside to quiet the baby. It was that conversation that inspired Wingate to write the story, "Time for Tending Roses", which turned into her first mainstream novel, Tending Roses.

Today, Tending Roses, was the first of several books inspired by life and written during stolen moments of a busy mom, wife, and writer. She has said.......who knew all of that would come from a quiet afternoon with grandma and an unfinished flower bed?

Even though Tending Roses is her sentimental favorite, Lisa has treasured every book because they always begin with an inspiration from life, and she never knows where that inspiration will lead her in story.

The best thing an aspiring author can hear from a reader of their work is.......I wonder what happens next?


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liz on April 15, 2015

I love Lisa Wingate's books. Are they sophisticated "literature"? No. They're stories that make you feel good. Stories about ordinary people, just trying to do the best they can. There's a thread of Christianity running through them, but it never knocks you over the head--it's a subtle sort of Chris......more

Goodreads review by Kim on November 29, 2020

Super super sweet story! My eyes couldn't read fast enough for my heart which wanted to jump into the pages and become part of this story :)......more

Goodreads review by Janet on May 20, 2021

I loved this sweet story of a family struggling emotionally who become entwined in the lives of some inner city kids in need. Heartwarming!......more

Goodreads review by Ed on June 30, 2009

The Summer Kitchen is Lisa Wingate's new exciting and inspirational book! It is one of those straight through books-Can't put it down until finished. Seventeen year old Rusty and his twelve year old sister, Cass Salley Blue, runaway from home just after their mother's funeral, to avoid foster care. B......more

Goodreads review by Susanchitter on July 03, 2016

Her perfect life was shattered. Was it perfect or was it just a facade? Did she shelter her children too much that they did not have the skills to cope reality? As her life she knew it was falling apart, a new and different one was taking shape. Did she have the courage to look at the truth and chan......more


Quotes

"Wingate's novels [are] like those of Nicholas Sparks and Richard Paul Evans."
-The Eagle (Bryan-College Station, TX)