Healthy Speedy Suppers by Katriona MacGregor

by Carol3 Comments
I work and there are days when I get home at 5:05 and we need to have eaten and be out the door for art class by 5:50. I need speedy suppers, which is why I was so excited to see this book. It sounds perfect- healthy, quick, real ingredients, but overall I was disappointed. First, I didn't need the first section. I'm actually a little tired of having cookbooks tell me what essentials to stock my shelves: give me the recipes, I can figure out what I actually want to keep in my cupboards and what pans I need. I liked the variety of recipes and that most used common ingredients, even if she didn't call them what I do, like courgettes=zucchini. There were several my daughter was never going to try, but I'll run into that with just about any cookbook. I also thought the use of photos was good. It's full of pictures of the recipes, but the cover doesn't...
Read More

The Janus Affair by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

by Carol7 Comments
First off, The Janus Affair overall was better than the first in the series for me. I liked the suffragette connection and I thought the gadgets and machines were cooler this time around. It's a funner book. Braun and Books are a great team. I enjoy their interactions. They are both witty and have wonderful comebacks and one-liners. They make me smile. There's some sexual tension, but the romance touches don't overpower the story. However, the introduction of Eliza's old flame leads to one of my quibbles. While his presence pushed Books to look a little more at his feelings for Eliza, I could have done without him. I almost quit partway through. There were two male secondary characters, one being Eliza's old friend and the other a fellow Ministry worker, who I just didn't enjoy. They were jerks, and not integral enough to the story to make up for the amount of time spent on them. I really just strongly disliked...
Read More

“B” Is for Bad Girls by Rebecca Cantrell and Sean Black

by Carol1 Comment
"B" Is for Bad Girls is #2 in the series, but can definitely be read as a stand-alone. It's short, funny and has a good mystery. Sofia is a great lead character. She's new to the detective business, although she played one on tv— literally, she quit acting to become a detective. The paparazzi is still happy to get pictures of her in awkward situations though, like peeing in public or coming out of a rehab facility for example. Part of what makes it fun is that her semi-celebrity status in Malibu lets us meet other celebrities, like the bad girls at the rehab center where she is undercover. Well, not really undercover, since she's still being herself, just pretending to be a drug addict, which she is not. It's neat to have the entertainment industry in the background of the series. Sofia is a riot she has a great sense of humor about herself and about life. Her friends and...
Read More

Buried Threads by Kaylin McFarren

by Carol5 Comments
I'm sorry. I had to give up on this one half-way through, and it took me a month to get that far. I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about the characters and found the plot a little confusing. They were going on a dive to find swords but yakuza were somehow involved and there was a monk who I think was good guy but was in love with a giesha who ended up "owned" by another man. Then that guy ended up dead and I quit reading. It just wasn't for me....
Read More

Arena by Holly Jennings

by Carol3 Comments
If you're here for the A to Z Challenge, scroll down to the next post. Thanks! Arena is totally outside of my usual reading zone. It's YA and science fiction- neither of which I read. I'm not even much of a video game player, but something about the description grabbed my attention, maybe the hint of  "dark secrets" or just the quote in the blurb: She’s died hundreds of times. And it never gets easier... Whatever the reason, I picked it up, and wow, am I glad I did. It's not a perfect book, but I really enjoyed it. The Rage tournament is a virtual gaming event, kinda of like capture the flag, expect each team has a tower they're defending. It's televised each week and is really violent and graphic. The gamers are truly athletes, they have to train in real life to be able to do all the figthing in the virtual world. They are celebrities, catered to but also tied to their...
Read More

Arcadia by Iain Pears

by Carol4 Comments
First a note on the title, since I'd heard of "Arcadia" but really had no clear knowledge about what it was. And it's not actually mentioned in the book, I don't think. Arcadia is a mountainous, landlocked region of Greece. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. The Roman poet Virgil recognized that Arcadia's isolation and bucolic character make it a perfect setting for pastoral poetry. Now English speakers often use arcadia to designate a place of rustic innocence and simple, quiet pleasure. Arcadian can mean "idyllically pastoral" or "idyllically innocent, simple, or untroubled." Anterworld is our would-be Arcadia, the land Rosie, from the blurb, enters into. Why did I pick up Arcadia? It embraces things I usually avoid - mainly time-travel, but also science fiction and dystopian and post-apocalyptic societies. Now spies, cheesy romance and fantasy I'm all for. Yes, it does manage to smash all of those together. I also tend to not like audiobooks with two narrators. I...
Read More