Publication Date: April 28, 2026
A nearly divorced trophy wife enrolls in culinary school to win back her husband, only to find a fresh start in the unlikeliest of places in this new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.
Retirement should mean long-awaited trips to the sapphire waters of Santorini or careening down a sand dune in Dubai. For sixty-three-year-old Mebel, retirement means her husband of more than forty years announcing that he’s leaving her for their private chef. Mebel isn’t sure who’s the bigger loss.
Not to worry, Mebel has the perfect plan: she’s going to win back her husband. No one knows what he needs better than her—after all, she’s been anticipating his needs their whole marriage. And if he wants a wife who can cook (why else would he leave her for a chef?), she will simply go to cooking school. And where better to learn to cook for your husband than France, the most romantic country in the world?
However, Mebel quickly learns that she has mistakenly enrolled in a culinary school not in glamorous Paris but rather in England—and in some small village outside of Oxford no less. Despite the less-than-warm welcome from her much younger classmates, Mebel manages to befriend Gemma, the breakout star of the program. And this unlikely friendship starts to show Mebel that maybe there’s more to her than being the perfect trophy wife…
Set in Indonesia and England, Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block by Jesse Q Sutanto is a cute and apropos title for this unexpected cozy story.
A coming-of-age story for trophy wife, Mebel, who is sixty-three. When her husband, Henk, has a midlife crisis and runs off with their chef, she tries to figure out how to get him back. When life turns upside down, she decides to attend culinary school in Paris to learn how to cook, but ends up in England instead. From there, we see her struggles to fit in and find friends amongst her much younger classmates who are now her peers. It wasn’t until about halfway through the story that I began to like Mebel’s character.
The author included vivid descriptions of the locations, the food, the classes, Mebel’s clothing and accessories, and the competition. I liked how Mebel tried to stay true to her culture but realized that, to grow, she had to stray from some of it. She was surprised by how well she could adapt. There is closure, and I loved the unexpected ending. I wish it had gone on a little longer since the story ended abruptly.
Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block showcases the many challenges Mebel faced to fulfill dreams she didn’t know she had.
Jesse Q Sutanto grew up shuttling back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore and sees both cities as her homes. She has a Masters degree from Oxford University, though she has yet to figure out a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. She is currently living back in Jakarta on the same street as her parents and about seven hundred meddlesome aunties. When she’s not tearing out her hair over her latest WIP, she spends her time baking and playing FPS games. Oh, and also being a mom to her two kids.
