Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“One husband, well done.”

🤯👏 ARGH, this book!! Perfection! I think it’s really hard for authors to write something truly unique these days, but oh my god, THIS was unique. I was hooked from the start; I genuinely couldn’t stop reading! This is such a deliciously dark thriller. Prepare to be shocked, horrified and even repulsed when you uncover the truths in this one… So thrilled to be sharing my review for The Dead Husband Cookbook alongside these other fantastic bloggers. Do check out their reviews too!

About the book

When infamous chef, restauranter, and television personality Maria Capello’s husband died, the media circus was intense…and quick to cast the blame. Whispers claimed Maria murdered her husband to build her culinary empire on his bones, and that there was an all-too-grisly reason his body was never recovered. Yet for the past few decades, the Capello family maintained their stoney silence―until now.

Thea Woods has no idea why she was chosen to work with Maria on her sure-to-be-infamous memoir, but she doesn’t question her luck. Spirited away to the Capello’s rustic upstate farm, she’s soon embroiled in the mystery―and cut off from the rest of the world. It should be the job of a lifetime, but something’s not quite right with the close-knit clan, and Damien Capello isn’t the only one to go mysteriously missing over the years. As the true story of Maria’s past unfolds and the stench of rot hidden behind the kind coastal grandmother veneer rises, Thea finds herself trapped…and desperately afraid.

Because there are reasons why Damien’s body was never found…and why, in over thirty years, Maria Capello has never revealed the secret ingredient in her most famous recipe.

The beginning

Where do I even start with this?! I adored the opening of this book. The intrigue I felt, the way the author’s writing sucked me in, the excellent characters we meet – all of it. It was just perfect, really. It very quickly became such an addictive read that I never wanted to part with, which I think worried my husband a bit 😂 Thea Woods is an editor at Hanes Press, and is one day summoned for a chat by her boss, Cassandra. She’s convinced it can’t be good news and she expects to be fired after the mistakes she made, but when Cassandra tells her that the Maria Capello has requested Thea to be the editor for her new memoir, she is very surprised indeed. Maria is her culinary idol. She’d loved her and her recipes for her whole life, and this opportunity was surely too good to be true. But there is more about Maria and her life; her husband died in mysterious circumstances in 1996, and there was media speculation that she killed him for her own gain. Maybe after all these years, the truth would reveal itself… I was fully invested, desperate for Thea to work on this memoir and to uncover some long buried secrets.

“But as I climbed further, I started to notice it, too. There was something beneath the heavy smell of the meat, something cloying. It reminded me of dying flowers, of fruit going soft in the basket we kept in the corner of our kitchen… It didn’t smell like food anymore. It smelled like rot. Like the decay of dying things.”

I loved how parts of the book explored different media types to get us up to speed with Maria’s life, what had happened and what others thought of her. The news articles, interviews and online forums brought such a fresh perspective on past and current events and really kept me engaged. There were also recipes! These recipes as well as gorgeous descriptions of the food Maria cooks really made me hungry, but there was a part of me that became really curious about what that secret ingredient in her dishes could be… One of the conditions of Maria’s publishing deal was that Thea edits Maria’s manuscript in her lavish home to ensure that parts of it can’t be copied or shared. Thea surrenders her mobile phone as a precaution, and oh my god there was something amiss here. Something felt off. Wrong. And I just couldn’t look away. We begin to read chapters of Maria’s manuscript at the same time as Thea does which I really liked, and I found myself gripped by Maria’s words, her story from the start. Thea needs to encourage Maria to tell the world what really happened to Damien. She needs to save her career, and she had one shot at it.

The middle

Maria’s manuscript gets JUICY. Secrets and surprises spill over the pages about her life, her past, her husband. I bathed in the gossip, the drama. Life wasn’t as perfect for Maria as she’d made out for all these years. I became pretty obsessed with it all and I’m not ashamed to admit it! I couldn’t tell who was trustworthy, who was genuine. Whether everything Thea read was a lie, a cover up for something else, or whether Maria was actually, finally, telling the truth. Every time we read one of the new chapters of her manuscript, I was close to squealing with excitement. Was she eventually going to reveal something so mind-blowing, so scandalous that I wouldn’t be able to cope?! I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I just read and read and read. So many times I was so engrossed that I realised I was holding my breath. And then that first twist came that was so perfectly revealed, so intriguing, so chilling that it turned everything on its head and made me question everything I knew up to this point. Good LORD, it was so brilliant to read. I needed more of it!

“A prickle of unease went through the air. I felt vaguely tricked. It was almost like this conversation had been a test, like she’d been trying to get something from me before trusting me with more of her story. A pound of flesh. My painful past in exchange for hers.”

There is such a big focus on motherhood and family, and Thea notices similarities between Maria’s story and her own life growing up. She reflects on a less than perfect upbringing, a father who was in and out of their lives. I really loved how deep we get into both of their pasts; so brilliantly explored! The story of Damien Capello gets deeper and deeper too, and I loved how Thea conducts the research she’s technically not allowed to do. She’d been given specific instructions not to do so by Maria herself. Everything connected so seamlessly together and my mind was working overtime to try and work out the truth ahead of time. It became impossible to know who to trust which I loved. That curiosity and intrigue never left me throughout all this, and I just loved how it continued to escalate towards the ending. The tension was absolutely incredible here and my theories about the truth seemed to be changing with every chapter. I was surprised by some unexpectedly sad scenes too, about doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt.

The end

The end of part two and the start of part three made my head spin. God, I can’t even describe how I felt here! I loved the change in perspective, reading some chapters from Maria for the first time. I could see everything slotting together, new information coming to light that, once again, changed the theory I’d settled with. It was getting darker and more intense by the minute, and I continued to be so engrossed in every single word. And the pacing. I was just in love with all of it, flawlessly written and beautifully descriptive, even if some of what I read made me shudder. There was still so much we don’t know, and I loved how I felt the panic, the horror that Thea felt as she tries to make sense of everything she’s uncovered. And then, that twist! It felt like one of those that I should have seen coming and looking back, there were perfectly placed clues. But they only clicked when I read one explosive end to a chapter. It was so brilliantly executed and I loved the build up. It was complex but so perfectly layered and it felt so satisfying. But I knew there was more…

“What I’d planned was not momentary. And it might have been the sanest thing I’d ever done in my life.”

If the previous twist wasn’t excellent enough, the next one was all the more unexpected! Seeing Thea make sense of everything she’d just found out had the same effect on me, like I’d been punched in the stomach. I felt her disbelief, her slow realisation that everything would change. It gave me goosebumps! We don’t get every answer to every question as the ending chapters play out, but where is the fun in knowing every single thing? There were plenty of clues to these answers though, and that was enough for me. It was chilling and I couldn’t stop thinking about everything! And that very final chapter was as dark and as mesmerising as they come. WOW. One of the best endings I’ve read this year! It is genuinely all I’m thinking about after finishing the book and I’m finding it hard to even THINK about starting another one. Thriller lovers, you will absolutely adore this. You’ll think you know where it’s going, but just you wait… I cannot wait to read more from Danielle – I even have a book on my shelf that I’m even more excited to get to now!

Overall thoughts

The Dead Husband Cookbook is an irresistibly dark thriller that will consume you entirely and leave you hungry for more. When Thea is given the task of editing the memoir of her culinary idol, Maria Capello, we’re plunged into the life of this world-renowned chef, the mystery of her husband’s death, and the theories that surround it. And it’s Thea’s job to find out the truth about the scandal that shook the world. The characters were perfect, so realistic with fascinating histories, and a few secrets for good measure. The plot had me gripped the entire time; it’s a complete thrill ride, a tension-filled, heart-pounding journey with twists and turns aplenty. You won’t know who to trust! Mysterious, horrifying and impossible to put down. One of my biggest recommendations of the year so far!

Huge thank you to the author, Danielle Valentine, and the fabulous team at Viper books for my proof and place on the blog tour! You can pre-order your copy of The Dead Husband Cookbook right now on Amazon or wherever you buy your books. Make sure you’re following the author over on Instagram and X for more updates!

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