Jonatha Ceely, Bread and Dreams

Bread and Dreams

Jonatha Ceely

Delacorte, Oct 2005, $22.00, 416 pp.

ISBN: 0385336896

In October 1848, Irish orphan Mina Pigot and her Jewish protector Mr. Benjamin Serle, sail from Liverpool on the Victoria for New York, where they plan to start life anew. Mina and Benjamin find her brother Daniel working as a waiter at Broadway's Columbia House Hotel. Mr. Serle immediately obtains work as a master chef, while Mina struggles to adjust to being a salesgirl before obtaining work in the kitchen of the wealthy Westervelt family.

However, even as Mina's skills in the kitchen make her highly regarded by her employer, she notices the trysts and affairs, that if revealed would destroy the family. She also begins to dream about her protector Mr. Serle, though their religions and his age leave little hope for anything beyond a fatherly interest in her. Still Mina has come through a lot, and will not give up on becoming Mrs. Benjamin Serle because she knows she totally loves him beyond the gratitude that he saved her life. She wonders how to make him see that she is no longer a girl without a home, but a woman in love and willing to go anywhere with her man.

The sequel to the wonderful MINA, is fabulous historical fiction, that provides readers with insight into the mid nineteenth century, mostly in New York, but also somewhat San Francisco and other locales. The story line brings to life America, so that the audience can taste and smell the foods whether preparation occurs in a hotel, a mansion, or a bakery. The romantic subplot is deftly handled as Mr. Serle and readers will realize how much Mina has grown up. Still the romance enhances the readers' deep sensorial view of a bygone era.