Spotlight & Giveaway: The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake by Rachel Linden

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Rachel Linden to HJ!

Hi Rachel Linden and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake!

 
Hello lovely reading friends! I’m glad to be here with you today sharing about my new story and why it’s very dear to my heart!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

A magical cookbook and a summer on her family’s Italian olive farm help a brokenhearted social media chef cook up a satisfying new life in this yummy, heartwarming, sun-drenched novel about three generations of strong women, a second chance romance, and a lost recipe that can show you the happiest moment of your life!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I love the first lines of books! I really want a first line to hint at what is to come and draw me in. This is one of my favorite lines from The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake and it’s the first line of the story.
“The summer that upends my entire life begins with a bright orange molded Jello salad.”
Now who doesn’t want to read a story that starts like that?

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This story is set on an olive farm on the banks of beautiful Lake Garda, Italy’s largest lake. Lake Garda is near where my dad’s family is from, so I have a personal connection to the setting for this book!
• I got to travel to Italy to research this story. It was the most delicious book research of my life! I enjoyed live oil and wine tastings, al fresco lakeside meals, and eating lots and lots of gelato while wandering through all the adorable old villages I put in the book!
• I always include recipes I create myself and put in the back of my books for readers. In this book, I include a recipe for Orange Blossom Cake. The recipe uses olive oil and a whole orange pulped into the batter, and the cake is zesty and absolutely delicious!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Jules and Nicolo have a second chance romance in this story. They fell in love one summer in Italy as teenagers, and now get to reconnect again years later. Jules finds Nicolo’s loyalty, steadiness and perceptiveness very attractive. (To be fair, those dimples, dark curls and lean muscles honed in the olive groves don’t hurt either!) Nicolo has always been drawn to Jules’ calm, persistence, and care. She was the first person who really saw and valued him, and he’s never forgotten how she made him feel as a lonely young man years ago. They were each other’s first love and they’ve never forgotten each other!

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I blushed, laughed AND cried during various scenes of this book! Here’s a little tidbit of one of my favorite parts. Jules sees Nicolo for the first time after years apart, and she’s not at all prepared for him to see her like this – jetlagged and in her worst pajamas!

“A moment later the kitchen door flies open and Lorenzo comes in, stomping his feet and talking to someone behind him in rapid-fire Italian.
“Come in, come in,” Lorenzo calls, gesturing. I catch a glimpse of curly dark hair behind him and my heart stutters for a second. I choke on a bite of brioche and gulp scalding cappuccino, then glance down at my stretched out and ever so slightly sheer Hello Kitty sleep tee in horror. No. Please don’t let this be Nicolo. I can’t see my first love looking like I just rolled out of bed except…
“Juliana?” That familiar voice. I haven’t heard it in fifteen years. Ooooh, I want to sink through the tiled floor. I glance up. It’s him.
“Nicolo!”
He’s standing in the doorway, morning light streaming behind him, illuminating him like the archangel Gabriel painted by an Italian master. I stare for a moment as he steps inside. In the fifteen years since I last saw him, he’s grown from a sweet, slightly awkward boy into a gorgeous, self-assured man. Gone is the faint hint of a mustache over his upper lip, the gangly limbs of his youth. He stands a few inches shy of six feet. Not tall, but he’s filled out beautifully. His curls are cropped close to his head at the sides but long enough in the front to fall just slightly over his brow, and his olive skin, straight nose with the slightest bump at the bridge, and full, almost sulky mouth gives him an effortless Mediterranean appeal. And those dimples and dark eyes. I’d kill for those eyelashes, inky smudges like he’s wearing eyeliner. It isn’t fair.
He’s wearing a pair of dark work pants and a white cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Like so many Italian men, he looks ridiculously stylish, even if his shirt is smudged with what appears to be axle grease. I’m achingly, acutely aware of my dishevelment and curse silently in my head. I have a very cute pair of pajamas upstairs. Of all the days to choose comfort over style… I try to pull the tee-shirt down over more of my exposed thighs. Did I even touch my hair this morning? Oooh this is unbearably humiliating.”

Readers should read this book….

If you like
• Strong women facing big challenges in life
• A touch of magical realism
• Family drama and multi-generational/sister stories
• Sweet, swoony closed-door romances with lots of heat but no spice
• Charming settings like an olive farm by a lake in Italy
• Happy, hopeful endings
• LOTS of yummy Italian food in the story
• Recipes related to the story that I create in my kitchen and include in my books

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I am putting the finishing touches on my May, 2026 release, A Sprinkle of Sweet Serendipity! It’s the tantalizing story of a struggling chocolatier who is granted a magical vision of the future of her dreams, only to realize that her heart may desire something else entirely! It has a sweet single mom, Emmie, and a love triangle between the guy of her dreams and her old high school best friend who’s grown into a Thor-lookalike hot Norwegian baker. It also features Emmie’s adorable son Gus and a French Bulldog named Mr. Butters! And chocolate. Lots of chocolate!
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 1 copy of THE SECRET OF ORANGE BLOSSOM CAKE, U.S. only

To enter Giveaway, please share this post (FB – Twitter) and Leave a comment to this Q: If you could choose to see the happiest moment of your life, would you want to? Why or why not?

This giveaway closes 3 days from the date of this post.

Excerpt from The Secret of Orange Blossom Cake:

“It’s okay to feel anxious,” I murmur to myself, naming the emotion. “Just remember, if something gets messed up, we can always rerecord it.” I take a second deep breath, hold it for four beats, breathe out through my nose. Right now the kitchen smells deliciously like freshly baked peach pandowdy. That could definitely be worse. Last month we made liver mush for an episode and the rank smell lingered for days. I still sometimes catch a ghostly whiff of it wafting from the stiff brown carpet near the kitchen doorway. I take another deep breath, hold it, then exhale slowly. Better. I still feel a flutter of anxiety in the center of my chest, but as soon as the camera clicks on and I read the first ingredient aloud, I know from experience that my nerves will dissipate and I’ll be in my happy place once more.

I glance around in satisfaction. I love this basic little kitchen in the apartment we’ve called home for the past five years. The plain oak cupboards are brimming with my vintage kitchen gadgets and bakeware—glass‑lidded pastel Pyrex dishes with their pretty snow‑ flake pattern, a tall stack of aluminum Jell‑O molds in pleasing shapes. In this simple little space I take such delight in sharing vin‑ tage recipes with viewers. These recipes helped me make it through the very darkest days of my life and helped me navigate overwhelming loss and grief. Now I want to share their strength with others.

People like Ethel are the reason I keep making these fifteen‑ minute segments each week. I do it for Ethel—who is widowed and can no longer drive—and many others who are disabled, retired, lonely, or simply needing an escape for a few minutes from the hard things in life. I love knowing that, for those few minutes, I’m giving our followers something useful and happy, filling people’s lives with encouraging, informative, and hopefully entertaining content to make their day a little brighter.

This show is the most valuable thing in my life, the reason I get up every day. Which is why the thought of the meeting scheduled for later tonight causes my stomach to flip over with a new wave of anxiety mixed with a wild dash of hope. Tonight could change everything in the best way possible.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

“Heartfelt, heartwarming, joyful, and uplifting. You can’t go wrong with a Rachel Linden book.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

A magical cookbook and a summer on her family’s Italian olive farm help a brokenhearted social media chef cook up a satisfying new life in this delectable novel from the bestselling author of Recipe for a Charmed Life.

Rising star Jules Costa loves re-creating vintage recipes for her popular online cooking show. But when personal and professional disaster strikes, her only chance to save her career is to complete her new cookbook before the end of the summer. Panicked, Jules returns to her family’s beloved olive farm on the shores of Italy’s stunning Lake Garda. Seeking culinary inspiration, she’s hoping to convince her spunky eighty-year-old Nonna Bruna to share her precious collection of family recipes.

Jules’s plans quickly go awry as she discovers that Nonna’s cookbook has magical and unpredictable powers. It reveals only one recipe at a time, offering a cooking experience guaranteed to satisfy the chef’s palate and bring clarity to their life. Yet the pages remain stubbornly blank for Jules. To make matters worse, the olive farm is in deep financial trouble, and Jules soon uncovers a web of family secrets involving the cookbook and a lost recipe for orange blossom cake that holds the key to everything. Then there’s Nicolo, the boy next door, who broke her young heart years ago. He is now all grown up, even more attractive, and the only person poised to help Jules find answers.

In a whirlwind summer beyond her imagination, Jules begins to unravel the mysteries baked into her family’s history and discovers the essential ingredients to create the future of her dreams.
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Rachel Linden is a novelist and international aid worker whose adventures in more than fifty countries around the world provide excellent grist for her writing. She is the author of Recipe for a Charmed Life, The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie, Ascension of Larks, Becoming the Talbot Sisters, and The Enlightenment of Bees. Currently, Rachel lives with her family on a sweet little island in the Pacific Northwest where she enjoys creating stories about hope, courage, and connection with a hint of romance and a touch of whimsy.
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