Welcome to my stop on Rachel’s Random Resources Book Tour for The Heartpine Recipes by L.C. Fields – a touching, positive and uplifting debut novel that is a generous serving of warmth, humor and heart.

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Publication Date May 24, 2024

Independently Published 

About the Book:

It’s more than southern storytelling. It’s southern storytelling with a side of biscuits.

When Grace Collier comes back to Heartpine, Tennessee, she’s thinking about endings. The end of her job. The end of her engagement. Instead, she finds a new beginning. A journey of discovery that will reconnect her to her home place…as well as her own past.

Like so many southern tales, this one starts out in the kitchen. Grace’s Aunt Jess – the wise, loving woman who raised her after her parents passed – is collecting recipes for a new community cookbook. It’s not long before Grace finds herself an honorary member of the cookbook committee; and next thing she knows, she’s busy gathering up all the rich stories that come with those recipes. All the surprises, all the mysteries, all the memories. Along the way, she gets to know a townful of unforgettable characters, stirs up a few old secrets, and comes to terms, finally, with her own legacy of loss.

It’s about the recipes, yes. But more than that, it’s about relationships. It’s a journey that links families and generations. A journey of homecoming and redemption.

And just for fun, every chapter includes an iconic southern recipe – so you can cook them up yourself and see what all the fuss is about. From cornbread to collards, from pulled pork to pineapple casserole, you’ll find them here. There’s even a never-fail recipe for the best sweet tea you’ve ever tasted (not that a true southern cook would need a recipe for that, heaven knows!).

My Review:

In The Heartpine Recipes readers meet Grace, a woman in her late 20s who is moving back home from the big city to the small Tennessee Town of Heartpine. She’s left a job and former fiancé, and unsure of her next steps, she retreats to her loving childhood home with her Aunt Jess. Grace is a writer at heart and hopes that time at home sparks her creativity and gives her an idea of where to take her career. 

Upon her arrival, Grace learns that Aunt Jess and her friends are at the beginning of putting together a cookbook of town recipes as a fundraiser. Since Grace is a writer and copy editor, the women quickly get her involved in the committee. 

What follows is a lovely novel filled with stories of different town members and their well-known and well-loved recipes. Recipes are even provided with each chapter, and they all look absolutely delicious. While this is a novel, it reads almost like interconnected short stories about a small town and its inhabitants. I loved each story, seeing how the people were connected and why that particular recipe was selected. This is a charming, character-driven work of Southern fiction that I enjoyed immensely.  

About the Author:

You’ve probably read some of L.C. Fields’s writing, somewhere along the line. That’s because L.C. has spent a couple of decades at ad agencies, writing for a few of the great icon brands. Some of that experience is baked into L.C.’s fiction.

L.C. lives in rural Southwest Virginia – about an hour’s drive from the imagined town of Heartpine – off a winding gravel road. It’s a grand place to listen to the wind, watch the animals (including one ridiculously cute Kerry Blue Terrier) and soak up inspiration.

The Heartpine Recipes is L.C.’s first (published) novel.

Author Links: Facebook – Instagram – Website – Amazon Author Page

Purchase Links: Amazon – Amazon UK

Stop by the rest of the tour!