A disappointing cookbook

The American Diabetes Association Vegetarian Cookbook: Satisfying, Bold, and Flavorful Recipes from the Garden by Steven Petusevsky
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am on a quest to find recipes to suit my newly retired lifestyle. Most days I am home for all three meals, so I need healthy options for all of them. My thought was that I would review each cookbook and accompany each review with photos of recipes which I'd tried. This very first book has scuttled that plan!

 I can really tell this book was written by a professional chef. The lists of ingredients tend to be long and sometimes call for things which I would never have on hand. He uses sugar substitutes, which I'm reluctant to do. It is blatantly obvious that someone else does his dish washing. One recipe that sounded good (Feelin' Your Oats burgers) required cooking to a certain point in a pot on the stove, then turning the mixture into a baking pan, then cutting it in squares to go back in the oven on a sheet pan to get crispy. I don't have the patience for all these steps and I don't think the dishwasher could cope with those oatmeal sticky pans. I don't have sous-chefs or human dishwashers to support me.

Now some of this is on me. I am fussy and I know it. I loathe onions. I still cook with them, but I reduce the quantities and I chop them fine to hide them from myself. I'm also picky about greens. I love spinach salad or spinach cooked into things, but I don't want a glop of cooked spinach on my plate, I think kale smells like farts and I won't touch it. I eat tomatoes, but according to my own arcane rules. Then there's my need to be gluten free for personal comfort issues.

So, the only recipe I would have made from this book is the rice pilaf. What a boring photo that would be!

But my quest will continue. I hope to have better luck with the next cookbook.



View all my reviews

The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer / Cathy Ace

The Case of the Missing Morris Dancer by Cathy Ace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, I think I have experienced a strange change of heart. I have always loved the bleak, dark Scandinavian mysteries or detailed forensics. I always used to say that there better be a dramatic murder within the first few pages. I couldn't imagine being impressed with one of those cozy mysteries. Apparently I hadn't encountered the right series until this point.

Cathy Ace was to attend a writing conference in my city this August. Covid-19 has put paid to that, but the organizers assure us that it will happen in 2021. Fingers crossed, as I'm most interested to hear Ms. Ace's views on books and writing.

I'm really enjoying this team of women and their investigations. They're kind of the realistic version of the Athena Club that Theodora Goss created in The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. They pass the Bechdel test in spades (although there's plenty of teasing and twitting about the men that the young single women run into during the course of their investigations).

This novel sees them searching for a missing person, not a murderer, which is a nice change. There are a lot of related questions which the women get satisfaction from fixing, as well as finding the missing. So its not too straight forward or easy to guess who dunnit. And it is also pleasurable to watch their lives progress. By the next book, Carol should have given birth while Annie and Christine should be happily involved in relationships. Mavis is already comfortably ensconced with the Dowager Duchess. Now that Duke Henry is married, perhaps he can find some happiness too.

I can't believe this, I'm already looking forward to the next cozy in this series!


View all my reviews

The Black Raven / Katharine Kerr

The Black Raven by Katharine Kerr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came very close to throwing this book into the trade-in box, right about the 70% mark. I just hate it when authors write characters who do stupid hurtful things and pretend that they just can't help themselves! The whole tangle of Prince Maryn, Lilli, Princess Bellyra, bard Maddyn, and Branoic the Silver Dagger makes this much worse than a love triangle. Maryn & Bellyra have a political marriage, but she has the bad fortune to fall in love with her husband and is wounded when he pursues Lilli. Lilli is betrothed to Branoic and is completely honest with him about what's going on, but the fact remains that she could have put a stop to it had she wanted to at the very beginning and Branoic can't reasonably avoid jealousy. Maddyn has the misfortune to adore Princess Bellyra, setting him up to be Lancelot to her Guinevere. This sounds like the set-up for another reincarnation tangle like the one which started the whole series in Daggerspell.

I remind myself how young Kerr has written these characters. Lilli is maybe 15 and sleeping with two men. She adores the prince, but knows that she needs her Silver Dagger betrothed in the long run, though she doesn't truly love him. How confusing is that for so young a woman? Maryn is using Bellyra, Lilli is using Branoic, they all know each other's motivations, but it still seems sad and sordid. People had big responsibilities at early ages back in these days.

Honestly, I have a difficult time caring about the other story lines. Raena and Niffa are very secondary, Salamander/Ebany almost forgotten, and the whole Evander story line can't be done soon enough!

At least this gets another book off of my shelves, making room for my new acquisitions, books which have a permanent home with me.

Book number 371 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.


View all my reviews

Smart People Don't Diet / Charlotte N. Markey

Smart People Don't Diet: How the Latest Science Can Help You Lose Weight Permanently by Charlotte Markey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book contains a lot of good advice and is worthwhile to read if you are struggling with weight issues and considering dieting. I think it's pretty evident now from clinical studies and from personal experience that diets don't work, mostly because we anticipate that they will eventually end. Then we go back to the old food habits that caused the need to diet, plus we have screwed with our metabolism in a way that makes it easier to gain even more weight. Not exactly what we are aiming for.

Weight loss requires permanent changes in lifestyle. Markey warns us about liquid calories. How many of us consume soda and fancy coffees without thinking about them? If you can cut out those offenders you will make progress. Often snacking can be an issue and finding healthier snacks can be helpful. I find eating out to be a minefield--it's much more fun to eat fries than salad, but salad is the better choice for the long run. One thing the pandemic has done for me is a return to home cooking. It's always the majority of my food planning, but I've become lax about vegetable consumption lately, relying on pasta and rice for their filling properties. Back to menus that heavily require veggies.

So I did find this book a good reminder of what needs to happen in my kitchen. More fruit & veg. More water drinking. Eating a reasonable portion and then waiting 20 minutes for it to “hit bottom." Plus more getting out of the house to go do things and go walking. It has been far too easy to hunker at home during this Covid-19 crisis and now I need to get back in the habit of leaving home.

What I didn't appreciate in this book was what I felt were two mutually opposing points of view that ran through it. On the one hand, the “don't diet" message. On the other hand, many very diety recommendations which I recognize from years of Weight Watchers and diet books. Yes, substitute salad for fries. No shit.

I think we also really need to emphasize health over appearance as our motivation for making change in our lives. Do it so you can feel better. Losing weight does not magically transform your life. You won't suddenly make more money or travel the world or be irresistable to potential lovers. You've got to do the things you want NOW, and let your weight loss catch up with you, or you'll just end up being a boring skinnier person.

I think that I will try to follow Michael Pollan's advice: Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants. If this book was of interest to you and you like to know the science behind the theories, I would recommend Linda Bacon's book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight.


View all my reviews

Unclean Spirits / M.L.N. Hanover

Unclean Spirits by M.L.N. Hanover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

What a pleasant surprise! I picked this book up at the used book store after attending a conference at which the author was a guest. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. It's almost unfortunate, as now I really want to read the remaining two volumes. Back to the bookstore, I guess.

I tend to prefer urban fantasy by female authors, but Hanover does a good job of writing a female main character. Jayne is a typical urban fantasy heroine. She has a mysterious relative who has made her the beneficiary of his will. As she assesses her new real estate, she discovers that her uncle had a whole side to him that she'd never guessed—he fought evil (and wasn't gay as she'd presumed). She herself has unusual skills, wants to continue her uncle's mission, and begins assembling a posse of friends to accomplish the seemingly impossible.

There's good action, as the inexperienced group fumble towards the goal. There's tension induced by the timing required and the inevitable personality conflicts. The reader wants them to prevail, but the author is constantly throwing doubt on the whole business.

Jayne isn't a complete Mary Sue, she makes major mistakes and has to recover from them. She does, however, fall awfully easily into the role of team leader. She does have enough sense to allow the specialists on her team to use their skills.

The only thing that made me truly roll my eyes was the cover art. Seriously, Cliff Nielsen? At no point in the book does Jayne wear leather pants. She's a jeans-and-t shirt girl. In addition, no woman worth her salt will go into battle in a Victoria's Secret bra. Maybe a sports bra. And lastly, the short sword in her right hand is being held awkwardly for fighting. She'd be far more likely to stab herself in the leg.
However I'm getting used to ignoring cover art. It is often misleading, tending towards embarrassing. I wouldn't be reluctant to be seen in public with this book, but I sure wouldn't flaunt it either.

To keep or re-sell? I'll keep it for the time being while I search for the next volume.


View all my reviews

The Entity Game / Lisa Shearin

The Entity Game by Lisa Shearin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

This is another of my quarantine purchases and I'm glad that I didn't resist the impulse buying! Mind you I know that I like Lisa Shearin's writing so it made sense that I'd like her new series. It seems that making up her own official agencies a la SPI (Supernatural Protection & Investigation) was no longer enough, she wanted to write a thriller with the FBI and CIA, the real thing. But being who she is, this thriller needs paranormal aspects and a romance element.

And you know, it works for me. I'm usually not a fan of the thriller genre, but apparently adding a paranormal aspect changes my whole view of things. I've recently had a similar conversion to cozy mysteries with supernatural aspects.

I'm not sure why a publishing house hasn't picked this up. Its better than a lot of traditionally published works. I certainly hope that Shearin is planning to write more adventures for Rory. I'll be keeping my eyes open for them.


View all my reviews

The Dead Travel Fast / Deanna Raybourn

The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

This is the summer that I read from my own shelves, hopefully clearing some space there. During this quarantine period I have been adding to the problem, as I've been on a bit of a book buying spree. This one is only copyrighted in 2010, but was already unavailable except in the used book trade. I spent far too much on postage, but I'm glad to have it.

I can certainly tell that this is one of Raybourn's earlier works. It is well written, but she has improved in the last ten years. Still, I enjoyed this novel, a cross between a Dracula-like tale and a Gothic romance similar to a Victoria Holt story. I think if she was writing it today she might structure things differently with regard to the mystery. I am ambivalent about the ending. I know that it is the result that most readers desire, but I prefer the unexpected and I thought I was getting it until the last few pages. I'm a tiny bit disappointed, but it was still a great read.

The verdict? This book gets to stay, at least until I read it one more time.


View all my reviews

Night Kill / Ann Littlewood

Night Kill by Ann Littlewood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

This book has been lingering on my shelf for YEARS. It was given to me by a friend that I worked with at our local zoo—he was a zookeeper and is a devoted mystery reader. I don't even have a reasonable motive for ignoring the book for this long!

I can see why he gave me the book. The author is a former zookeeper and gets the zoo details correct. The mystery itself is a little less professionally done, but this is after all the first book in the series. Plus, the main character, Iris, is a zookeeper, not a detective. I think its reasonable to portray her as doubting that someone is out to get her and not really being sure how to pursue an investigation.

I suppose if my veterinary knowledge was a bit better, I might have figured out the murderer. As it was, the final confrontation was my first inkling and was an excellent reveal. A very enjoyable book.

Now I must decide whether to keep it or not. This is never an easy choice, but I can't imagine reading it again. Maybe that is my answer. I have the third book in the series on my shelf too, gifted at the same time as this one. Perhaps I'll make my final decision when I've finished it as well.


View all my reviews

Burn Bright / Patricia Briggs

Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Re-read

I have reached the end of the line in my rereading of this series. The next volume is named and there is a cover, but we must wait until March 2021 to read it.

This volume is very much about Bran Cornick, despite the fact that he has disappeared and left all of the pack responsibilities to his son, Charles. As is predictable, the shit hits the fan, leaving Charles, who is much less crafty in his dealings with people, holding the bag. I have never been a big fan of the Marrock, having always found him manipulative and surprisingly lacking in sympathy for others. This novel does nothing to change my opinion of him. I still haven't figured out if this is deliberate on Briggs' part, does she mean for us to distrust the guy in charge? Maybe in the next book I will be able to get a better feel for that.

As I have been rereading these books, I've been taking another look at the cover art too. The mass market paperback edition of this title is gorgeous. Daniel Dos Santos has come a long way since Cry Wolf. This cover is gorgeous! I thoroughly approve of the direction that he has taken.

Wow, am I ever ready for Wild Sign!


View all my reviews

Fair Game / Patricia Briggs

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Re-read

I'm really enjoying rereading this series. The relationship between Anna and Charles is so steady. They work through big trouble in this novel, but they don't doubt their bond. They are very much a team and as the book progresses, they recruit humans, fae, and other werewolves to assist them in their crime fighting mission. Tracking a serial killer is a natural role for creatures that enjoy a hunt.

I can see why Anna gets cast in the “captured by the enemy" role in each book, but I do wish it didn't have to be that way. However, I was happy to see her handling FBI and police officers with competence and confidence. Anna can charm most folks and has become skilled in using this skill.

I'm glad to see that the cover art remains attractive and doesn't misrepresent this couple that I've become fond of. Far superior to the cover art on Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, which I won't read in public because of their cheesiness. From the second volume onwards, this series has much more tasteful cover art.


ORIGINAL REVIEW:

I’ve finally put my finger on why I love urban fantasy so much—there’s a reasonable plot, but the true focus of the book is the relationships, be they political, spiritual, friendship or romance. And of course, a good plot is necessary to reveal those relationships in all their complexity.

Now, I’m also a fan of the mystery genre and Briggs gives us a good dose of that in this installment, as Anna and Charles are sent by Bran to help the FBI with a serial killer investigation. Long ago, when I had a TV, I was a devoted fan of Criminal Minds and this installment reminded me a bit of that show.

And that ending! Wow! I’ve been trying to pace myself through a bunch of different UF series, trying to drag out the enjoyment like a kid waiting for Christmas, enjoying the anticipation. But that fabulous ending has me champing at the bit to get on to the next book!

Well done Patricia Briggs!

View all my reviews

Hunting Ground / Patricia Briggs

Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Re-read

Urban fantasy is such a great pleasure! I love these tales of werewolves, vampires, fae, and witches, all located in contemporary cities. I'm particularly partial to stories of the fae and vampires. They make such great main characters or wonderful villains. This story gives us both of my favourites as the bad guys, making Charles and Anna work hard to keep this summit meeting on an even keel.

Anna gets to show her resilience more than once. Everyone thinks she is a weak creature, but now she has back-up in Charles. More importantly, he is also hers to protect and she'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish that goal. The advantage to being an Omega is that she has all of the dominance without the need for violence. No need, but not prevented from violence. She is coming into her strength.

Daniel Dos Santos has redeemed himself with this cover. Someone who didn't know better might mistake it for a Lassie story, but at least Anna is dressed like a real woman and that makes her far sexier than the image on the cover of the first volume. Well done.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

I think I like this splinter series of Patricia Briggs more than her original Mercy Thompson series. The first Alpha & Omega book annoyed me because it assumed that I knew things that I didn’t. I hadn’t read the short story that kicked things off. But with that in the past, I can appreciate this second book for exactly what it is.

I always love urban fantasy that includes the Fae. They are far superior to vampires & werewolves in my reading experience. I’m not sure what it is about the fairy tale aspects that grabs me—maybe it’s my Scandinavian background that makes me love a good troll. And this story contains just enough Fae elements to keep me happy.

Then there is Charles and Anna’s relationship. It’s a done deal and it’s working well. There’s none of the “will s/he or won’t s/he” questions that occupied so much time and energy in the first several books of the MT series. This seems to me to be much more interesting—how do two people work out their differences and make a relationship work?

A very satisfying urban fantasy and I will definitely be moving on to the third installment soon.

View all my reviews

Cry Wolf / Patricia Briggs

Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2020 Re-read

So, finally I have read the novella where the story of Charles & Anna’s saga had its beginning. As a result, things made much more sense this time through this first novel. I really like this series and I appreciate this book more with the missing background filled in, but I'm leaving my rating unchanged because I feel that my initial complaints were justified.

I still retain my dislike of the cover art too. Daniel Dos Santos, I think you could have done much better. I'm not sure if the woman on the cover is Anna or Mariposa, but either way she's just not dressed appropriately. This cover harkens back to the cover art of the 1970s that often portrayed scantily clad women whether there were any in the novel or not!

However many of my favourite books have ridiculous covers like this one. I've learned to ignore them and just enjoy the stories.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Let me first state up front that I’ve become a fan of the Mercy Thompson series, which this book (and series) are firmly attached to. But it took me a couple of books to decide that, yes, I really did enjoy the Mercy-verse.

I have no doubt that I’ll get to that point with this series too. But first I’ll have to get past the fact that there was necessary information missing from this first book, namely how Charles and Anna met. There are a lot of assumptions made about the reader’s knowledge—basically that you have read the short story that apparently gives the pertinent info. This seems to me like cheating. Surely the first book of a series should provide all the information needed to enjoy it? Not, I guess, that it was too difficult to sort things out, but when I’m reading for brainless fun I don’t want to wonder what the heck the main characters are talking about.

A related rant: the cover art of these books just disappoints me. Briggs actually thanks the cover artist in this volume for a cover which I find amateurish and unattractive. I don’t recall any women with humongous breasts running around in tube-tops anywhere in the novel, so where does this chick on the cover come from? Is she meant to be Anna? Because if so, once again my inner vision and that of the cover artist are thousands of miles apart.

At this point, you’re probably thinking that I really didn’t like the book, so why did I give it 3 stars indicating that I did like it? Well, that would be because I really did enjoy the story and I’m sure that I will read future volumes. I’ll just read them at home where no one can see these embarrassingly cheesy covers.

View all my reviews

On the Prowl collection

On the Prowl by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

I am almost embarrassed by how many books I have purchased during these days of self-quarantining. This was one of them. I've been enjoying Patricia Briggs' Alpha & Omega series for years now, but I had never read the very beginning story that is included in this collection. In fact, it annoyed me a fair bit that this origin story was not in the first novel. Now I know the bits that have been missing for some time and details in that first novel make more sense.

The stories by Eileen Wilks and Karen Chance appealed to me as well. I'm a big fan of urban fantasy and I'm always on the look-out for new possibilities. However, I'm fussy about it too, and I was glad to find that I'm willing to give these authors a try.

The fourth story by Sunny is less to my taste. My library has some of her writing, but certainly not complete runs of the series that she has written. I find I'm not motivated to search for the missing ones. I'll probably pass this author by.

Now I think that I'd like to reread the Charles & Anna books, with my new knowledge from their first novella in mind.


View all my reviews

The Last Neanderthal / Claire Cameron

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a well structured novel this was. I don't know if the author has ever had a baby, but I would strongly suspect so. If she hasn't, may I commend her on her research? The Neanderthal woman, Girl, is a good mirror for Rose in the present day. They are both women at pivotal junctures in their lives which are complicated by pregnancy. Girl needs to find a mate, join a family, stay alive, and reproduce. Rose has a significant archaeological site to excavate, staff to oversee, papers to write, and a reputation to establish. Pregnancy is a threat to Girl's survival and to Rose's academic survival.

I'm always interested in authors' representations of ancient humans. I do think that Neanderthals were more like us than we might be comfortable with. Their brains were larger in volume and a different shape than Homo sapiens, so they certainly had potential to have skills similar to our own. Not to mention the percentage of Neanderthal DNA found in the modern human genome. I've heard an apocryphal story of a clay reconstruction over a Neanderthal skull, done in the Soviet Union, that looked so much like a member of the Communist party that it got hidden away lest he take offense and relegate the reconstruction artist to Siberia.

About half way through the novel, I realized that the ancient chapters were numbered and the modern chapters were named. I'm unsure of the significance of this, though it was obviously intentional. I must say that I enjoyed the Neanderthal chapters more than the modern story. I guess I already know about life for women now and was more interested in the speculations about the past. My mother always said that I preferred to read about mysterious civilizations rather than the well-documented ones.

If you enjoyed this book, you might also like The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses. The first couple of books in this series were the best for me, after that I found them repetitive and somewhat melodramatic.



View all my reviews

Heartfire / Orson Scott Card

Heartfire by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t know how to rate this book. On one hand, I had to keep reading to see what happens, so I know the sequence of events. But, on the other hand, I felt like I was seeing and not understanding. If this is the religious allegory that it seems to be, I'm finding it very slippery to hang onto.

This volume makes the comparison of Calvin and Alvin to Cain and Abel explicit. So there's that. But then we have Alvin wandering the countryside, doing his miraculous Maker things and being persecuted by the law in a very Christ-like way. Even Purity, who causes so much trouble in the book, recognizes the men that he is travelling with as disciples. Card's world seems to have two evil doers, the Unmaker and Satan. Most of the time, Calvin seems to be allied with them, playing Judas maybe? Everybody seems to get multiple Biblical identities.

Just like Philip Jose Farmer's use of Mark Twain in the Riverworld books, which made me cringe, I found myself feeling sorry for the historical figures that Card incorporates into the narrative. John James Audubon and Honore de Balzac must be rolling in their graves. John Quincy Adams might be uneasy too.

Then there's the whole Black slavery issue, which has particular relevancy in these days of protest and the Black Lives Matter movement. Add to this the whole question, during the witch trial, of the nature of law versus justice. There are an awful lot of irons in this fire and I'm sure I don't know how the author intends to wrap it up. And that, I guess, is an admission that I will read the next installment.

Book number 370 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.


View all my reviews

The Best of C.L. Moore / edited by Lester Del Rey

The Best of C.L. Moore by C.L. Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

2020 Summer Clearance Special

My summer reading project will be the unread books on my shelves and rereading books that I’ve had for a long time to see if they still warrant a place in my home.

I first read this collection of short fiction at least 30 years ago. I was impressed, but never realized that the stories were written in the 1930s and 1940s! Yet they still have that special sauce.

First, there is Northwest Smith. Could there be a better name for a space outlaw? Based on the bad guys of the old westerns or on pirates, this handsome antihero brandishes his ray gun and is steady as a rock. You have to love him. As they say, women want to sleep with him and men want to be him. (Although the Alendar in Black Thirst is quasi-male and seems to be attracted to NW too.)

There is a definite horror overtone to most of the stories. Moore had to be familiar with Lovecraft, but to my mind she is the more skillful writer. Lovecraft goes over the top, while Moore’s work simply oozes black dread. For example, in The Black God's Kiss, she takes the fairy tale trope of the reviving power of the handsome prince's kiss and turns it inside out, all the while giving us a remarkable female main character, Jirel of Joiry. Still, there are no happy endings here—relief maybe, in some stories, but no unalloyed happiness.

I had to snicker at the end of Greater Than Gods, when the main character, Bill, makes an unexpected life choice.  He chooses to marry the woman whose first name we never know, his lab assistant Miss Brown. This leaves the couple in a marriage of convenience, which is the usual beginning of a story,  not the last sentence!  When I originally read the story, I was impressed with the surprising twist. Now, as a more experienced reader, this ending entertains me.

Now the true challenge begins. I want to find more of Moore's writing and that of her husband, Henry Kuttner. They collaborated once they were married and wrote under several pseudonyms. This stuff is old enough that I am afraid that it won't be easy to find. This is ironic, as Moore's writing is still relevant and has aged well. She explores the nature of love, of beauty, of humanity. I wish she had written more.

View all my reviews