Monday, March 23, 2015

Book 14

Book 14:  When the Marquess Met His Match:  An American Heiress in London by Laura Lee Guhrke

I  did not loooove this book, but it was a fun way to while the time between loads of laundry.  The hero is kind of  a big baby with his Daddy issues and his lack of funds.  The heroine is a matchmaker who specializes in helping American heiresses trade huge dowries for titled marriages.  Her own marriage was a rather sad affair, but at least her husband had the courtesy to die.  She sort of throws herself on the grenade here to keep the hero from chasing a really sweet girl who deserves better than the utter rake and despoiler she initially believes the hero to be.

Without being too spoilery, didn't I just read another historical that prominently featured beer brewing?  Is that the new thing in historicals?  Are hops really that sexy?


***pause for light googling****

I did! A Hellion In Her Bed by Sabrina Jeffries features a rival brewer and brewster! And relatives holding the purse strings over the hero's head.

I think I read, maybe a couple years ago, yet another historical where the hero from penniless nobility married an heiress whose father was a brewer.



Book 12.5 and 13

Book 12.5  and 13. . how can that be?

Chloe Neill  wrote a novella for the Chicagoland Vampire series.  Goodreads now shows me as ahead of schedule on my goal of 60 books for the year.  I don't feel right about counting Lucky Break as an entire book.

Lucky Break is a pretty quick read.  Merit and Ethan are trying to have a romantic weekend away from the turmoil of all that supernatural bullshit they deal with.  However, if they wanted that REALLY, I question whether or not they would go stay in the rustic guest cottage of a shape shifter.  Naturally, there is drama before they even can get unpacked.  The shifter husband of their vampire friend has turned up dead thanks to a hard blow to the head.  Merit and Ethan get involved, along with the packleader for the midwest, who is featured in other installments of the series.  The death is part of a longterm feud in the area between rogue vamps and a loosely organized pack of shifters.  There are spoilers for the previous installment in this novella, so best to read it all in order.

Dark Debt is the following, full length installment in the series.  Ethan is just about to settle into his new role in the not very exciting world of vampire politics when his maker, Balthasar, leaves him a menacing note.  But! But!  He's supposed to be dead!  The super powerful vampire has strong powers over glamoring, and he's pissed that Ethan left him for dead centuries ago.  At the same time, Merit's human father calls in a favor so that Merit and Ethan will meet up with a powerful businessman on his behalf.  Meanwhile, a criminal organization called The Circle is menacing one of the other vampire houses in Chicago.  Turns out the previous head of the house was in deep debt to the organization and they have decided it's time to collect.    It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the shit is not all hitting the fan by coincidence.  This is not a close series of random events, but a more complicated conspiracy.  As usual, Neill delivers a complicated plot, a lot of ass kicking, a sprinkling of nookie, and descriptions of disgusting Chicago Style Pizza.  THAT IS NOT PIZZA.  Despite the discs of abomination, I still think it's a good, fun installment in the series.



Sunday, March 15, 2015

Book 12

Book 12 World's Greatest Sleuth by Steve Hockensmith

In this book, Otto and Gustav are attending the World's Fair in Chicago.  There is a contest to crown the World's Greatest Sleuth now that Holmes has gone over the falls.  I have to say that I checked this one out from the library a couple of years ago and renewed it 3 times without finishing it.   Just a few weeks ago, I pulled it out again.  It's been enough years since it came out, with no other Amlingmeyer books following it, that I was pretty sure this would be the final installment of the Holmes on the Range Series.  The whole series is goofy and funny, the mysteries themselves are not rocket surgery.  I found this final installment though to be extra goofy and the mystery to be far less compelling.  Ultimately, there were just a lot of elaborate shenanigans and hijinx.  I was glad for the ending the brothers got, but I suppose I could have just read the first 3 and last 3 chapters.

Friday, March 6, 2015

Books 10 and 11

Book 10:  Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang

If, like me, your rap name would be something along the lines of Marshmallo Chic or Wonda Bread, then you may want to get the Urban Dictionary app on your smart phone before reading Fresh Off The Boat.  Eddie Huang's parents are FOTB from Taiwan and Eddie was obsessed with rap, hiphop, and urban street culture.  He ran wild, he chased girls, did and sold drugs and got into a few fights.  He also went to law school, started an urban clothing line, and opened a restaurant.  There is no app that will help you understand the struggles of a minority who is trying to distance himself from a stereotype while also being true to his own history and identity.  I loved the stuff he was grappling with there. It really resonated with me as a woman and feminist. The reviews of the book are very mixed on good reads, probably because people are uncomfortable with chapters called "Rotten Bananas" and "Pink Nipples" (HOLY SHIT DID I LAUGH MY ASS OFF OR WHAT?)  or maybe they think it's ridiculous to spell anything like n!gg@.  Ugh. STILL OFFENSIVE, but doesn't make the book less compelling.  (See Also:  Huck Finn).

Entwined with identity is food, and as the son of a restaurant owner who later became a restaurant owner as well, Huang has put in a lot of food talk in this book.  However, it's not a cookbook, and there are no recipes.  This book is about flavors and dishes and how they call us back to who we are and where we came from.  So if you want to learn how to make anything, this is not the book for you.

This is also not a book for the fans of Tiger Mom who want to make their kids learn violin and get into Ivy League schools.  This is for people who want to SMASH THE PATRIARCHY.

I guess you can tell by the large amount of all caps, that I recommend this book.

Book 11:  Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie

This is the coziest mystery I've read in a while.  I am not a huge fan of cozies that take place in restaurants, book stores, yarn stores, or whatever.  I do however, like historical mysteries from the 20th Century and these take place a few years after the end of WWII in England, near Cambridge.  I cannot even pretend I understand specifics of UK geography.  Google it.

Sidney is the vicar in Grantchester, he is friends with one of he local police, Geordie Keating.  In this first book in the series, there are 6 loosely connected novellas with each being its own case.  Sidney asks questions, ruminates on good and evil, and eventually comes up with the culprits.  He also walks his dog, Dickens, exasperates his housekeeper, Mrs. Maguire, and is torn between a couple of complicated women.

Not all the stories in this book are part of season 1 of the Masterpiece Mystery series Grantchester.  I have not yet seen the season closer on that one.  The novellas also do not contain all the same events nor all the same endings, so it would be possible to enjoy both.