The Secret Ingredient

The Secret Ingredient
Author:Laura Schaefer
pages: 230
publication date: June 28 2011





Summary:
It’s nearing the end of summer before ninth grade and Annie has been busy working as a barista at her grandmother's teashop, Th Steeping Leaf. In between serving up chai lattes and matcha frappes, Annie has gotten involved in a scone bakeoff with one of Louisa's tea suppliers. The winner gets an all-expenses paid trip to London for a tea vacation! Annie The competition is tough and sabatoge is in the air when suddenly Annie's food blog begins attracting mean comments. Then there's the whole matter of a stolen kiss with Zach Anderson in the Steeping Leaf stockroom. Could Annie's former sworn enemy become her current love interest? With the help of her two best friends, Genna and Zoe, can Annie come up with an awesome contest entry and sort out her love life before the end of the summer?





Review:
The secret Ingredient was one hundred times better than the first one. I was glad that I enjoyed this one as much as I would. It was fast paced and enjoyable.

Anna and the teashop girls along with all her friends and family have saved the tea leaf, her grandmother’s tea café. Ever since they saved it the business has been booming, there was customers always there and Anna had a blast working there.

I loved the way Anna and Zach (the most annoying boy on the planet, according to her) had a love/hate relationship. One day Zach slipped a kiss with Anna then he ignored her, then they went back to throwing insults at each other. Anna’s friend has just come back from actress camp and she comes home with a little appetite, an appetite that’s barely there. Her friend starts eating less and less and exercising more and more. Thankfully her friends and family were there to show her some healthier ways of eating instead of barely eating anything.

Throughout the whole book Anna is trying to find the perfect scone recipe. She tries again and again to find the perfect recipe and finally she figures it out. She goes to the competition in Chicago where she would compete with other bakers and bake the perfect scone. Whoever won first place got an all expense trip to London.

The only thing that bothered me was the book didn’t really share any of Anna’s life outside of the tea leaf café. Sure she was there pretty much all the time but the book made it sound like she was there 24/7.
I’m glad I got to read this on the galley grab. I had heard nothing of this book or the first before this. It’s good to read other genre’s and younger teen’s book every now and often.


4/5 stars