The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice. To her horror, she finds that her cheerful mother tastes of despair. Soon, she's  privy to the secret knowledge that most families keep hidden: her father's detachment, her mother's transgression, her brother's increasing retreat from the world. But there are some family secrets that even her cursed taste buds can't discern.

Aimee Bender is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and An Invisible Sign of My Own, as well as the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Willful Creatures, which were both New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been widely anthologized and translated into sixteen different languages. She currently resides in Los Angeles.