What ingredients do you need to cure a broken heart? This soul-nourishing comfort read is for anyone who has loved and lost—and wants to love again.

Twenty-nine-year-old Momoko has been tragically dumped. She thought her boyfriend was her soulmate. She believed he was going to propose. Instead, he broke things off at a love hotel.

So Momoko does what many broken-hearted people do—she gets incredibly drunk. So drunk that she passes out in a nearly empty café. When she awakens, she’s eager to tell her story to anyone who will listen and pours her heart out to a curious manager and the sole other customer in the café, a Buddhist monk in training. As Momoko describes how she doted on her ex and how he loved her cooking, the manager decides to indulge her by allowing her to slip into the kitchen and cook up her former beau’s favorite dish: a warm, delightful butter chicken curry.

As Momoko finishes telling her story, she realizes that this combination of cooking and sharing has stopped the flow of her constant tears. And the manager has a brilliant idea.

What if they started doing this regularly, inviting patrons to share stories about heartbreak while cooking dishes that held significance in their relationships? Thus, an unconventional therapy group, the “Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee,” is born.

Based on the author’s viral heartbreak story, this is a charming novel (with recipes) about a woman who uses the power of a warm meal to bring together the fellow lonely hearts in this small suburb of Tokyo.

About the Author

Saki Kawashiro was born in Tokyo, Japan. An avid reader, after graduating from college she worked as a bookseller in Fukuoka, in Southern Japan.

While manager of the store’s cafe she invented a recipe for the café menu—“My Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Butter Chicken Curry”—which included a vignette about their breakup, which went viral.

Author Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Before the Coffee Gets Cold) made an appearance at her bookstore and Mr. Kawaguchi’s editor inspired Saki to write a novel about her adventures, and she became Saki’s editor. The result is The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee, which is Saki’s first novel.