Thursday, February 26, 2015

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Diane Dunning, Author of Greta Smart Figures It Out

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20458647-greta-smart-figures-it-out


There’s a whole lot of eating and drinking in my contemporary-romance novel, Greta Smart Figures It Out.

The story opens inside a Manhattan restaurant, where the main character, Greta, finds herself being served this morsel while on a nightmare blind date:

“You’re not beautiful,” he said. “Your profile said ‘beautiful.’ You kind of overreached on that one.” He smirked and sipped his dirty martini.

Most women would lose their appetites at this point, flip the table and stuff the guy into the nearest buffet drawer before storming out. Instead, Greta stays, even after he ditches her. She reclaims her dignity with a glass of wine and a calamari appetizer at a table outside. A pleasant dish has restorative powers.

Throughout the book, food connects Greta to her past and grounds her in the present. It provides the setting for Greta to grow and pivot as she discovers new truths about herself, friends, family and a potential lover. Yet it also works against her, as it does when she meets a former colleague for “bad girls lunch.”

Greta Smart Figures It Out isn’t intentionally a book about food, it just turned out that way. Set during The Great Recession, there are no extravagant multi-course meals with exotic ingredients…just a 27-year-old single career woman hungry to transition her life into more satisfying fare. And, with the help of the right food and drink here and there, she finds the sustenance to do it.


Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Diane!



You can find Diane here:






1 comment:

  1. Dear Diane, This sounds like a wonderfully delicious read. I know all about those "you're not beautiful," moments. Don't we all? And, yes, most of us just sat there too (and wondered, forever after, why we did.) Best of luck with the book.

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