This is book #3 in The Script Club series.  This book can be read as a standalone novel. To avoid spoilers, and to understand the series, I recommend reading this series in order.

Asher has felt lonely for too long.  He has been busy with work and finally making time for himself.  When the hookup of his choice shows up and is more than promised - it frightens him with what could go wrong.

Blake is excited that he ends up with what he wanted.  When this gets more complicated, he is not sure how to move forward.  Then he finds out just how complicated it is going to be.

The story is solid and moves at a good steady pace.  The narrator is really good, which enhances the book itself.  I was really relaxed and listening, enjoying each chapter.  This author is a 1-click for me and this is another reason why.  I give this 4/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

***This copy of the audiobook was provided for an honest and volunteered review.

On Guinea Nell and her husband Fen are studying indigenous people. They are now on their third group of people, the Tam, who welcome them and allow them to become part of the tribe. They were introduced by Andrew Bankston, another anthropologist who is studying another group there. Fen's mind is on a flute he saw with an earlier group he and Nell were studying. He leaves Nell to do most of the study. When he achieves what he wants, he puts all 3 in danger and they must leave. But can they? Will Fen leave without any artifacts?

I liked the story. I liked Nell and Bankston. I hated Fen. Fen was a user. Neii was a better anthropologist and his ego couldn't take it. He was mean, nasty, and abusive. When Bankston meets Nell he is smitten as she was with him. He is caring and gentle with her. He makes sure she is taken care of which she doesn't receive from Fen. Fen is jealous of Bankston but never changes his behavior. I hated the ending but I don't think there could have been any other ending. This was not a happy story.

I thought the narrators were good. They did all the voices. I could tell the difference between Bankston and Fen. I could also tell the difference between Nell and the natives. Very well done.

I fell in love with the cover and the title and the conceit that the book is built around but I half expected to be disappointed, so many books don't live up to their covers and so many clever conceits turn into pedestrian prose, but instead, I was deeply impressed by 'The Kitchens Of The Great Midwest'. So much so that I immediately bought Stradal's second novel 'The Lager Queen Of Minnesota' (another great cover and catchy title but this time my expectations are high).

The life of Eva Thorvald, from her conception onwards, is le fil rouge that stitches together 'The Kitchens Of The Great Midwest'. Eva's life provides a sense of connection and continuity but, except for one chapter, when she is ten turning elven, Eva's is not the main focus of the book. Each chapter of the book is focused on and told from the point of view of someone whose life has touched Eva's. Each chapter also involves a dish that Eva will use by the end of the book. 

It's easy to imagine how disjointed and burdensome a story structure like that could become but Stradal makes it work brilliantly. He never lets the structure distract from the narrative, like seeing a puppet's strings. He uses it as a trellis, helping the story climb higher. 

I think it works so well because each new character is at the centre of their own world, is fully and empathetically imagined and has their own distinctive voice. As each person's story is told, we get only the most indirect view of Eva, filtered through the passions and problems of the person the chapter is about but we get a deeply personal account of a key moment in each person's life and what it means to them. Each character's story is also linked to a dish which acts as a kind of emoji for the mood of the chapter, With each new dish we taste a new life and build up a sort of scent trail of intense flavours wrapped around memories of important moments.

Yet 'The Kitchens Of The Great Midwest' comes together as something more than a set of thematically linked short stories. The novel has a shape of its own. The effect reminds me of how Hockney amalgamated polaroids for his self-portrait.

Food and food culture are central to the story. Eva has a once-in-a-generation palet and an extreme tolerance for hot spices. Her obsession with sourcing and making perfect dishes coincides with the rise of Foodie culture in the US. I enjoyed watching her lead the charge in sourcing fresh food and getting perfect flavours by having perfect ingredients. I also enjoyed the chapter where we were shown the Foodie culture grown into a pretentious, intolerant cult that was unable to recognise the love in traditional home cooking. 

One of the things that I loved about 'The Kitchens Of The Great Midwest' was how accessible the book is. The writing is engaging, honest, compassionate and deceptively simple. It made me smile and it made me cry but it never made me feel manipulated. 

Here's an example. When we meet the man who will be Eva's father, he is a chef who, after an extended period of involuntary celibacy, caused mainly by spending his teens stinking of cod from making Lutefisk, finally falls for a waitress with 'strong erroneous food opinions.' His reaction to his good fortune made me smile:

'He couldn't help it. He was in love by the time she left the kitchen but love made him feel sad and doomed as usual.'

I recommend the audiobook version of 'Kitchens Of The Great Midwest' which was perfectly narrated by Caitlin Thorburn. Go here to hear a sample of Audible.

Joe Abercrombie's talent is to make an experience so real that you feel you're there.

He turns an incident when a boat, being portered over a mountain, slips its ropes and must be held fast by an exceptionally strong man a great personal cost, into something filled with tension and pain and sweat and stoic selfless bravery that bypasses analysis and hits your emotions like an injection of adrenalin to the heart

This alternative Britain, where everyone owes a decade of slavery to the magic-using elite, is grimly plausible. Take away the elite's use of magic and you're close to how Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ilk believe England should be.

The main characters are all under twenty. Their inexperience helps with the world-building but it also gives a YA tone that dampens the rage I should be feeling at these magical Tory Tyrants.