Sandra Byrd Let Them Eat Cake

Let Them Eat Cake

Sandra Byrd

Waterbrook, Sep 2007, $12.99

ISBN: 9781400073276

College graduate Lexi Stuart has graduated but has not found a job that she enjoys. That has not been a problem because she lives at her parents' home. However, they are moving into a retirement community within six months, which means the clock has run out and she needs meaningful employment.

Lexi converses in French during an interview with luscious Luc, the manager of L'Esperance Bakery, who offers her a job there. She accepts although the pay leaves her below the poverty level. While Luc seems interested in seeing Lexi outside the bakery, she finds everyone else thinks the job is beneath her. When she gets into an incident with an executive she declares her liberty from everyone's expectations except God while informing the obnoxious customer to let his guests eat cake.

Readers will smell the delightful odors of a French bakery as Sandra Byrd provides vivid descriptions that will have our olfactory senses in overdrive and are mouths salivating. The story line is at its most tasteful when plot focuses on the activity at the bakery. The romantic subplot feels off kilter as it is too sweet. Still fans will appreciate twenty-four years old Lexi as she learns she can't please everyone so she needs to please herself, which will help with discovering what to do with her life now that she's not a kid anymore.

Harriet Klausner