The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie Read online

  Praise for

  The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie

  “Heartfelt, heartwarming, joyful, and uplifting. You can’t go wrong with a Rachel Linden book.”

  —Debbie Macomber, New York Times bestselling author of The Best Is Yet to Come

  “A poignant, hopeful must read for anyone who has ever wondered about a different path. Rachel Linden creates unforgettable characters that will work their way into your heart and a compulsively readable story that will keep the pages turning late into the night. Five huge stars!”

  —Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Veil

  “A magical novel about second chances! Warm, witty, and wise, I loved it! Linden is a master at creating loveable characters! The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie is escapist reading at its best!”

  —Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Deal

  “An enchanting tale about the one thing we’ve all imagined: a magical second chance. Rachel Linden expertly mixes romance, mystery, and family-drama into a delicious recipe of a story. With her trademark warmth, Linden delivers a captivating story with a magical heartbeat at its center.”

  —Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of Surviving Savannah

  “A triumphant story about chasing down a destiny, cleverly told and beautifully delivered. Rachel Linden reminds us on every page how wonderful and essential it is to believe in the magic of second chances.”

  —Susan Meissner, USA Today bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

  “Rachel Linden whips up an irresistible family drama oozing with charm and magic! The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie is a must read for anyone who longs for second chances. A gem of a novel that charmed me from get-go, perfect for fans of Sarah Addison Allen and Alice Hoffman.”

  —Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany

  “A delicious read, down to the very last lemon drop! Rachel Linden delivers a delightful escape, wonderful characters, and a magical experience that will leave readers hungry for her next book.”

  —Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Perennials

  “With a skillful hand, Linden has filled The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie with well-drawn characters, lush descriptions of both food and locales, and an intriguing touch of magic. Lolly is a refreshing and plucky protagonist, and you’ll be rooting for her to find the happily-ever-after of her own choosing!”

  —Lauren K. Denton, USA Today bestselling author of The One You’re With

  “A charming, heartwarming story about ‘what ifs’ and second chances. Readers will fall in love with the cast of delightful characters, and I defy anyone to read this book and not want to immediately eat lemon meringue pie. A beautiful, life-affirming read.”

  —Freya Sampson, author of The Last Chance Library

  “Simply delicious! A delightful, page-turning story of first love, second chances, family ties, and mouthwatering pies! With a little magic, engaging characters, and complications we could almost call our own, The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie invites us to consider our own lost or forgotten dreams, and gives us the essential ingredients of hope and courage to pursue them.”

  —Katherine Reay, bestselling author of The Printed Letter Bookshop and The London House

  “A deliciously sweet tale about refusing to give up on your dreams and finding your bliss against all odds. Linden gives readers so much to enjoy—romance, family drama, and bittersweet second chances—all served up with the perfect dash of magic.”

  —Kate Bromley, author of Here for the Drama and Talk Bookish to Me

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2022 by Rachel Linden

  “Readers Guide” copyright © 2022 by Rachel Linden

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Linden, Rachel, author.

  Title: The magic of lemon drop pie / Rachel Linden.

  Description: First Edition. | New York: Berkley, 2022.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021061893 (print) | LCCN 2021061894 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593440193 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593440209 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3612.I5327426 M34 2022 (print) | LCC PS3612.I5327426

  (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061893

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061894

  First Edition: August 2022

  Cover illustration by Julia Yellow

  Cover design by Vikki Chu

  Interior art: Lemon and flowers © helenpyzhova / Shutterstock

  Book design by Alison Cnockaert, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  pid_prh_6.0_140600470_c0_r0

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

  Lolly’s Lemon Drop Pie Recipe

  Acknowledgments

  Readers Guide

  About the Author


  To Dr. Kathryn A. Smith, my real-life Aunt Gert. While you didn’t give me lemon drops, you certainly opened the world to me. I am so grateful.

  1

  My life is a lemon.

  I faced the truth afresh, bent over a cold stainless-steel mixing bowl, whipping egg whites and sugar into stiff French meringue peaks.

  “ ‘Lolly’s life goal number two,’ ” my sister, Daphne, read aloud, perched on a stool across the gleaming stainless-steel prep counter of the diner’s kitchen. She paused and eyed the list of adolescent ambitions a far younger me had optimistically scribbled in sparkly purple gel pen in my middle school diary.

  “ ‘Own my own restaurant somewhere amazing.’ ” She glanced over at me skeptically. “Does managing our family diner in Magnolia count?”

  I shot her a wry look. “I don’t think Danish comfort food in a fifty-year-old diner was quite what I was imagining when I wrote that.” So much of my life was not what I’d imagined when I wrote that. I leaned over the hand mixer with renewed vigor.

  Outside the huge French-paned windows, the winter darkness was beginning to lighten with a touch of pearl as morning broke. More than likely the clouds would settle into a daylong light drizzle. Late winter in Seattle was often wet, chilly, and unremittingly gray. I usually loved this time of the morning—pie-making time, alone in the kitchen with a serene sense of purpose and Tanya Tucker warbling plaintively on the radio—but not today. Today the weather matched my mood.

  “ ‘Number three. Fall in love.’ ” She paused and squinted at the page. “You scribbled a note in the margin that says ‘I’d like him to look like Freddie Prinze Jr. or Brad Pitt.’ ” Daphne shot me a curious look and wrinkled her nose. “Who’s Freddie Prinze Jr.?”

  “Did you ever see She’s All That? No, I guess you were too young.” I brushed a wisp of hair back into my bouncy ponytail. “It was the nineties. Freddie was dreamy, a total heartthrob.” I redoubled my efforts on the meringue, which was now stiff enough to stand by itself in frothy white peaks.

  Daphne studied the page. “What was this list for anyway?”

  Closing my eyes, I was instantly catapulted back to my seventh-grade classroom, the buzz of hormones and invincibility, the smells of old linoleum, adolescent boys wearing too little deodorant, and girls wearing too much fruity body spray.

  “Ms. Beeson’s English class. We were supposed to write out a life goals list, a plan for the next twenty years. Which is sort of crazy given that most of us couldn’t plan our way out of a paper bag when we were thirteen. She was big on plans. Pencil skirts and plans.”

  “That’s ambitious,” Daphne said, looking again at the list.

  “It’s kind of sad to read it now,” I commented lightly.

  “Sad how?”

  I turned off the mixer. “Next month I’ll turn thirty-three. It’s been almost exactly twenty years since I wrote that list, and I haven’t done a single thing on it.” My tone was matter-of-fact but the realization stung, sharp and true. I had not thought about the list in years, but the reality that I hadn’t managed to accomplish even one goal was disappointing.

  Daphne closed the diary and tossed it on the counter, then stretched, young and lissome in her yoga gear. Her sleek chestnut hair swung over her shoulders. Hair color was the only thing we shared in terms of appearance. Daphne took after our dad, small and leanly muscled, a dancer’s build. I favored our mother’s Danish side of the family—taller with rounded curves and high, broad cheekbones. She slid off the stool and surveyed me. “Do you still want all those things?”

  “Freddie Prinze Jr. has aged really well. I like the whole silver fox look.” I grinned, spooning meringue onto the deep-yellow fillings of six lemon pies, dodging her question. I wasn’t even sure I knew the answer or could risk thinking too hard about it. I’d stopped dreaming about what I wanted roughly a decade ago. It was a luxury I simply could not afford.

  Daphne glanced at her phone and gave a yip of alarm. “I’ve got to teach a vinyasa session in fifteen minutes.” She yanked open the huge industrial refrigerator and grabbed an apple. “I’ve got class till four thirty, and then I’ll come help with the dinner rush. Damien will give me a ride.”

  She was in her junior year studying for a dance degree at Cornish College of the Arts in downtown Seattle and was teaching yoga on the side to help pay for the outrageous cost of tuition. Her boyfriend, Damien, was a student at Cornish as well. I sighed and wiped my hands on my fifties-style green-and-white-polka-dot frilled apron, the standard uniform at the diner ever since I could remember.

  “Help with dinner would be great. It’s tough going when it’s only Aunt Gert and me handling all the tables.”

  We exchanged a knowing look at the mention of our feisty great-aunt.

  “Okay, see you tonight.” Daphne threw open the back door and blew me an air kiss. “Love you much.”

  I caught it against my cheek. “Love you more.” It was a childhood exchange Mom had taught us and one we still copied.

  Daphne traipsed out the door, then poked her head back inside, looking thoughtful. “You know, it’s not too late for you to do those things if you still want to.”

  I waved away her words. “Who would keep everything together around here? Who would be the glue?”

  “I knew you would say that.” Daphne pulled a face. “That’s what they’re going to put on your gravestone when they find you old and gray and collapsed face-first into one of your lemon meringue pies. ‘I was the glue.’ ”

  It was a horrifying thought. And sadly probably not untrue. I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “Aren’t you late for something?”

  She shrieked and darted out the door. I watched her go with a mixture of maternal fondness and sisterly exasperation. Twelve years younger than me, Daphne had been only ten when Mom died. I’d stepped in to fill the hole in her life as best I could. Some days I thought it was almost enough.

  In the sudden quiet of the kitchen, I made decorative peaks in the meringue with the back of a large kitchen spoon, then checked each of the six pies. Good, they had meringue all the way to the edges. It helped keep them from weeping, a peculiar pitfall of meringue. I’d been making six lemon meringue pies almost every day for the past ten years. My dad, Marty, the diner’s chief cook, handled everything else food related with the help of his assistant cook, Julio, but I made our famous pies, the best in Seattle. Only I knew my mom’s secret recipe. She’d made me memorize it the night before she passed away.

  Popping the pies into the industrial oven, I set the timer and glanced at the clock. Still an hour until the doors opened at eight. Soon Dad and Julio would be in to start prepping for the day. My diary lay on the counter, a blast from the past with neon unicorns jumping over a bright rainbow spangled with stars. At thirteen I had loved that Lisa Frank diary with its luridly cheerful cover, its crisp lined pages just waiting to be filled with the dreams and aspirations of my young, idealistic heart. Daphne had unearthed it a few days ago in a box of our childhood memorabilia.

  I touched the cover with my fingers, lightly, wistfully, torn between wanting to toss it away and crack it open to eagerly devour every line. If I did, could I relive, if only for a moment, the confidence of endless possibilities, the naive presumption that just because I wished for something it was bound to happen? How brash that seemed now. And yet, still, how alluring.

  I sniffed. Beneath the citrus scent of the pies beginning to bake I caught a whiff of regret, pungent and bitter as rosemary. I clicked on the old-school combination radio/CD player sitting under the window, tuning it to a classic country station, and opened the back door to get some fresh air, but in gusted a cool, wet wind that smelled like sorrow, sharp and briny as the sea. On second thought, I shut the door again and turned up the radio. Nostalgia was no match for Shania Twain’s rockabilly girl power.

  Scooping up the diary, I c
rossed the kitchen and tossed it onto my desk in the converted walk-in pantry I used as an office, then shut the door firmly. I had a family to care for and a struggling diner to keep afloat. I had no time for nostalgia or regret.

  2

  “Is that fresh pot of coffee ready?” Aunt Gert barked, bursting through the swinging kitchen door an hour after we opened for breakfast. “Norman is asking for another refill already.” She clucked her tongue in disapproval.

  “New pot should be ready by now. I started it.” Dad looked up from a cutting board piled high with potatoes. Both he and Julio were up to their elbows in prep for the day. I stuck my head out the door of my little office, where I’d been crunching depressing financial figures.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Our breakfast offerings were simple—pastries from Petit Pierre, the French bakery down the street, and endless refills of mediocre diner-quality coffee. It was easy to handle the morning rush, although in the past few years, rush was too generous a word for the skimpy trickle of customers who darkened our doorway before lunch. Now, in the doldrums of winter, it was even slower than usual.

  Aunt Gert gave me a regal nod. “Much obliged.”

  This morning she was wearing an orange-patterned caftan heavily bedecked with wooden beads that clacked as she moved. A matching turban perched over her wispy white hair. Beneath it, her hawk nose and icy blue eyes gave her the visage of a highly ornamented bird of prey, a falcon perhaps.

  Dr. Gertrude Lund, my great-aunt on my mother’s side, was an eighty-year-old esteemed professor emeritus of religion and mythology who had relocated from New England to live in the tiny cottage in our backyard almost two years ago. She was an opinionated, stubborn character with outrageous fashion sense and a razor-sharp intellect. Although her acerbic personality wasn’t particularly suited to waitressing, she insisted on helping out at the diner, pulling her weight, as she put it. Regular customers had learned to fear the heavy tread of her orthopedic shoes.

  I grabbed the pot of coffee from its place by the door, and Aunt Gert followed me into the dining room. “That old coot’s just cheap if you ask me. Coming in here every morning and taking up a booth for hours and only ordering a cup of coffee.” She pursed her lips and scowled in the direction of Norman, one of our morning regulars, who was occupying his usual table by the big plate-glass front window.