An uplifting novel about a heartbroken young pie maker who is granted a magical second chance to live the life she didn’t choose. . . . from the bestselling author of The Enlightenment of Bees.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Rachel Linden’s The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie, which is out now!
Lolly Blanchard’s life only seems to give her lemons. Ten years ago, after her mother’s tragic death, she broke up with her first love and abandoned her dream of opening a restaurant in order to keep her family’s struggling Seattle diner afloat and care for her younger sister and grieving father. Now, a decade later, she dutifully whips up the diner’s famous lemon meringue pies each morning while still pining for all she’s lost.
As Lolly’s thirty-third birthday approaches, her quirky great-aunt gives her a mysterious gift—three lemon drops, each of which allows her to live a single day in a life that might have been hers. What if her mom hadn’t passed away? What if she had opened her own restaurant in England? What if she hadn’t broken up with the only man she’s ever loved? Surprising and empowering, each experience helps Lolly let go of her regrets and realize the key to transforming her life lies not in redoing her past but in having the courage to embrace her present.
A harsh beeping roused me from a deep sleep. I sat up with a muffled groan, blinking in the pale gray light of early morning, and scrambled for the source of the horrible sound, nothing like my usual alarm, which played the June Carter Cash version of “Keep on the Sunny Side” every morning at five a.m. And then I froze, looking around in blurry confusion. This wasn’t my bedroom.
I was sitting in a double bed with an old-fashioned carved wooden bed frame, wearing a pair of beige silk pajamas that were certainly not what I had been wearing when I’d fallen asleep. Heart pounding, I fumbled for the cell phone on the bedside table next to me and silenced the incessant beeping, then glanced around for my glasses, panic fluttering in my throat. Where was I? I found a pair of frames next to the cell phone, sleek round tortoiseshell ones with gold accents, not really my usual style. I tried them on hesitantly. The room sprang into focus. They were my prescription.
It was a small gabled room, outfitted with a comfortable-looking overstuffed armchair, a ponderous antique wardrobe, and a worn Persian rug. Curiouser and curiouser. I crawled on hands and knees to the foot of the bed and peered out a small French-paned window to the street below. It was a picturesque narrow lane flanked by small, brightly painted buildings crammed together cheek by jowl. A striped awning advertised Cream Tea and homemade scones from across the street. The name of the tea shop looked familiar. And suddenly I knew.
“Brighton.” I sat back down on the bed with a thump, stunned. “I’m in England.”
I’d always intended Toast to be located in Brighton, a charmingly quirky seaside resort town on England’s south coast. Brighton had captivated me from my first visit, with its jaunty holiday air, shingle beach, and ornate Victorian pier. I’d even located the perfect building to house the café, an old, converted factory in the North Laine area that was abandoned and for sale. But then my mother’s death had put an end to all those aspirations. I’d never returned to Brighton and Toast had faded into a long-dormant desire. Until this morning.
I shook my head. Surely this was a dream. I’d fallen asleep thinking about Toast and my time in England, and now I was dreaming it. But somehow, in my gut, I knew that explanation, tidy as it was, wasn’t entirely true. This felt all too real, vivid and solid, not fantastical like a dream. I felt down to my cold bare toes that I was actually in Brighton. How was it possible?
Suck on one of the lemon drops before bed and say aloud a thing you wish you could change, a regret from your life. Aunt Gert’s instructions came back to me. Then go to bed, and when you wake up, you will live one day of your life as it might have been . . .
Surely not. It was ridiculous to even entertain the notion. Impossible. And yet . . . I gazed out the window at the familiar street, hope fluttering in my stomach. I had been here before. Eleven years ago I’d indulged in a cream tea, sitting in the front window of that little shop across the street, smearing warm scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam.
Could it be true? Was I actually, amazingly, against all common sense, somehow living a different version of my life, one where Toast was a reality? It was a terrifying thought but oddly exciting. What did this mean? How long would it last? What had Aunt Gert said when she gave me the lemon drops? I closed my eyes and tried to remember, feeling a little panicky.
Don’t be alarmed. The effects are only temporary. The following morning, you’ll return to your normal existence as if nothing has changed.
I remembered her saying those words, sipping tea like it was the most ordinary sentence in the world. Okay. I blew out a breath. Just a day then. Even if this wasn’t a dream, if I was, indeed, somehow miraculously in Brighton, England, this was only temporary. I gave a little sigh of relief.
Picking up the cell phone, I glanced at the time and date. It was later than I normally slept, already past seven. The date read Wednesday, February 23. I’d gone to sleep sucking on that lemon drop on Tuesday night, the twenty-second. Okay, so no weird juju with the space-time continuum. That was a relief. It was the day it was supposed to be. I was just not where I thought I would wake up. I looked around the room, then over at the tea shop again, my apprehension melting into something else, a growing sense of anticipation.
What if I had one beautiful, extraordinary day to revisit England, to actually see what my life would have been like had I chosen to open Toast? What a strange, improbable, amazing gift.
Excerpted from THE MAGIC OF LEMON DROP PIE by Rachel Linden, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022
