Seven Recipes For Revolution (What We Eat Book One) by Ryan Rose

 

Seven Recipes for Revolution (What We Eat Book One) by Ryan Rose.

Published 22nd July 2025 by Daphne Press.

From the cover of the book:

The Bear meets Attack on Titan in this exhilarating, food-based epic fantasy filled with high stakes and monster steaks, perfect for fans of Pierce Brown and Jay Kristoff.

Paprick is a common butcher, carving slabs of meat from gargantuan monsters so elite chefs can prepare magic-granting meals for the rich. But Paprick’s true passion is cooking, and if he can learn the secret art, his dreams of liberating his people and sharing the monsters’ magic with the world could come true. He steals the precious ingredients needed to practise recipes at home, but if he’s caught, he’ll be executed.

As his desperation grows, he ventures into the black market and uncovers a spice imported from unknown lands. Combining it with the last of his stolen meat, he cooks a dish the world has never tasted before, with side-effects he couldn’t have foreseen.

The dish’s magic grows Paprick to kaiju-size, and legends of his powers spread among the people. Immediately, the rulers arrest him, but Paprick convinces them to make him a chef’s apprentice—if they ever want to learn his Recipe. However, his exposure to the world of high cuisine reveals the rot at its centre, and with his new power, rebellion is only a few recipes away…

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Paprick is an apprentice butcher, spending his days carving meat from monstrous beasts called emphon, to supply the tables of the rich. He is forbidden to taste the meat himself, and benefit from the magical properties it provides, so when he steals some emphon to feed his own desires as a keen cook, he knows he is risking everything.

Desperate to learn the secrets of the recipes the Rare consume, he ventures to the black market in search of ingredients for his own dishes. Discovering an exotic imported spice, he is inspired to add to the scraps of emphon he has stolen. The results lead to unexpected consequences, but they also bring Paprick a chance to barter his unique recipe for a chance become the Chef he longs to be.

Little does he know that they will also lead to knowledge of the darkness as the heart of the dynasty that rules Ranch, and that the power he gains from his food might be the catalyst to spark rebellion...

With a brutal beginning that cuts to the bone, like the cleaver Paprick wields, Ryan Rose conjures a wickedly sharp fantasy debut that is unlike anything I have read before. The central themes of elitism, oppression, reckoning, and revolution may be familiar ones, and they make for a truly gripping adventure, but it is the way Rose manages something deliciously original with his food based magical system that marks this debut out from the crowd.

Rose's novel unfurls in two compelling threads, cutting back and forth from the present, where Paprick stands trial for the alleged crimes that have earned him the title 'The Butcher'; and the past, as he tells his version of the events that have led to the rebellion raging outside the prison walls, in a cracking retrospective.

The world building is complex, with a lot of context coming at you head on right from the first page, but Rose shows great skill in the way he gradually knits together the details of this society of Commons and Rares, and the history that has come before. Multiple strands of story weave together to make a tasty dish of triumphs and tragedies for the well drawn characters around Paprick (plenty to love and loathe amongst them), with a feast of bitter-sweet side orders of the bonds of family, love, conspiracy, betrayal, and war. Rose makes the sumptuous most of the theme of food, cooking, recipes, kitchen protocol, and culinary techniques - even going so far as to include full recipes for each course of Paprick's seven recipes for revolution, which I though was an inspired touch.

This is a book to get your teeth into (pun intended). I loved the way everything comes together in a kicker of an ending that promises much more appetizing plot to come in the next book in the trilogy, Eight Tastes of Treachery. My epic fantasy taste-buds are already watering in anticipation...

Seven Recipes for Revolution is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Black Crow PR/Daphne Press for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

After escaping his hometown in Central Florida, Ryan Rose made his way to Los Angeles. There, he attended the University of Southern California, studying to become a chemical engineer. He was sure he would one day be an asteroid miner.

A year later, he became an English major working in Concert and Live Entertainment production and writing a fantasy novel, eager to become a full-time author. These days, Ryan lives in Oakland with his partner and their dog, which may in fact be a demon. He still works in event production (occasionally) but now works to support Democracy Policy, which is more relevant to revolutions at least. Ryan continues to write about ridiculous things, like a world where people eat kaiju to gain superpowers. At least he achieved that author thing part-time.

His debut epic fantasy novel, Seven Recipes for Revolution, debuts in July 2025. It is the first in the What We Eat trilogy. He is represented by Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary Agency.