Treet yourself to something sweet

Sweet bliss

by

Helena Rac

A very sweet (strawberry icing with chocolate) cupcake but sizzling hot hot story. Often quite graphically sizzling…

Funny that we still get a lot of cupcake stories as here in London they are not doing so well now – and the sugar treat has lost its appeal.  And so it has in the USA as well it seems, with the largest chain cupcake makers – Crumb – closing up in 2014. Or has it?

In 2015, Crumbs was bought and began again with different cupcakes. No longer simple chocolate, now they are flavoured rather differently with peanut butter or carrots or hazelnut Frangelico, pink Champagne, spiced pumpkin, vegan, gluten free, and with less colouring, and fresher baking and ingredients – some will even bake to order in front of you – if you have time to wait of course..

But in the UK we have seen a rise in national specialities – the Portuguese egg custard tart is very popular as are French patisseries – we now have several French chain bakeries – themed cakes and those with more unusual ingredients especially vegetable or fruit eg a lime drizzle cake with courgette; and of course the cannoli has made it here big. The cannoli comes with many different flavoured fillings including pistachio and there is even a cannoli cupcake with ricotta cheese filling/cream.

The Italians are now in London in force again especially the Sicilians and their delicatessens are springing up all over, and then of course there are the doughnuts with fillings such as rhubarb, peach, and salted caramel custard.

And no, I haven’t sampled them all! I just look and drool…

So in London there is no real trend setter unlike the cupcake. Is there a reason why cupcakes are not quite as popular? Is it the calories? Are we becoming more weight conscious? Certainly the latest report from our Chief Medical Officer says that some 75% of middle-aged women are obese or overweight – but for me it is the frosting. The frosting just got piled higher and higher and higher. More and more bright and yet brighter colours and much much too sweet. In fact strawberry with chocolate sounds like my least favourite combination. So if you remove the icing, you are back, as she says in the book, to a muffin and a very plain muffin at that.

Would I read more by this author? Probably not. It was, for me, a sweet treat (pun intended) away from crime and thrillers and fantasy and science fiction my more usual fare.

Enter the nosy artist and lots of guns!

The Body in the Landscape

By

Larissa Reinhart

A Netgalley Review

Just who is this all so nosy artist who just keeps encountering crimes including murder? And why is her brother in jail? And who is Tod? Luke? Max? And what are her relationships with them? How did Max hurt his knee?

For me, whilst this was a light-hearted romp through crime and murder, it was clearly not at all aimed at people who had not read the previous books in the series. There were a lot of complicated relationships. Family rivalries and past incidents that affected how people behaved that remained sketchily explained and then not as one first encountered them. Whilst I don’t mind this in a series, it does make it more difficult to give a critical review of a book when many of the links and much of the background is not explained.

That said, by 30% of the way through, enough was explained about some of the characters to encourage me to read on. I had considered giving up because I had been only peripherally drawn into the scenes and storyline.

But by 50% in I was irritated by the gun and hunting culture that permeated the story. And was not sufficiently concerned about the outcome to continue.

I agree with the reviewers of the author’s previous books that the style of writing  has amusing elements, but I was never inclined to smile let alone laugh – mainly I think due to the hunting and guns!

My New Year’s ‘Commitments’

It is that time again when every good person tries to make a list of all the things they intend to do differently in the new year that has just started.

No, I’m not going to list here all the physical and mental challenges I intend to take on – ‘cos there aren’t any.. other to try and keep as fit as I am now and to continue to lose weight and to keep on blogging as well as maintaining all the other things that I do…

I am just going to tell you about my reading challenges.

I have decided to go back to undertaking some Challenges from GoodReads this year. I last did this in 2014 when I ‘promised’ to read 125 books and actually read over 150.

This year I am going to it slightly differently though. I am going to participate in the:

Genre Challenge
January: Contemporary/Literary Merit
February: Romance/Chick Lit
March: Mysteries
April: Fantasy
May: Historical Fiction
June: Minority Studies/LGBT
July: Science-Fiction/Dystopian
August: Poetry/Plays
September: Travel
October: Horror/Thriller
November: Manga/Graphic Novels
December: Humour

And the To Be Read pile challenge.

Now you can have several levels of this but I am going to be cautious here and just say I shall read 10 books from my TBR pile.

I was also extremely brave this last weekend when I went into a bookstall and also a  Waterstones store on the same afternoon and didn’t buy one single book! Oh, the strength of will it took… The piles were laying there so temptingly and with so many new authors I wanted, but no, I must try and get through the TBR pile first and when that has been reduced I can buy. So 5 books from my physical pile and 5 eBooks must get read – at least. [Note my TBR pile is designated only as those books I have deliberately purchased at whatever cost].

I shall tag all these books under categories so you can check my progress, but also check out my GoodReads feed.