Review – How much sleep did I miss reading Into the Mist by Lee Murray? ALL OF IT!

One of my favorite things about working in a library and being around books, is when I find a new author that blows me away.  Into the Mist by Lee Murray is just one of THOSE books.  The author’s cousin, a librarian in New Zealand whom I correspond with, told me that the book was coming out, so I went to Amazon to check to see if it was something I would like. The description of the book had me clicking pre-order faster than I eat chocolate.  Military horror, native mythology, beautiful locale, and breathtaking action – this book has it all.
 
I have always been a big fan of mythology of different cultures.  The Taniwha, a legendary Maori water monster, brings thrills and chills to the native Maori park in New Zealand.
 
A group of scientists are on a fact finding mission to see if there is gold in the area. They are beyond unprepared for what is waiting for them in the misty mountains, even with their military escort. Unbeknownst to them, there have been park visitors reported missing, including a whole military search party. The military escort is not only there to protect them. They are also looking for the missing military search party that was previously sent to the area to search for the missing park visitors.  What follows is an intense, roller coaster ride through the jungle just trying to survive.
 
Reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Preston & Child’s Relic, Lee Murray’s Into the Mist was a satisfying romp that kept me wanting more.  To decide if a book is good, I judge it by how much sleep it made me miss.  I missed a LOT of sleep while reading this book.  I highly recommend it.
 
You can order Into the Mist at Amazon or check with your local independent bookstore.
 
 
Thanks for reading.

 

 

What could possibly entice me to post after four and a half months of silence?

A FOOD TRUCK!!!

I recently read an article in the Charlotte Sun newspaper about food trucks.  One food truck, in particular, caught my eye. It is called The Ravenous Rhino.

Today we were out and we spotted the food truck in the parking lot at PetSmart in Port Charlotte. My wonderful husband, Mike, pulled over and let me check it out.  As soon as I looked at the menu, I knew what I wanted.  Sanibel Crab Cake Sandwich – Handmade been of blue and snow crab, fried & served on a toasted bun with lettuce, tomato, and Cajun tartar sauce. I took a picture of the deliciousness before I started to eat.

I can’t express how delicious this sandwich was.  The spices that were mixed with the sweet crab made for a scrumptious crab cake.  The fresh bun was toasted and delicious.  The tomato, onion, and lettuce were fresh and crispy.  The pickles were dilly.  The Cajun tartar sauce, which is made to order, was heavenly!

Here is a peek at today’s menu:

If you are out and about and see the Ravenous Rhino truck, take the time to stop.

Cozy mysteries are in danger.

Today, while searching for a new book to read, I found out that cozy mysteries are in danger.  Due to mergers and other business factors, some publishers are culling their cozy mystery collections.

What, pray-tell, is a cozy mystery?  Wikipedia states that “Cozy mysteries, also referred to simply as “cozies”, are a subgenera of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detections takes place in a small, socially intimate community.”

If you are a cozy mystery lover, please be sure to contact the publishers of your favorite series to express how much you love them.  Ask them to continue their support of these great stories and the writers who make them happen.

You can find out more about this issue at Save Our Cozies.

Thanks for reading.

Review: Britt-Marie Was Here will make you laugh and cry

It has been a long time since a book both make me laugh and broke my heart.  “Britt-Marie Was Here” did just that.  If you loved Fredrik Blackman’s “A Man Called Ove” or “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry”, you will love this book.

Britt-Marie is a 60-something woman who walked away from her husband, Kent, and their loveless marriage of 40 years.  She has taken a job as the caretaker of the soon to be closed recreation center in the down and out town of Borg. Britt-Marie can’t stand disorder.

Seeing a utensil drawer that is not organized correctly sends her into a tizzy. She feels that only crazy people sleep past 6 am and that dinner should be at the same time every day.

The town of Borg, hit by the economic downturn, has a few die-hard citizens who have not given up on the town.  The one thing holding them together is the one thing Britt-Marie hates, soccer.

 Notable characters in the town are, Somebody – the wheelchair bound proprietor of the only pizzeria left.  Sami, a young man trying to raise is younger brother, Omar, and sister, Vega, after the death of their mother.  Sven, the local policeman with a heart of gold. Her landlady, Bank, is mostly blind with a wicked sense of humor.

The children of Borg play soccer on an improvised field with cups as goal posts.  Ever since their coach died, they have not had a legal “team” and therefore cold not play in any competitions.  Somehow, Britt-Marie becomes their coach, much to her chagrin.  Her hatred of soccer comes from the fact that her husband, Kent, ignored her completely during soccer season.  With the help of Bank, who used to play soccer, the children of Borg enter a soccer cup.

Even though Britt-Marie’s husband Kent shows up she is torn between going home to her loveless marriage or staying in Borg. Has she finally found a place where she can make a difference? By agreeing to be the coach, she keeps the children of Borg from getting into trouble. When a friend of Sami’s puts on a mask and tries to rob the pizzeria, Britt-Marie and Sven try to keep Sami and Omar from getting revenge.

I don’t want to going any more details and ruin the book for you.  The author, Fredrik Blackman, has a way of writing characters who seem unlikable but turn out to be completely different.  I would suggest reading all three books.

Check your local library or independent bookstore for “A Man Called Ove” and “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” .  “Britt-Marie Was Here” is currently scheduled to be published on May 3, 2016.

Thanks for reading.

I was given an advanced reader copy of Britt-Marie Was Here from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

J.K. Rowling….um….I mean….Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling

I loved every word of the Harry Potter books written by J.K. Rowling.  When I learned that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym she was using to write a new series of books, I was very excited.   I thought “YAY!!!  If they are as fantastic as the Harry Potter books, I’ll read every one!”  Then I learned that they were NOT fantasy or kids books.  I was so annoyed that I refused to read any of them. That is, until I decided to read a book each month by an author that I have avoided – and I chose The Cuckoo’s Calling by Galbraith as my March selection.

Cormoran Strike, an ex-military man working as a private investigator. John Bristow hires Strike to investigate the death of his super model sister, Lula, which was ruled a suicide. Strike is pulled into the lifestyles of the rich and famous as he tries to find out the truth about what happened the night Lula died.
One of the things Rowling/Galbraith knows how to do is develop characters. While I didn’t love the book, I might consider reading the next book in the series if I run out of books.  A little wordy and over descriptive, which was a plus in the Harry Potter books, in this book it dragged to story down.
A decent detective story but not one I’d put on my “must read” list.
Next month I am supposed to read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  Wish me luck as I have tried to read it once before and gave up.

January and February books from my "authors I have avoided" list

In my last blog post I made a list of authors that I have avoided or just never got around to reading.  I decided that I was going to read a book by one of these authors each month and then report my thoughts on the books.

For January, I chose James Patterson.  I might have read ONE James Patterson several years ago but for the most part I have avoided him like the plague.  How does one man produce so many books?  Are they good?  That’s what I was about to find out.  I chose to read the first book of one of his newer series, Private.  The main character, a former CIA agent turned Private Investigator, named Jack Morgan. His brother and father are shady characters, his friends are a mess.  A decent detective type story but character development was lacking. I would rather read Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz.

For February, I had to read a Danielle Steele book.  I admit I might have read one of her books 30+ years ago but it’s sappy, unbelievable romance did not impress me.  I don’t do romance novels – you know the bodice ripper type with the bare chested, long haired, muscle bound hero and the damsel in distress on the cover. I believe these books contribute greatly to the divorce rate due to the incredibly, impossible “romance” in them.  I took a lot of time to determine which of Ms. Steele’s books I would read.  I wanted something that told a good story that wasn’t full rich people in their mansions or on their yachts.  I wanted a “realistic” tale. I chose Granny Dan, which tells the story of Danina, a woman who, at the age of 7, was sent to ballet school in Russia in 1902 and became a very famous prima ballerina.  Her dancing wins the admiration and patronage of the Czar and Czarina.  It was a great story and I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

So…I’ve made it through my first two “avoided” authors.  Next month…Robert Galbraith.

Thanks for reading.

Authors I have avoided

I like to think that I am adventurous reader. I don’t read best-sellers just because they are best-sellers. More often than not, if a book is the new “hot” read, I will avoid it like the plague. This means that there are quite a few “prolific” authors that I have not read.  For example, until last week, I had not read ANY James Patterson books.  Yes, the man who releases 2 to 3 books a month, has been, up until last week, snubbed by me.  I have decided that one of my goals this year is to each month, read at least one book written by an author I have avoided.  So, I will be reading:

January – James Patterson
February – Danielle Steele
March – Robert Galbraith
April – Diana Gabaldon
May – Louis L’Amour
June – Nora Roberts
July – Nicholas Sparks
August – Sandra Brown
September – Bernard Cornwell
October – J.A. Jance
November – Nevada Barr
December – Heather Graham

Each month I will post what book I’ve read by the author, my thoughts, and decide if I will read more books by the author.

Thanks for reading.

Baked hard "boiled" eggs – time saver or mess maker?

Happy New Year to all!

My husband, Michael, and I have decided that we are starting to eat healthy and exercise more.  Since he is working today, I am at home watching the Food Network.  One of the tips I picked up today was  hard cooking eggs by baking them instead of boiling them.  Since I was planning to hard boil some eggs today, I decided to try it.

I preheated the oven to 325 F, put 12 eggs into my muffin tin.  I baked the eggs for 30 minutes and then put them into ice water for 10 minutes.  I had one egg that broke in the oven, but it didn’t make a mess.

Here are my thoughts on this method of hard cooking the eggs:

1.  The eggs get a dark mark on them where they touch the muffin tin. This mark goes through into the egg white.  Not appetizing at all.
2.  The eggs are NOT easy to peel.  I have a bunch of egg that are missing most of their whites because they did not peel nicely.  What a mess!!
3.  It was easy.  I may have to play with this idea a little bit to figure out how to get the dark mark to not happen.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Review: Wherever There is Light is a globe spanning historical novel that will keep you riveted right until the end

Whenever an author is scheduled to come to do a library fundraiser set up by our Friends of the Punta Gorda Library, I feel that I should familiarize myself with their work in order to tell our patrons about it.  I have done this for Stephen King, Lisa See, and Gregg Hurwitz.  With Peter Golden coming in the Spring, I knew I had to get to work.
Wherever There is Light by Peter Golden was released on November 3, 2015.  It tells the intertwining stories of two families, the Roses: Theodor, Elana, and Julien –  Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in 1938 and the Wakefields: Garland and Kendall Anne,  an African American family who are the descendants of a runaway slave who became one of the wealthiest men in Philadelphia.
Garland Wakefield is the founder and president of Lovewood College, an African American school in Florida. During  the 1930s, many African American colleges in the United States helped save Jewish professors that were driven out of the education system in Germany.  Professor Theodor Rose is one of those who were saved.  At the dinner welcoming Professor Rose to the college, his son, Julien, meets Garland’s daughter, Kendall.  This meeting begins a love affair that spans from 1938 to 1966.
Julien and Kendall have to deal with the constraints placed on their interracial relationship, both from society and their own families.  While Julien wants to marry Kendall, all she wants is to be free to pursue her art – painting and photography.
From Germany to New York to Miami and Paris, this book really had me from page one.  I was interested to see the comparisons that were made between the treatment of the Jewish people in Germany during WWII and the treatment of African Americans in the South.  Even with the serious subject matter covered in the book, I have to say that I really enjoyed it.
For more information, go to Peter Golden’s website.

Are macarons are my Waterloo?

A few years ago, while out shopping at an outlet mall with my husband, we discovered a little french bakery that was selling these adorable little sandwich cookies called macarons.  We have since found several other places that sell them. One place is called Le Macaron.  We fell in love with these cookies.  They are a French sweet meringue-based confection made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, ground almonds and food coloring. They are filled with either flavored icings or jelly/jam.  When I first saw the name Macaron, I thought I was going to be getting a coconut based cookie – which I don’t like. To my delight, I bit into a crispy, chewy, delicious little cookie.  I was hooked.

Since there are no places nearby that sell macarons, I’ve been toying with making my own for a while.  I bought a macaron kit with a mix and a macaron kit with all the tools needed for success in making them.  Today I decided to try making them.  I love to share both successes and failures in the kitchen.  Macarons turned out to be a FAIL.

Here is a short before baking video:

While they were baking, I could see that the macaron dough had run together.  Here they are after I took them out of the oven:

Due to the running of the dough, I could only get ONE actual macaron.  It was delicious.  Here it is:

So, it is back to the old drawing board.  I will be trying this again.  Stay tuned and see if I have success or more failures with macaron baking.