Book & Baking Blog Entry 42

So, I've been feeling frugal and rereading a lot of books, or should I call them texts?  They are mostly on Kindle.  Not my point.  I get new items each month via audio and this is my only guaranteed source of new material.  It's weird how books aren't books.  And if they're audio are they texts?  Hmmmm. Stories (only my husband doesn't like that word because it makes him think of old ladies watching soap operas...)

So, anyway.  I have been reading/listening to a new story called, A Pointed Death.  The author is Kath Russell.  It's not bad.  It's about a biotech consultant in San Francisco.  Her plot is OK, while not compelling it is basically keeping my interest.  But here's the kicker:  The heroine is is 40-something (which actually works for me considering how successful she is--I get a little tired of the 28 year old who has done it all and worked in the field for 10 years and has 50 published papers and a Nobel Prize) and her 2nd serious boyfriend was shot down and died in Vietnam.  They had planned on marrying. 

Seriously?  So she was 10 and engaged to a soldier.  What kind of parenting did she have?  Even assuming that she is closer to 50 than 40 she might have been 15 in 1975.  And, according to the story her biological clock is still ticking, so I would assume that she's closer to 40. 

So then I thought, hmmmmm, maybe this book was written 10 years ago.  I didn't really think so because our intrepid herione (who manages to get into a number of secured offices and copy files) uses a thumb drive.  I'm sure that they were around 10 years ago, but I don't think they were in common use.  None the less, I look up the publication date: 2010.  Yep.  She's my age.  Maybe a little older.  Now, I had friends whose dads were in Vietnam.  But to have a boyfriend who died there, I'm wondering how precocious this child was?!

Well, I haven't finished the book yet.  So far it's not bad.  But I really had to get the bad taste of this age issue out of my head and share it.

No great pastries lately...I wish.

Good eating and good reading.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 30

Wow, I had an entire blog written about butter and using it in baking.  When and why and why not and what the experts say.  As much as I love butter (and given a chance I would put it on bacon and do put it on about anything including toast with schoko-moo) I decided that it was probably even more lame than any of the other blogs, many of which are lame. 

So, I decided to go back to writing about books and murder.  I am going through a time where I am trying desperately not to buy digital books at jacked-up prices.  For those who haven't heard my rant, check out earlier blog entries.  So, because of this I have begun to read a large number of "classic" novels that are available on Amazon for free or .99 cents. 

I recently finished one of these classic thrillers, Murder at Bridge by Anne Austin.  Murder at Bridge was "Set up and electrotyped" in 1931.  And brilliantly so.  It's been a long time since I've received such pleasure from a novel.  Not a lot of suspense as we expect from a modern novel, but truly an enjoyable read.  So much so I might try to find her other novel (only one?)  It reads like film noir.  The dialogue is a bit campy or kitschy but must have been very edgy for its time.  The characters behave in manners that would be considered dysfunction and bizarre in the extreme today. 

It's great to have a chance to return to world where a nice young woman can be [SPOILER ALERT ] can just feel better about life after her father, who abandoned wife and family leaving little to live on so that he could run off with an actress, returns and agrees to take her mother back...very generous.  And of course, mom is grateful.  Yet, in the context of the time it contributed to a very happy ending. 

I wasn't going to write about Murder at Bridge; as I noted before I was going to write about butter.  Then I began to read, Blind Spot by Nancy Bush.  Now, this is not a bad book.  Well, maybe it is.  Maybe you'll hear about how trite and insanely stupid the beginning is in my next blog....OK it is kind of but I'm trying to move through it.  But by realizing that I'm working hard to get through what must be Act One of this stupidly crappy novel, I also realized what under-valued books there are available by authors who are little known and deserve some recognition for their work.  It's a product of its time. 

No, Murder at Bridge is not a world/life changing novel.  No one will be redeemed by reading it.  Not one child will be saved and not one life turned from bad to good.  It will not fight poverty, pestilence, or even cancer.  What it did do was give me some honest moments of  pleasure.  Thank you Anne Austin.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 26

Crush: The Final Moments

I have to say that I wrote my last blog believing that Jacobson's Crush  really had no further hilarity to be shared.  I wrote the blog without the true badness that the ending brought to me.  How bad?  Bad bad.

I don't think that there can be a spoiler.  We have some real fun as the book winds down.  A character introduced about 1/2 to 2/3 through the book ends up being our killer.  Of course he was hitting on (successfully) our local hottie cop.  What's amazing is that the FBI agent had the entire department chasing a number of others, jumping from one theory to the next with wild abandon.  Two of these suspects were police themselves.  She totally ignores the one cop who is acting suspiciously which is telegraphed in a heavy handed way.  Can I say again that I hope that the FBI are not quite so arrogant or ineffective as Agent Vail.  And how embarrassing for the FBI mentioned in the acknowledgements.  Really, did you LIKE the character?  Seriously?

So, Vail gets a number of people killed, only finds the killer because he tries to kill the cop that he's hitting on when she gets the call with his name given to her by a microsoft tech!  (Thumbs up to Microsoft--the true hero of this tale.)   Vail follows up her fiasco of a manhunt with an embarrassingly amateurish interview.  Was it supposed to seem like she even knew what she was doing?  AND since when do you really just send one very tired cop in to question such an important suspect.  It's also funny that Napa Valley still has no idea that there was a serial killer in their midst.

So, to end this the suspect just tells our "heroine" that she just doesn't get and probably never will and he knows that this will make her crazy (which she acknowledges to herself is the truth--why not just walk away from this nut-job?), her boyfriend has disappeared, and our actual suspicious cop has been somehow secretly working with the killer because his wife and son were threatened.  THE END. 

So, no ACTUAL payoff at all.  Except hours wasted.  I wish I read faster.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 24

I just finished reading The Last Apprentice: Rise of the Huntress.  Actually, I didn't read it, I listened to it.  It's one of the series that I've only listened to.


Side note:  If you are used to listening to an author and switch to an acutual book you may be surprised at how different the narrative seems.  I listened to all of the Harry Potter series (yes, loved 'em) prior to actually reading one of the books.  Wow, what a difference. The narrator, Jim Dale, is so extraordinary and talented at giving the characters a true voice I couldn't compete with that in my own head.   And I've always read JD Robb but had the chance to listen to one of her books from audible and almost hated it.  Again, the narrator made the difference.  She had this horrible, faux Irish accent for the heroines hottie of a super-wealthy and smart husband.  Made him sound stupid.  Certainly not foreign and sexy...Oh well, you lose a few.


Back to Rise of the Huntress:


The Last Apprentice series is by Joseph Delaney.  It was a recommendation from audible.com when I typed in Harry Potter.  The books are a bit dark and gruesome and clearly written for a tween/teen audience.  That wouldn't stop me from reading it and overall I've enjoyed the series.


The series is about a boy of about 11 who is the 7th son of a 7th son.  His mother's "gift to the county."  As one might surmise he is apprenticed to a Spook, Mr. Gregory (also the 7th son of a 7th son.)  A spook, in Delaney's world, is a man who keeps the county safe from boggarts, and witches, and other things that go bump in the night.  A spook can sense evil and see ghosts and other paranormal stuff.  It is considered the norm in Tom's world that these things exist. 


This is Delaney's 7th(?) outing with Tom, the Spook, and Alice (the former witch-in-training who didn't really want to be a witch at all.)  I enjoyed it even more than some of the earlier books and may go back to rereead them.  Tom, Mr. Gregory, and Alice are forced to flee the county with other refugees due to a war "they" are losing.  Homes & fields have been burned and things are so bad that even the witches have fled.  Including several witches that Gregory had penned up in his garden.  As this is a later outing you need to read earlier books to understand WHY it's ok to have witches in pits in your garden. So they end up on an island and the inevitable fight between good and evil ensues.

Despite my flippant choice of words I do like this sereies.  I'm not sure why.   But what's really funny is that Alice isn't our heroine.  SPOILER ALERT. Alice, as per usual, has to rescue Tom, Mr Gregory, and everyone else and then gets referred to as "girl" and despised as a witch.  OK, maybe not despised as a witch, we are clear that she is NOT a witch.   Still What is Gregory's problem?!  Seriously, this chick has done his bidding and helped save his and Tom's lives through any number of adventures and what thanks does she get? Zip.  Nothing.  He even wants to leave her behind in the final push to rid the island of its monster.  Tom always acknowledges Alice's help and support and he does always stand up for her to Gregory. 

I guess I'm kind of curious as to the motivation of the author in not having ANY relenting of the initial hard-feelings that he had against Alice in book 1.  I mean, seriously, what does this kid have to do.  Kill her own mother?

Anyway, a fun outing.  It is a book for younger readers, but still a bit of fun for adults.  I wish someone else would read this series so that I could find out if I'm just over thinking it.

Happy Reading!

PS: heading into baking season.  YIPPEE!  I spent the afternoon with a friend and 2 3-year-olds cutting out pumpkin & ghost cookies.  It's the best mess ever.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 20

BIG SPOILER ALERT on GHOST SHADOW.

Well, you never know what you're going to like and what you're not going to like.  That's abundantly clear when sifting through the books on my iPod and kindle.  The beauty of the kindle, as noted again and again, is that Amazon does offer books for free. You can try authors, usually not good, for free and then they hope that you'll purchase more.

Audible is a great service.  I've had it for at least 5 years and I love it.  I love having audio books when driving, riding my bike, and doing housework (really if anything can make housework better...)  My difficulty is that, since I have a subscription I will purchase books that I may or may not like.  Sometimes it's a little like roulette (Russian style.)  Sometimes it's the narrator--authors, by the way, should NEVER narrate their own books.  Sometimes it's the story.  And sometimes it's both.

I've learned to listen to samples so that I don't get the narrator from hell any longer.  The stories are a bit more difficult to predict.  I j ust finished Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham.   Now Graham is known for trite romances, at lea st that's how I know her.  She has had a few (and far between) mysteries.  And so I spent my monthly credit on Ghost Shadow.

Ghost Shadow was not the worst book that I ever read/listened to.  There are books that I have just given up on.  This had a basic plot where the heroine is gorgeous, brilliant, and incredible business woman, and the friendliest little chikadee in Key West.  She sees ghosts.  She never mentions this to anyone because  her brother warned her, when she was 6, that people would think that she was crazy. We hear this story at least 3 times in the course of the story.  So, of course, she never mentioned it again and just went on with her life.  OK.  It sounds a little incredible to me.  If she can see ghosts can't someone else?  Anyone else?  PUHLEEZE. 

The killer killed 10 years prior to our current story and completely and ineffectually tried to frame the trampy dead girl's ex-fiancee.  Well, now, the ex-fiancee has returned and he and our heroine fall in love (lust, have sex--but we're supposed to believe love.)  So the killer decides he has to kill the heroine.  But first, a couple of practices this time.

Oh, and the MacGuffin is that, initially our heroine, our karaoke business woman, wants to purchase the hero's family's museum where the ex-fiance had been posed after her murder. 

The entire plot is so contrived that the mystery is  why bother with the faux attempt at original prose.

REALLY SUPER SPOILER ALERT
Why did they start with a focus on reopening the museum?
Why really did the killer kill the extra people?
Frankly, why would a killer really try to murdera bunch of people to frame a guy just because the guy's great great great great great grandfather made certain that the killer's great great great great grandfather was hanged for a crime that he committed?  Seriously, this was our denoument!

THIS was why this guy randomly decides to kill.  And why choose that ONE guy out of all the huge number of family that our hero purportedly has.  Why not kill our hero directly.

And you'd think that the chief of police could provide a better frame.

Oh yeah.  

Despite the flaws, I listened to the entire book.  And as I've said before, it's probably better than anything that I could write.

Happy Reading!

Book & Baking Blog Entry 19

Wow, I should really tell a little bit more about my recent baking experiences, but other than some cookies for a bake sale the pastries have been few and far between. I think I'm putting on weight. Gosh, I really love cookies.

So, it's back to books.

As I like to go on about, ad nauseum, the kindle has some great benefits including free books. The free books do tend to be either "you get what you pay for" or "beyond copyright" books. I wrote about A Woman Named Smith. This was a classic, Gothic novel. It was fun and seemed a bit out of the ordinary for the genre.

This week I read a modern mystery that was free (hmmmm....or was it 0.99?) Divorced, Desperate and Dating is truly a book that I got what I paid for. I did manage to read the entire book, which puts it above a number of other books that I have received from Amazon.

The plot of the book was pretty basic: Wildly successful woman has thing for cop that she kissed once and he (normally a promiscuous jerk) is of course really in love with her. Someone is trying to kill her and comedy ensues. Only, I don't think it's supposed to be comedy. And it's not comedy in any sense that Christie Craig (the author) intended.

At least it was entertaining and I didn't feel that I had to delete it or to have a hot shower to wipe the smut off of me.

Criticism 1: I would say that referring to a penis as a Jimmy Dean is, at best, sophomoric and at worst, crude and kind of gross. Especially when following it up with a meat grinder comment. There were a lot of junior high moments comparable to this one.

Criticism 2: The sex scenes were more gross than erotic as well. In fairness, I do not like to read sex scenes. I think that if I want to know about the gymnastics that happen in ANYONE else's bedroom, real or fiction, I'll pick up some soft-core porn magazine and really focus on it. I don't need to know all of the body fluids swapped by our main characters.

Criticism 3: In a mystery, once it's solved please head for the exit. Do not dally amongst more sex, counting condoms, and crappy emotional scenes that the heroine has alone and/or with her "best" friends.

While not horrific, I don't think that I'd pay for this one. You can get better sex and better mysteries elsewhere.

In fairness, Craig writes better than I do, and she's a published author. There are worse books.

Happy Reading!

Book & Baking Blog Entry 11

Back to murder.

REMINDER: THERE MAY BE UNINTENTIONAL SPOILERS (especially since I'm discussing the first 6 of a series...)

First, have I mentioned my love of the audiobook? I am an audiobook fan from the time we called them "books on tape." I had my first in the early '90s. Yes. I'm old and I prefer books to music, scandalous. I used to spend a lot of time traveling for work. I love listening to a book and driving. Now that I have an iPod I use audible. I can't recommend it enough. You can buy books a la carte or you can buy a subscription. I have "read" 228 books via my iPods (I had to replace a broken one) since 2005. I am dedicated.

I've been reading a series of British murder mysteries by Deborah Crombie. I really like them. They are great if you don't want a lot of gore and enjoy a bit of personal story without it being all about the relationship. Duncan Kincaid and Jemma James are our hero/heroine cops. They begin as colleagues and end up as a couple. This is not a love/hate fight fight fight relationship. I like that it develops naturally with some angst over professional concerns but not too much. There is a nice blend of the actual murder plot with the relatioship. These are nice people, with normal relatioships, normal issues working together.

Another plus with this book is that there aren't sex scenes. At least none that come to mind, and I probably would remember. I don't care to listen to sex scenes. When actually reading I skip those pages. Yes. I do. And listening is even worse. It's a bit creepy and voyeuristic.

I've read:

Necessary as Blood
Kissed a Sad Goodbye
Dreaming of the Bones
A Finer End
Leave the Grave Green
Mourn Not Your Dead

For those who really like to read a series in order, I didn't. It didn't make a huge difference to me as any good writer can give you the information you need about the past relationship without spoiling earlier books.

My biggest criticism of Crombie is that the story does sometimes lag a bit. Not so much that I didn't read 6 of her novels, but this might be a better read in print for that reason.

Maybe next blog I'll discuss when I buy an audiobook vs a print (Kindle) edition. It's quite important. Also coming: my next cake!

Happy Murder & Good reading.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 8

I just finished rereading (or actually listening on my ipod) In the Woods. I like her storytelling. It's all about the characters. I recently read The Likeness and decided to go back and reread/listen to this one.

French does a great job with a story and bringing deeply flawed characters from one novel to another. I do think that she lingers a little long in parts, but perhaps if I weren't too lazy to actually read rather than listen it wouldn't seem so drawn out. I liked In the Woods better than The Likeness. The Likeness went a little too far outside its world.

I would highly recommend both of these books. Not too graphic, in general and some good funky characters.

NOTE: I am a firm believer that an author/writer can create his/her own world where things happen that would not happen in the "real" world. I respect that it's a story and I'm paying for the fun of someone else's imagination so I don't have to do it myself.

I will often refer to this in terms of Angel World. A favorite metaphor of my husband where Charlie's Angels have perfect hair & makeup, no mud after fights in the dirt and can strip out of evening gowns that are hiding neck to toe wet suits--it's Angel World and that's the way it rolls.

This isn't a free-for-all for authors to make up anything that they want. There must be internal logic. I will point out when I believe that an author is just writing crap to write it and not really working within their own world.

Good reading.

P.S. the bear cake is the 2nd that I created for my daughter's birthday parties. She chose the eye color. In the last week--4 cake recipes and 2 sugar cookies batches. Tune in to find out how the great personalized cookie caper goes....

Book & Baking Blog Entry 2

Wow, I read a lot. I usually am reading a book on my Kindle as well as listening to one on my iPod. I also am reading to my toddler regularly.

Let’s talk about my reading style. I love my Kindle. It’s important that I be able to hold my book while riding an exercise bike. Stupid, maybe, but it works for me and I’ve managed to enter middle age with a certain amount of grace. And yes, I think of my reading style in physical terms.

Have I mentioned the murder? Yes. That’s what I read. Almost exclusively murder mysteries. I prefer them without sex, but try to find one that’s not going for the cross-over romance fan. In fairness, I LOVED romance novels as a teen/young adult. I am old now, understand how sex works, and am a bit perplexed at the need for romance novels to romanticize it...hmmmm. OK. I won’t be blogging about my own personal details and I won't be reliving sex scenes in books for you. Find your own.

If you love literature, I’m not the book reviewer for you. Stick to my baking comments. Have I mentioned how much I love a pastry while reading? YUM!

So. Now you’ve got the book introduction…