Pros: Very simple, delicious recipes that will encourage you to make use of seasonal, local foods
Cons: Make very sure to read a recipe fully before starting
Rating: 4 out of 5
Review book (published 20011) provided by Random House.
Andrea Reusing’s Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes
Pros: Great witty, spicy chemistry between the hero and heroine.
Cons: The plot left me feeling like I’d read it in several other books.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Nick McCall, an FBI agent, is after a money launderer for the mob. His problem is that the only way to get close enough to collar the crook is through Jordan Rhodes. She’s the daughter of a billionaire, with a wine shop that caters to society’s upper crust. The only reason she agrees to help Nick is to get her brother out of prison. The two of them pose as a couple to give Nick an opportunity to complete his mission, but as business starts to turn personal things between them start to heat up.
Pros: Some pieces of interesting plots in here
Cons: Not sure where to start…
Rating: 1 out of 5
This is a review of the Kindle e-book version (there is also a paperback available).
The official description of the book on Amazon is, in this case, probably better than I could do. If I tried to write one I’d have several false starts and end up with a messy, jumbled accounting. So, here’s the official take on the plot: “A virus engineered for genocide has been released in Colorado Springs, leading to mass, and seemingly unexplained violence. Some of the survivors of the infection begin to evolve into something that is both less than and more than human. The race is on to prevent world-wide release of the virus.”
I have a total weakness for bio-thrillers for some reason, maybe because the idea of a virus threatening humanity seems all-too-possible these days. The reviews of this one looked decent at the time that I picked it up, so I thought I’d end up with something at least somewhat enjoyable. Unfortunately, I didn’t.
Pros: Intense, dark, and gripping! Surprisingly coherent if you haven’t read earlier books
Cons: Definitely some dark adult material in here—not for everyone
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Nika’s psychic bond with her missing younger sister is fading, meaning she’s running out of time to locate and rescue Tori. She’s the only one who believes her sister is still alive, and since she’s still recovering from madness (and a psychic connection to the vicious Synestryn), proving she’s right and finding Tori is no simple matter.
Madoc swore he’d never allow himself near Nika again. His soul is dying, held up by a sliver of fading magic, and the darkness inside consumes him. He wants Nika entirely too much, and doesn’t want to expose her to the things he’s capable of when he loses control. Especially since it’s clear that even though he’s the only one who can touch her without harming her, he isn’t destined to be bound to her. When Nika bulls her way into his life and insists he help her find Tori, however, her particular brand of hard-headedness becomes more and more difficult to resist.
Pros: Lovely, emotional, gripping, tense; helps to have read earlier books, but readable if you haven’t
Cons: Helps to have read earlier books; would have liked to see Dominic and Nessa interact directly a bit more; wanted to shake Nessa a bit much toward the end
Rating: 4 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Ever since the witch Nessa “died,” she’s been living in someone else’s body—someone who’s definitely not happy about being a ghost in her own head. It doesn’t help that Nessa has given up on life, and the previous resident of her body, Morgan, is perfectly happy to help push her over the edge. She’s having dreams of a mystery lover, but she still hasn’t gotten over the loss of her beloved Elias more than 500 years earlier. He said he’d come back for her, but she’s finally giving up.
Dominic is a vampire who’s had strange dreams of late—dreams of a mystery woman who distracts him when he can least afford it. He thinks he’s going insane, and is sent to Excelsior, the Hunter training facility, to be evaluated and hopefully helped. There he senses a very familiar presence, one that he’s determined to track down at all costs.
Nessa and Dominic each find themselves in their own very dangerous positions, their minds fractured and untrustworthy. It’s hard to imagine how they’ll save themselves, much less track down and save each other.
Pros: Lovely characters; unusual world; interesting ongoing plot; stands alone well; sizzling-hot sex
Cons: Helps if you keep up with the series; Indigo’s stubbornness gets a tad frustrating, even if it is understandable
Rating: 4 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Drew Kincaid is the tracker for the SnowDancer pack, outside the traditional pack structure. Despite his charming and playful exterior, he’s the one wolf tough enough to track down changelings who have lost control to their animals, and kill them if necessary. He’s used to facing tough problems—but when he finds himself fighting for the love of one lieutenant Indigo Riviere, he has no idea where to even start. Somehow he keeps doing the wrong things, pushing her away instead of drawing her close.
Indigo is the highest-ranking female in the pack, a dominant alpha who needs an equal to challenge her. Unfortunately, Drew doesn’t exactly have a status that’s easy to pin down, and she’s seen what happens when someone like her ends up with a dominant male of slightly lower stature. There’s no way she’s going to let that happen, particularly if it would mean destroying the friendship she and Drew share. But no matter how hard she tries, she keeps being drawn to the sweet, handsome, fiery man.
Indigo and Drew won’t be given a nice, quiet time in which to figure things out, either. The Council is up to no good as usual, planning something that intrudes upon pack territory; it’s going to take the combined resources of the cats and the wolves to figure it out and hopefully keep everyone safe.
Pros: Funny, touching, sobering, thoughtful, inventive, delightful!
Cons: Make sure it’s the kind of zombie novel you’re looking for!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Angel Crawford is a pill-popping, beer-swilling, high school dropout who lives with her alcoholic dad and can’t keep a job to save her life. She even managed to blunder her way into a criminal record. In short, she’s a loser—and she knows it. Then one day she wakes up in the ER after an apparent overdose, even though she’s sure she remembers being in some sort of accident. She receives an anonymous letter telling her she has a job waiting for her at the county morgue, and that if she screws it up before a month is out, she’ll end up in jail.
She’s determined to make that month work, but it certainly isn’t easy. One of her co-workers is an arrogant jerk, but that’s nothing next to the fact that she seems to be developing an overpowering craving for brains! Add in a bunch of headless corpses courtesy of an apparent serial killer—just when she’s hungriest, naturally—and Angel’s going to have to think fast if she wants to keep her job, keep her new lease on life, and maybe, just maybe, catch the eye of that cute deputy she likes!
Pros: Fantastic repository of knowledge, information, how-to’s, and delicious recipes
Cons: I imagine it would be a bit tough to learn to butcher from images and descriptions alone
Rating: 5 out of 5
Review book (published 20011) provided by Random House.
Joshua and Jessica Applestone opened Fleisher’s, an old-fashioned butcher shop with a modern purpose in mind: they wanted to source only pasture-raised, local animals that had been fed a natural diet and had been treated well. Many people told them they’d never be able to make it work, and yet they did—largely by educating people on the differences between factory-farmed and well-raised meats, and by returning to a neighborhood, customer-oriented style of business. They weren’t afraid to tell people that the fact that they ran out of a specific meat was a good sign, one that meant they weren’t sourcing indiscriminately or throwing away less popular cuts. They weren’t afraid to reject a supplier if they found out something wasn’t right with an animal. They also weren’t afraid to show people how to make great food on a decent budget despite the additional expense in sourcing well-raised animals.
Pros: Readers who wanted something different from the last story have gotten their wish!
Cons: Readers who want clear scientific basis/explanations of events are going to be rather disappointed.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group
Queen Victoria has found herself in a bit of a situation. A stone with unique properties has gone missing, and she’s desperate to get it back before its absence is noticed. She calls upon Ivy Sutherland to reclaim it. Ivy finds herself rechristened Ned Ivers, beginning science student at Oxford. It’s the perfect way to get to know Simon de Burgh, the Marquess of Harrow, who is rumored to be in possession of the stone. She’s going to have to find a way to work her way into his confidence, and even if she does he can’t find out the truth about her or her mission. Yet the closer that Ivy gets to the truth, the more danger she finds herself in. Will she be able to recover the stone for Victoria?
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