Reviewed by Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers' Favorite

An Enlightening Quiche by Eva Pasco is, to shamelessly promote a theme, superbly rich and delicious. One cannot know if such writing comes naturally to the author, or if she suffers from the agony of meticulousness required to produce such an exquisite work. The end result hearkens to the classics for its resemblance to such deeply thoughtful plotting, characterization, and the gorgeous prose used in its exposition. With a fully contemporary use of wickedly biting cynicism - if bloodlessly cold - and terribly subtle sarcasm, keep your reading wits about you; the intelligence embedded in Pasco’s narrative is deeply satisfying. Although it is a sacrilege to attempt summarizing this book’s plot concisely, Augusta and Lindsay - two separate voices, two women in their forties - reveal a lifetime tale about friendship and family betrayal in and outside of a small Canuck-dominated town located in northern Rhode Island, which does the actual, intricately complex plot no justice whatsoever. Suffice it to say, I am not capable of rendering it due justice. But then, neither is Ms. Pasco in her own introductory blurb.

As a stylistic practice in relating the story behind An Enlightening Quiche, Eva Pasco accomplishes a most difficult task for a writer, and she accomplishes it to perfection: not only using alternating voices, but having each voice alternate between the present and a remembered, expository past. The effect of such stylistic mastery is to create – breaking from the culinary theme – a sensationally intricate and complex tapestry as pleasing to the reader’s mind as such artwork is to expert eyes. And though this work has been labeled simplistically as “contemporary women’s fiction,” make no mistake: this is a psychological, literary novel, and a wonderful, highly challenging masterpiece of writing.