Giveaway #723 : Win 3 x The Kosher Deli - closed - winners Margaret Clarkson, Keith Hunt, Laura Lou Stewart

I'm delighted to be telling you about Ivan Wainewright's debut novel, which brilliantly captures the zeitgeist of the hedonistic 90s and will appeal to fans of David Nicholls and Nick Hornby.

Vik is a twenty year old English boy of Jewish Indian heritage, who meets Yvonne: Scottish activist, hedonist, who strives vehemently for social justice. He aspires to become a chef, but he is inhibited by the racism he experiences.

Vik is increasingly exposed to further bigotry in restaurant kitchens, and witnesses homophobia in his community, with more violent and fatal outcomes; and as Yvonne ventures into the music scene, their relationship becomes increasingly strained. When Vik reaches a point where he can’t ignore these issues any further, will he stand up for what he believes in?

Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows Vik and Yvonne on their journey from Leeds to London to New York. The issues and themes will strike a chord with anyone who is concerned with inequality or struggled in their own relationship.

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The author Ivan Wainewright has kindly written a guest post for Madhouse Family Reviews, talking about Food and Novels - both of which are very high on my list of blogging priorities and frequently combined in the #readcookeat challenge ! Enjoy :)

Considering how most of us love our food, it’s probably not surprising there are so many novels with cuisine at their core. Good authors can invoke tastes, aromas, even the visual appeal of great dishes, so we are reminded of the cooking we love, a meal which meant so much to us, or simply one of the best octopus dishes we ever ate at that small restaurant in Porto.

There are fewer stories about working in a restaurant; Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter, and Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li are notable, recent exceptions.

Food is of course central to so many cultures, especially Vik’s Indian and Jewish heritage: their festivals and celebrations revolve around the cuisine, family meetings incorporate long, loud meals, recipes are handed down through the generations.

But why did I give Vik his goal of becoming a chef? Is it about me? Do I secretly want to be a chef, and I am choosing to live vicariously through Vik?! No, that’s not it (although, well, maybe with a pinch of Yes). I do love to cook, and I hope I can make a decent curry (I highly recommend Anjum Anand’s wonderful recipes), a not-bad Asian duck recipe, and a cheesecake which my nephew once described as ‘delectable’ - but I have no desire to open my own restaurant. Most of the time. If you harbour such ambitions as a home-cook, please read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential before you make any further plans…

So, for Vik, as a would-be chef, his restaurant roles meant he could move around easily, get new jobs, be sacked, follow his ambition. And experience racism and hard-knocks in the kitchen. The vicious attack he experiences is a turning point in his life.

In the nineties, if you wanted to witness a great chef, you had to go to their restaurant. These days, you can’t swing a spatula (or a TV remote control) without coming across a celebrity chef, and many of us probably own kilos of cookbooks which we have flicked through and drooled over, maybe made one or two dishes, but now they simply adorn our bookshelves alongside the guides to Venice and Morocco.

But, while all the above is true, are they the real reasons that food is one of the central aspects of my novel? Or is there something else? In one interview in which Jonas Jonasson discussed his novel, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, he admitted that he thought of the title first and then planned the book around it. As for me, clearly, I would never confirm that was how I had approached The Kosher Delhi, but, well, if I had done…

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Well, now that you're undoubtedly intrigued by the novel, I am pleased to offer you the chance to win one of three copies of the book. Just fill in your entries in the Rafflecopter widget below. Good luck !

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 20/8/19

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. The winners' personal contact information will be passed on to the PR / Brand responsible and used only for delivery of their prize.

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

coming soon !