The other night I was faced with the dilemma of what to have for dinner. It was a rare occasion that Joe would’t be there, and on those nights I like to be spontaneous about what I eat. I thought pasta sounded good, but I didn’t want something with cream and I didn’t feel like any sort of tomato sauce. Once I thought of my mom’s macaroni salad recipe I knew I wanted a variation of that. I sized the…
First came The Little French Guesthouse, then came Return to the Little French Guesthouse! It begins a few days after Emmy’s return to La Coeur des Roses, the villa she had accepted the role of manager for. She has quite a learning curve since the person doing much of her job before her left abruptly and she has never worked in the hospitality industry before. Despite the dialogue that left much to be desired, I couldn’t stop reading once I started….
Garden Spells Garden Spells is a magical story about a small town in North Carolina. Sydney is back after 10 years of being away. She surprises her sister, Claire, not only by returning to get back on her feet but by also bringing her daughter, Bay. Claire still lives in the Waverly family house, keeps to herself, and works magic in the kitchen, literally. Evanelle is overwhelmed with desires to give items to people that they will somehow need in the…
Back in April I went on a work trip to Wisconsin and Illinois for the 10-year-anniversary of the company I work for. I never thought I would ever have a job that I would get to travel with and while my job, per se, doesn’t involve travel, the company is based in Wisconsin and I work in a satellite office. I flew out there for a week of training and I went again in April. It looks like I’ll be…
5 Pinterest recipes that have made it into our rotation: 1. Chicken Fricassee. In the middle of a bite the first time I made this, Joe asked me to make it again. I’ve probably made it 4 or 5 times now and we can’t get enough. I’ve taken to calling it “Freaky Chicken” due to the funny name and Nora going wild after having a bite of the chicken. 2. Jean-François Piège’s Childhood Cake. The first time I made this I ended up…
Selene is 26, a witch, and the owner of a yoga studio. One day a man shows up that not everyone can see. It turns out that she is a half-elf and she doesn’t have any of her memories from before she “became human.” She is drawn back into the fae world to try to settle a disturbance between the Elf King and his people. But what is she forgetting? She tries to remember while the son of the Elf…
Pancakes in Paris is a memoir covering Craig’s childhood (briefly), college years, coming out, and beyond. His original goal was to make a career in the film industry, which he does for a while before realizing his dream of opening an American breakfast diner in Paris. We follow his ups and downs in trying to get investors for Breakfast in America, he rights to use the name, finding the perfect location for the first restaurant, troubles of the renovation, and…
Arabella of Mars takes place on a colonized Mars in the 1800s and in London, England, on Earth. After her mother forces her to leave her father and brother on Mars and move back to London, Arabella finds herself on an urgent journey back to Mars to save her brother. Since she must get there as soon as possible, she finds herself disguised as a boy and brought aboard a ship as the Captain’s boy to help him with the…
Bounty follows Nina and Georgie, two bounty hunters who were formally at the top of their game as most-wanted criminals but had to virtually erase their existence in order to keep sensitive files out of the wrong hands. True to the sci-fi genre, issue 1 jumps right into the scene where they fall from the top. In Bounty we still get Wiebe’s sassy writing, a la Rat Queens, but it is now inclusive to wider range of readers. Mindy Lee…
Southern Spirits covers “four hundred years of drinking in the American South,” and it doesn’t miss one detail! This is a really interesting book with lots and lots of historical facts, but it feels more like a textbook than a relaxing read. It takes us from first landing in America in the 1500’s though colonization, the Revolutionary War, Civil War, prohibition, and on into the later 1900’s. Not only do we learn about crops to make wine, beer, and spirits,…