Review by KT Sullivan
After ten
years, Emet First is out of prison and working at the Serve You Right Café as a
baker. He also has asked Mercey Finch, a therapist, out on a date. Eden Rose is
a recovering alcoholic, his employer, and excited about his prospects. He asks
for advice about bringing up his past to Mercey. Eden is in the park visiting
an elderly homeless couple, Isadore and Daisy. They are the café’s official
taste testers of new menu items. Emet graduated from the prison’s culinary arts
program and appreciates their input. Isadore advises to tell the truth, but not
too much on the first date. Mercey has secrets too, an abusive mother and a
drug addicted twin brother named Clay. “Everyone has a past, no one has the
future,” Emet tells her when they both confess. Her only bright spot is her
dog, Serena. Serena works in the prison to help the inmates cope. Mercey has
decided to move out of the family home and Clay is paranoid. She promised to
stay and take care of him. He overhears Emet’s confession and decides to make
trouble for him. Clay doesn’t realize Emet is surrounded by friends and people
willing to help him. Clay bothers the wrong people and his plan is ruined, but
he’s not done with Mercey.
The
dialogue is very witty and everyone has great comebacks. This is a sweet love
story between two shy damaged people and what it takes for them to be together.
Purchase the book at:
“Twelve Things about Tilia Klebenov
Jacobs”
1.
I wrote Second Helpings at the Serve You Right Café,
which you totally should buy.
2.
When I was
seventeen I went to Bulgaria with six live lobsters and no visa.
My father
worked for the Foreign Service, which meant that we had friends all over the
world. Close family friends in Bulgaria
invited me to visit over winter break my senior year in high school. We applied for a visa, which was supposed to
go straight to my dad’s friend at the State Department so he could bang a
couple of stamps on it and get it to us in plenty of time. The darned thing never showed up. The day before my trip my dad’s friend descended
to the bowels of the State Department and tore apart the mail room looking for
it. Sure enough, there it was—no one had
delivered it. By that time it was too
late to get it to me with the proper documentation, so we told our friends in
Bulgaria and they got me a visa at the airport when I landed. You could do that back then. Maybe you still can.
As for the lobsters, the mother of the family loved
them so we picked out half a dozen at the Legal Seafood outlet at Logan Airport
in Boston, and had them specially packed so they would fit under my seat. This was before TSA; it’s quite possible you
can no longer do this, since if you bring fresh lobster to overseas friends,
the terrorists have won.
3.
I teach writing
to prison inmates.
Several years ago, a volunteer organization contacted
me and asked me to be one of their teachers.
I found the idea of walking into a prison so completely terrifying that
I knew I had to do it. I now teach in four prisons, both with the volunteer
organization and independently.
4.
I consort with
known felons.
See #3, above.
5.
My first language
is Spanish.
My father’s first overseas assignment was in Panama,
and my older sister was born there.
Having just learned Spanish themselves, my parents decided to speak only
that language with the baby for the first few years, a practice they continued
with all four of the kids in our family.
This is an impressive feat of parenting, and I have had more than one
occasion to thank my folks for it, such as the time I placed out of the
language requirement for my master’s degree by translating a page of Latin
American theology into English in well under the hour allotted.
6.
I had lived on
three continents by the time I was twelve.
See “my father worked for the Foreign Service” at #2,
above.
7.
I am a
competitive ballroom dancer.
I cherish a fantasy of starring on a show called Dancing
with the Overeducated Housewives.
8.
I also lift
weights, and have since high school.
In college my friends called me Moose.
9.
I have two
degrees in theology.
Which even as I earned them I called “pre-unemployment.”
10.
I have worked
variously as a janitor, secretary, whale watch naturalist, park naturalist, and
housing coordinator for an opera company.
See “two degrees in theology/pre-unemployment,” above.
11.
When I was
writing my first book, I interviewed two FBI agents and was subsequently
invited to FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC.
I needed some information about how an FBI
investigation would work, so I contacted their PR department and made a
nuisance of myself till they caved. The
agents were really lovely, and once they heard my then seven-year-old son
wanted to be an FBI agent, they asked him and me to visit them.
12.
I enjoy
gardening.
But who doesn’t?
About the Author:
Tilia Klebenov Jacobs holds a BA from
Oberlin College, where she double-majored in Religion and English with a
concentration in Creative Writing. Following an interregnum as an
outdoor educator with the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia, she earned
a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Secondary
School Teaching Certification from the Harvard Graduate School of
Education. Despite lacking the ability to breathe fire except in the
strictly metaphorical sense, Tilia has taught middle school, high school, and
college. She has also won numerous awards for her fiction and nonfiction
writing. She is a judge in the Soul-Making Keats Literary
Competition, and she teaches writing to prison inmates. Tilia lives
near Boston with her husband, two children, and two standard poodles.
Connect with the author at:
Second Helpings at the Serve
You Right Café has just been declared a "Best of Summer" read by
IndieReader. Click HERE to check it out!
Tilia is giving two lucky winner signed
copies of
Second Helpings at the Serve You
Right Café
And everyone who enters gets an e
copy of her earlier novel
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Open Internationally
a Rafflecopter giveaway
