The Year of Soup

At the age of 30, Tess has had three jobs and three significant relationships with two men and one woman – each lasting three years. Drifting through life, confused about her sexuality, Tess decides to live a life of celibacy and to open up a restaurant devoted to soup. Tess has a talent for making soups with strong medicinal and spiritual qualities – something passed down from her great-great grandmother, a descendant of one of the alleged Salem witches.


In the second week of the restaurant’s opening, an elderly professor of English, Roger Beanstock, comes in at closing time. Beany, haunted by his own past has lived a celibate life devoted to his work. He visits the restaurant every Thursday night for the next year to share soup and wine with Tess, which she calls the Year of Soup, before taking his life. Shortly after Beany’s death, Tess meets Jim at the restaurant, a furniture maker with his own reasons for keeping to himself. It is through a series of letters that “Beany” has left for Tess that she learns the truth about the Professor, is able to come to terms with her own sexuality, and discover Jim’s own tragic secret that will change both of their lives.


“The Year of Soup, as with his first novel A Family Institution, clearly establishes Howard Reiss' credentials as an especially gifted storyteller with a knack for creating fully developed characters and original storylines that engage the readers complete attention from first page to last. The Year of Soup is highly recommended and thoroughly entertaining, making it an appropriate addition for community library contemporary fiction collections."


-The Midwest Book Review (Jack Mason)


Readers' Favorite gives The Year of Soup 5 stars!


Readers' Favorite calls The Year of Soup “a wonderfully insightful read" and recommends it to "anyone who loves mysteries, emotional fiction, and self-discovery." "Howard Reiss is able to deftly weave story into sustenance and create a plot that is beautifully original without straying too far from classic themes of this sort of genre." The Year of Soup is “a hands-down, great read."


-Readers' Favorite (Katelyn Hensel)


The Year of Soup “mixes a fine stew of intelligence and wisdom, while also at times stirring in a sharp wit and a pinch of genuine, heartfelt charm and humanity."


-IndieReader (Charles Baker)


The Year of Soup won a silver medal for Best Regional Fiction in the North-East region in the 2013 IPPY's.


-Independent Publisher Book Awards


BookBub calls The Year of Soup “a heartwarming read.”


-BoobBub


The Year of Soup won an honorable mention in the Romance category of the 2016 Los Angeles Book Festival.