She has the recipe for the perfect murder: The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine #TheDeadHusbandCookbook #NetGalley

Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name, an inspiration, an icon. Her dozens of cookbooks and weekly television show, broadcast from her beautiful Italian-style kitchen, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. And of course there’s her history. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after Damien’s mysterious disappearance twenty years before. An event she’s never spoken about publicly until now, when it is announced that she is looking for a publisher for her memoirs.
Why is Maria willing to finally break her silence? Why does she turn down seven-figure offers from large publishing houses and sign up with a small press? And why does she do so on the condition that it is edited by Thea Woods? Thea is a lifelong fan but has never met Maria and can’t figure it out, plus she had been planning to hand in her notice that very day. But when she is invited to Maria’s remote farm to work on the manuscript, she can’t resist. After all, she may finally learn whether the rumours are that Maria killed Damien for his recipes and the legendary ‘secret ingredient’…
A deliciously rich thriller, perfect for readers of Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband.

🥩🥩🥩🥩.5

Hi and welcome to my review of The Dead Husband Cookbook!

I became an instant fan of Danielle Valentine’s books when reading my first one, which was Delicate Condition. I read her debut shortly after, and when I noticed halfway through reading The Dead Husband Cookbook that I had missed a book last year, I ordered myself a copy right away. Such is the bookish magic this author wields.

The Dead Husband Cookbook, for me, is reminiscent of authors like Delilah S. Dawson and Rachel Harrison: it has a feminist angle but not in the manner you’d expect. And that might be the best way to describe this entire story: it’s what you expect, but then it isn’t, but then it is, or is it? Confusing? Good! Go in blind, do not even leaf through the book, trust me.

The structure of The Dead Husband Cookbook is like an Italian cookbook. We start off with antipasti to whet our appetites, then we get to the meat of the story in the Meat section, and we end with Desserts, whether these are just or not, that’s up to the reader to decide. There are even a few recipes included, to try at your leisure. Or maybe not.

The Dead Husband Cookbook is mostly told from the POV of Thea. An error of judgement pretty much torpedoed her career as editor, and at this point, editing The Dead Husband Cookbook by celebrity chef Maria Capello is the only thing that may save her. However, this job turns out to be unlike any other editing job Thea has ever had. As she is drip-fed the entire book, chapter by chapter, so is the reader, and I can tell you, I was just as desperate as Thea was to find out more. Are the rumours true? Did Maria actually kill her husband all those years ago? Did he really end up in her meatballs?

Throughout the entire book, there’s an insidious sort of creepiness. Is Thea imagining things or is there something off about Maria, her book, her family? I never quite knew what was true and what wasn’t, until the very ending. Was my own imagination running away with me, or did I have these characters pegged?

I had an absolute ball with The Dead Husband Cookbook! Without ever being overly explicit or particularly gruesome, it is a deliciously dark, horroresque thriller that I would happily recommend.

The Dead Husband Cookbook is out in hardcover, digital formats and audio on 7 August.

Massive thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for the DRC. All opinions are my own.