This is a very bland three stars for me, maybe more of a two and a half. Keep in mind that I am not a huge fan of Christian romances, so take my review with a grain of salt. Not really liking the genre is a huge bias.I requested the galley because of the blurb that it was about a baker with diabetes who could never eat more than a bite of her creations. I thought this was very clever, and could work as a metaphor for forbidden love or love that is ultimately bad for you, or a million other typical romance scenarios. I was extremely disappointed that Emma Rae's diabetes have almost nothing to do with the story.
I had forgotten that this was billed as a Christian romance when I began reading this, at first the mentions of God and the redeeming power of prayer felt natural and I went with it, then they got more and more to the point where I skipped over those parts. When I read Christian romance it is mostly mail order bride and homesteader stuff because I like those plot points and I will read them however I get them, so it is clear that my taste is not in Christian contemporary. Had the religion been kept to the two main characters and a pastor character, then perhaps I would have accepted it, but as the book goes on, every single character, including the goth girl, is a devout Christian who prays constantly for their friend's welfare.
The cooking and business aspects of the book were fun and interesting, I loved watching this hotel be built from the ground up (not literally, the building is in place) and I liked that the hero and heroine were friendly and comfortable with eachother for the most part. They appreciated each others skills and hard work.
The lists and recipes and other filler material threw me out of the story, and I think the book would be much stronger without cliched lists of popular bridal favors. Blech.
(I received a free electronic galley from NetGalley. This has not biased my review in any way)
Goodreads
Amazon
Borders
Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
December Reviews!
Finally, I can post some December reviews!
I honestly can't explain why I enjoyed this book so much other than the fact that it was engaging. Describing the book, it is a series of steps and numbers and seemingly boring repetition of tasks that are done to get the apple trees profitable. But in reality, the reader is drawn into the book and eager to see what happens next, eager to root for Jackson and his young family members. As a young reader, there's definitely something appealing in seeing children run a proper, profitable business. Looking back, I wouldn't be able to tell you what age Jackson is off of the top of my head, nor do I remember when it takes place (They listen to "Thriller" on the radio, but that was the only clue I can remember, whether of not an actual year was in the text), but I do remember enjoying this greatly.
Goodreads
And....
LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
THE BOOK I HAVE BEEN EXCITED TO RECOMMEND!!!
His Christmas Pleasure by Cathy Maxwell (romance)
As much as Abigail loves her parents, she is not willing to marry the man they chose for her. Twice her age and thirteen children? No thank you. Luckily, she has a tidy little inheritance and has caught the eye of a man who truly needs it; Andres, the Barón de Vasconia. Andres and Abigail elope, neither one pretending emotions are involved, but both promising to try to make this a real marriage.
That is what I loved about this book. There were no (real, important) lies, neither pretended it was a love match but neither doing that romance cliche of "I love him but we decided it was a marriage of convenience only so now what do I do, woe is me". At every point, they are considerate and caring of eachother, eager to back down unselfishly if the other needed it. It is almost surprising how little these things happen in romance novels, often the plot of the book hinges on the hero being hard headed or the heroine too shy to reveal her feelings. While the passion and tension between these two was sizzling, I was mostly enthralled by the amount that the couple acted like basically decent human beings who deserved love and worked for it.
It doesn't hurt that the whole thing was swoonworthy!
Goodreads
I received free electronic galleys of these books from NetGalley. This did not bias any of my reviews in any way.
Taken by Desire by Lavinia Kent (romance)
A regency of the wealthy independent woman who ends up marrying someone due to an indiscretion variety...
Romance novels are very personal, what appeals to one reader does nothing for another, so I am always unsure of myself when reviewing them. Taken by Desire didn't have any of the plot elements or character types that I normally gravitate to, so while I give it the 3/5 stars that indicate my "finished reading it, didn't hate it, wasn't too impressed either", it very much falls into "your mileage may vary". Ms. Kent is a talented writer, but this book didn't charm me or make me swoon. I was drawn in by the beginning which had a lot of promise and then the story went where I wasn't expecting and I wasn't as excited by.
At one point, the hero acts unreasonably and comes very close to the point where I decide "hero is a jerk, dont bother reading any more" but then the hero actually begins to LISTEN to the heroine so I did finish it.
Wicked Nights With a Lover by Sophie Jordan (romance)
When Marguerite is told that she will not survive to see the next year, she decides to throw caution to the wind and live the rest of her time to the fullest. Since I loved Montogmery's The Blue Castle, I thought that this would be a new interesting take on it, but it quickly went in a different direction.
I have enjoyed Sophie Jordan's work before, I am a great rereader but few romance novels make the cut. Ms. Jordan's "One Night With You" does, unfortunately this one does not. This is a clear case of "romance novels are very personal" since the writing is good and neither the hero nor the heroine acted insanely stupid or insanely arrogant and unreasonable. I'm not a big fan of the "kidnapper" plot device. If you are a fan, then you will likely enjoy this one.
The Year Money Grew on Trees (childrens, YA)I honestly can't explain why I enjoyed this book so much other than the fact that it was engaging. Describing the book, it is a series of steps and numbers and seemingly boring repetition of tasks that are done to get the apple trees profitable. But in reality, the reader is drawn into the book and eager to see what happens next, eager to root for Jackson and his young family members. As a young reader, there's definitely something appealing in seeing children run a proper, profitable business. Looking back, I wouldn't be able to tell you what age Jackson is off of the top of my head, nor do I remember when it takes place (They listen to "Thriller" on the radio, but that was the only clue I can remember, whether of not an actual year was in the text), but I do remember enjoying this greatly.
Goodreads
And....
LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
THE BOOK I HAVE BEEN EXCITED TO RECOMMEND!!!
His Christmas Pleasure by Cathy Maxwell (romance)
As much as Abigail loves her parents, she is not willing to marry the man they chose for her. Twice her age and thirteen children? No thank you. Luckily, she has a tidy little inheritance and has caught the eye of a man who truly needs it; Andres, the Barón de Vasconia. Andres and Abigail elope, neither one pretending emotions are involved, but both promising to try to make this a real marriage.
That is what I loved about this book. There were no (real, important) lies, neither pretended it was a love match but neither doing that romance cliche of "I love him but we decided it was a marriage of convenience only so now what do I do, woe is me". At every point, they are considerate and caring of eachother, eager to back down unselfishly if the other needed it. It is almost surprising how little these things happen in romance novels, often the plot of the book hinges on the hero being hard headed or the heroine too shy to reveal her feelings. While the passion and tension between these two was sizzling, I was mostly enthralled by the amount that the couple acted like basically decent human beings who deserved love and worked for it.
It doesn't hurt that the whole thing was swoonworthy!
Goodreads
I received free electronic galleys of these books from NetGalley. This did not bias any of my reviews in any way.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Spooky Cookie time!
Why haven't I been posting in ages, you ask? WHY? Why, because all of the galleys I have been reading lately come out in December! So look for my reviews then, including one romance novel I am super excited by!
For Halloween, I baked cookies to bring to a party. First, I made the dough I wrote about before, adding dark chocolate wafers to 3/4 of the dough, and almonds and dried cranberries to the other 1/4, giving them a healthy sprinkling of fleur de sel before baking. Those are always a hit, but I also wanted to do something more in line with the holiday. I decided to do the "Finger Food" cookies found here at Nosh With Me.
They taste like a butter cookie, similar to ones I had at Christmas growing up. The dough is made of so few ingredients that these can be a last minute addition to your baking schedule. I rolled them with my hands, shaped the knuckles and scored them with a paring knife,
and took great pleasure in choosing only the most nail-like but slightly ragged almonds for the nails.
They began freaking me out almost immediately.
Although they are the same size as my finger in this picture, you should ideally make them a bit smaller, as the high butter content spreads the dough during baking.
At this point, they were making me extremely uncomfortable, and I was glad to shove them into the oven. They cook quickly, and I recommend not browning them too much, although browning some of the batches more is an easy way to make the fingers more multicultural without resorting to cocoa. After they cooled, I took a knife and some red icing and made them extra creepy.
I gave the stumps lots of icing, any fingers that had lost nails during baking got them re-glued on with icing, and splotches and blood splashes got added randomly. Channel your inner artist. Or inner serial killer.
My husband took them to his Halloween night shift in the ER, and everyone was pleased. The feedback I got back included "the nail is the best part, it looks infected with a fungus" so who knows if that counts as a compliment. At the Halloween party, several people mentioned that they looked almost too creepy to eat, so maybe this isn't the best for something like a kid's party, they are EXTREMELY realistic.
The fact that they aren't too sweet also made them great for soothing my stomach the next morning after a party where I was drinking, so, BONUS! I can also imagine that they would be great alongside coffee or hot chocolate for dipping. I may end up making these for Christmas with green blood as Elf Fingers. Or maybe I will take pity on my friends and make cookie shaped cookies.
For Halloween, I baked cookies to bring to a party. First, I made the dough I wrote about before, adding dark chocolate wafers to 3/4 of the dough, and almonds and dried cranberries to the other 1/4, giving them a healthy sprinkling of fleur de sel before baking. Those are always a hit, but I also wanted to do something more in line with the holiday. I decided to do the "Finger Food" cookies found here at Nosh With Me.
They taste like a butter cookie, similar to ones I had at Christmas growing up. The dough is made of so few ingredients that these can be a last minute addition to your baking schedule. I rolled them with my hands, shaped the knuckles and scored them with a paring knife,
and took great pleasure in choosing only the most nail-like but slightly ragged almonds for the nails.
They began freaking me out almost immediately.
Although they are the same size as my finger in this picture, you should ideally make them a bit smaller, as the high butter content spreads the dough during baking.
At this point, they were making me extremely uncomfortable, and I was glad to shove them into the oven. They cook quickly, and I recommend not browning them too much, although browning some of the batches more is an easy way to make the fingers more multicultural without resorting to cocoa. After they cooled, I took a knife and some red icing and made them extra creepy.
I gave the stumps lots of icing, any fingers that had lost nails during baking got them re-glued on with icing, and splotches and blood splashes got added randomly. Channel your inner artist. Or inner serial killer.
My husband took them to his Halloween night shift in the ER, and everyone was pleased. The feedback I got back included "the nail is the best part, it looks infected with a fungus" so who knows if that counts as a compliment. At the Halloween party, several people mentioned that they looked almost too creepy to eat, so maybe this isn't the best for something like a kid's party, they are EXTREMELY realistic.
The fact that they aren't too sweet also made them great for soothing my stomach the next morning after a party where I was drinking, so, BONUS! I can also imagine that they would be great alongside coffee or hot chocolate for dipping. I may end up making these for Christmas with green blood as Elf Fingers. Or maybe I will take pity on my friends and make cookie shaped cookies.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Book Review: Wildthorn by Jane Eagland
Wildthorn by Jane EaglandThis is a very awkward book for me to review, because I have spent a long time trying to decide what I thought of it, and I still don't know.
Louisa wants to be a doctor and an independent woman, but Victorian England won't allow her to be anything other than a delicate wife and mother. When she follows her dreams just a little bit close, she is sent to a home for the insane, and told her name is Lucy Childs. Her attempts to clear up the "confusion" only make things worse for her, after all, it seems quite crazy to deny your own name...
The longer Louisa spends in Wildthorn, the more she suspects that it is not just he lack of "womanly pursuits" that got her sent there, it may have to do with one experience with her beautiful cousin Grace...
I like Grace and Eliza and Beatrice as characters, but I had such a hard time reading about Louisa. I love when characters in books/movies/tv shows are able to rebel against society by deftly playing the games and rules of the society. Louisa most emphatically does not. Her father gave her leeway growing up, and her mother was particularly strict. This leaves me confused as to how Louisa thinks it is alright to travel alone in a third class carriage, or to jump up at a dinner party and say that she thinks women should be doctors. She has to KNOW that it is not acceptable. Her heavy hand and naive outlook drove me crazy (no pun intended).
The romance was sweet, but light, and (at least on Louisa's side) rather sudden. This book definitely fills a niche in a YA collection, but I can't completely, whole-heartedly recommend it either.
(Note: this book was made available to me for free by the publishers through NetGalley. I have made every attempt to not allow this to bias my opinion in any way.)
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Use your latent psychic ability, and the clues from this picture of my recent purchase (a 5lb bag of dark chocolate wafers, shot glass for size comparison purposes) to guess whether I will be doing a lot of baking this fall and winter.
If you are intrigued, let me tell you that my absolute favorite cookie recipe can be found at Nosh With Me, a blog that makes me want to run to my KitchenAid mixer and get baking. Every single recipe she posts gets my mouth watering. It helps that we seem to have similar taste preferences. Salty chocolate chip cookies. Salty caramel cookies. Kitchen gadgets of every sort.
I have made this chocolate chip recipe many, many times, and actually have yet to make it exactly as written. For some reason, I can easily get my hands on bread flour, but not cake flour. So I have made it with bread flour and regular flour replacing the cake and I have made it with regular flour in place of both of them. The texture was probably different, but since they weren't side by side compared but they WERE still delicious cookies, I have been happy. I have also made the same recipe but with almonds and dried cranberries instead of the chocolate.
SO yummy!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue
Room by Emma Donoghue
Very good, very intense.
Jack has lived his whole life in Room with Ma, Rug, and Walls. Sure there are trees and dogs and even Dora, but that's just in TV. Not in real life.
It's difficult for me to explain why I was drawn to this book, since it is very morbid to admit fascination with the several recent cases of capture. Still, I was intrigued by the plot of this book (a woman is kidnapped and held captive in a tiny room for seven years) and the viewpoint (the narrator is the woman's son, Jack, born in the room and not aware that there is anything more). This was everything I was looking for and more. A 5 year old narrator is a very tricky subject, but Jack's voice is perfect: naive and childlike, believable but not so childish that it is annoying to read.
The psychology of the characters is fascinating as well, we get a lot of insight into "Ma" despite the fact that the narration stays with Jack. The reader sees her frustration as well as her strength all through the eyes of her son who adores her.
Some reviews give some spoilers, and I will refrain, but if anyone reads the book and would like to discuss some of the later parts, I have a lot to say! All in all, highly recommended.
Amazon
Borders
Goodreads
Take a look at the book's beautiful website, a definite example of design done right, and tying in with the cover design.
Very good, very intense.
Jack has lived his whole life in Room with Ma, Rug, and Walls. Sure there are trees and dogs and even Dora, but that's just in TV. Not in real life.
It's difficult for me to explain why I was drawn to this book, since it is very morbid to admit fascination with the several recent cases of capture. Still, I was intrigued by the plot of this book (a woman is kidnapped and held captive in a tiny room for seven years) and the viewpoint (the narrator is the woman's son, Jack, born in the room and not aware that there is anything more). This was everything I was looking for and more. A 5 year old narrator is a very tricky subject, but Jack's voice is perfect: naive and childlike, believable but not so childish that it is annoying to read.
The psychology of the characters is fascinating as well, we get a lot of insight into "Ma" despite the fact that the narration stays with Jack. The reader sees her frustration as well as her strength all through the eyes of her son who adores her.
Some reviews give some spoilers, and I will refrain, but if anyone reads the book and would like to discuss some of the later parts, I have a lot to say! All in all, highly recommended.
Amazon
Borders
Goodreads
Take a look at the book's beautiful website, a definite example of design done right, and tying in with the cover design.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
A Proper Introduction
Now, to actually let you know something about me. My name is Laura, I more commonly go by Lars. I have my master's degree in library and information science, but I am one of the masses of un- or under-employed people who graduated around the same time as I did. While my long term goal is to be a librarian at a public library (my specialty is teen/YA), I am happy to just be able to work with books.
I have been married for just over a year to my college sweetheart, and we recently moved back to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh, where he did medical school and I did library school. I have a father, a brother, too many cats, a turtle, and a giant heartache. My mother died last month. I know it is a bit cliche, but she was my best friend. We were closer than any other mother and daughter I have ever met, and it is not an exaggeration when I say that she was my world. I am starting this blog for so many, many reasons, but I think the biggest may be that I need to remind myself of the wonderful things in this world that I love. I need to be reminded that there are still reasons for me to exist in this world.
I have always been a voracious reader, and a re-reader as well. My favorite genres tend to be YA, fantasy, romance, food writing, dystopian, and folklore retellings. Um, and everything else, too.
I have been cooking my entire life, as well. This comes from my father, we are both very instinctual cooks who smell spices and know what will go well together rather than following a recipe. I am trying to make an effort and be more disciplined with regards to recipes and writing things down so that I can learn, but it is very difficult for me for anything other than baking.
I have been knitting for two years now. It started as a personal challenge, something I saw people doing and I thought "I could never do that!" So of course I had to try. My aunt showed me how to cast on and do the knit stitch, and the internet has done the rest. Now, I can't imagine my life without knitting. I would be so bored! I get an amazing sense of accomplishment because I am able to create something, I am able to modify something, I am able to make a garment that should fit me exactly. It is wonderful.
I have tried blogging before, and always ran out of steam before very long. I am too impatient to be a very good writer, but this will be a creative exercise. Editing is not very natural for me, and I know I desperately need it. Hopefully, I will improve with experience.
I have been married for just over a year to my college sweetheart, and we recently moved back to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh, where he did medical school and I did library school. I have a father, a brother, too many cats, a turtle, and a giant heartache. My mother died last month. I know it is a bit cliche, but she was my best friend. We were closer than any other mother and daughter I have ever met, and it is not an exaggeration when I say that she was my world. I am starting this blog for so many, many reasons, but I think the biggest may be that I need to remind myself of the wonderful things in this world that I love. I need to be reminded that there are still reasons for me to exist in this world.
I have always been a voracious reader, and a re-reader as well. My favorite genres tend to be YA, fantasy, romance, food writing, dystopian, and folklore retellings. Um, and everything else, too.
I have been cooking my entire life, as well. This comes from my father, we are both very instinctual cooks who smell spices and know what will go well together rather than following a recipe. I am trying to make an effort and be more disciplined with regards to recipes and writing things down so that I can learn, but it is very difficult for me for anything other than baking.
I have been knitting for two years now. It started as a personal challenge, something I saw people doing and I thought "I could never do that!" So of course I had to try. My aunt showed me how to cast on and do the knit stitch, and the internet has done the rest. Now, I can't imagine my life without knitting. I would be so bored! I get an amazing sense of accomplishment because I am able to create something, I am able to modify something, I am able to make a garment that should fit me exactly. It is wonderful.
I have tried blogging before, and always ran out of steam before very long. I am too impatient to be a very good writer, but this will be a creative exercise. Editing is not very natural for me, and I know I desperately need it. Hopefully, I will improve with experience.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Hello There
I have always had passion in life. It seems to be a silly thing to say, it seems that everyone should have passion, but honestly, they don't. And it seems that these days, passion is frowned upon. People my age should only be enjoying life ironically, should frown upon being excited about things. Enjoyment in general, is viewed as childlike or base.
I wanted to begin this blog describing why I am passionate about the things I am passionate about: books, food, knitting, cooking, family. Instead, I return to the emotion that drives me to create this blog in the first place. I am eager and passionate to share my love of life with anyone who might care to read. Today is September 24, 2010, and I want to make you smile. I want to make you believe that life is wonderful . I want to spin you a thrilling yarn.
I wanted to begin this blog describing why I am passionate about the things I am passionate about: books, food, knitting, cooking, family. Instead, I return to the emotion that drives me to create this blog in the first place. I am eager and passionate to share my love of life with anyone who might care to read. Today is September 24, 2010, and I want to make you smile. I want to make you believe that life is wonderful . I want to spin you a thrilling yarn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)