About The Cook's Temptation
Publication Date: February 1, 2014
Mosaic Press
Formats: Ebook, Paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction
Joyce Wayne brings to life the complexities of Victorian
life, first in County Devon and then in London’s East End. The ‘big picture’ is
about one woman’s life, class conflict, religious intolerance, suspicion and
betrayal. The central figure is Cordelia, a strong-minded Jewish woman who is
caught between her desire to be true to herself and her need to be accepted by
English society.Cordelia Tilley is the daughter of a Jewish mother and an
Anglican father. Her mother has groomed her for a life in English society while
her father, a tough publican, has shown no tolerance for his wife’s social
climbing or the conceits of their perspicacious daughter. Cordelia’s mother
dies from typhoid fever, she tries to run the family ‘s establishment, she
falls prey to a local industrialist, she gives birth to a son, she is tormented
by her husband and his family. Finally, she is rescued by suffragette friends
and sets off to start a new life in London.The Cook’s Temptation is
about a woman who is unpredictable, both strong and weak willed, both kind and
heinous, victim and criminal. It is a genuine Victorian saga, full of detail,
twists and turns, memorable scenes, full of drama and pathos.
Praise for The Cook’s Temptation
“Joyce Wayne’s debut novel, The Cook’s Temptation,
has the stately bearing of a nineteenth century novel – the mercilessness of
Thomas Hardy, the black allegory of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the tense marriages of
George Eliot. It is a story of how people become what you blame them for
being.” – Ian Williams, poet and fiction writer, short listed for the 2012
Griffin Poetry Prize
About the Author
Joyce Wayne has an MA in English literature, has taught
journalism at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, for twenty-five years, and
lives in Toronto, Ontario. She was a winner of the Diaspora Dialogues contest
for fiction and the Fiona Mee Award for literary journalism. She is the co
writer of the documentary film So Far From Home (2010), a film about refugee
journalists persecuted for their political views, and various of her other
works have been published in Parchment, Golden Horseshoe Anthology, Canadian
Voices, and TOK6.
For more information please visit Joyce Wayne’s website. You can
also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
She is happy to participate in Books Clubs by phone and Skype.