Family secrets, grief, and an icon, The Essential Elizabeth Stone by Jennifer Banash, tells the tale of a woman who created an empire around herself. And even in death, she can crumble down her daughter’s life. With the release date of the 10th of September, just in time for a gloomy rainy day.

Disclaimer: Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book for free. All the thoughts and opinions here are my own.

Title: The Essential Elizabeth Stone Author: Jennifer Banash Publication year: 2024 Length: 11 hours 15 minutes Genre: Literary Fiction Pace: Slow Story focus: Character

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Elizabeth Stone is more than a woman, she’s a brand, a lifestyle. And now that she passed away, she left all the empire that she built to her only daughter. Although, Juliet has no idea what she’s doing. She never wanted to be her mother’s successor or her replacement. Now, she has to deal with the business side of the name Elizabeth Stone, along with her grief. An opportunity surfaces to write a book about Elizabeth Stone’s life. When Jules starts to dig around, she uncovers her mother’s secrets and discovers she isn’t who people thought she was. Not even her own daughter.

Elizabeth Stone is basically a Martha Stewart. She is a brand. She represents a lifestyle. She is an idol. And now, with her death, her company is facing some financial problems. Juliet is called to run operations, but she has no idea what she’s doing. And writing a book about her late mother is a way for her to begin the healing process and keep the name Elizabeth Stone alive. And all throughout the book, this is the mood. A sense of sadness, melancholy and wandering. There is a romance subplot that doesn’t even change the tone. Juliet lost her mother, and she is suffering. That is a constant.

The writing is lyrical and overly descriptive. Towards the end, I started to skim some paragraphs describing a scene with far too much detail than I had patience for. This is something I wish to find in more books, and then when I have a book that gives me that, I don’t like it. I’m guessing this is also related to other elements of the story that didn’t work for me. Possibly, it was the mixture of it all that put me off on the writing style.

The story is told between the past and the present, jumping from the perspective of Juliet to her mother over the years. At first, I didn’t like it. It interrupted an already slow development in the present to a new perspective. It also presents what happens in the past before the main character discovers that information in the present. So, the reader knows more than the main character. And that usually removes the objective of the character. Why follow her daughter trying to uncover secrets when her mother can show them? But quickly, Jules’ perspective changes its focus to her dealing with everything. And so, it becomes Elizabeth herself telling her story. At that point, her perspective becomes more enjoyable and more fast-paced.

Something that surprised me was Elizabeth Stone’s relationship with food. That’s how she starts her career, and that isn’t apparent in the beginning. I wish even the writing style would grab the food theme and ran with it. Exploring Elizabeth and Juliet’s life through food. The different experiences it can offer. And in that sense, Elizabeth was very in tune with her cooking. It was intentional, a piece of herself every time she cooked, and I loved that. I wanted to read more about that. I wanted the food to be the theme that would join both perspectives. Can you tell I’m very passionate about food?

In a way, The Essential Elizabeth Stone reminded me of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The creation of this iconic character spawns further from the page. A character that lives outside the book. And it didn’t work out the same way. Maybe because Elizabeth is not a good character. She’s deeply flawed. She made many questionable decisions. But that’s the point of the story. Of a daughter learning who her mother truly was. Realising she wasn’t a goddess, the personification of perfection. And how she is going to deal with these realisations on top of her grief.

Maybe because of the tone of the story, I couldn’t like Juliet. I felt she lacked a lot of personality. Like she was a grey cloud hovering over the whole story. Granted that she’s lost, grieving, doesn’t know who she is or who she wants to be. Her mother’s biography is more of a journey of self-discovery for her than about her mother. She is learning who she is away from her mother and learning to forgive past mistakes.

When I picked this book up, I was more interested in the family drama and secrets. And the story isn’t as dramatic as I was hoping for. The mixture of slow development with grief sets a mood that doesn’t leave room for me to delight in the drama. It’s a serious telling, and I was expecting something more lighthearted. While I didn’t fully connect with this book, there isn’t anything wrong with it. It just needs the right reader. And I wasn’t one.

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