IT’S MIMOSA TIME! — A SATURDAY TREAT — FEB. 25

MIMOSA TIME!

The morning started with coffee, oatmeal, and my favorite weekend blog post:  Saturday Snapshot!

After visiting several blogs and oohing and aahing over their photo treasures, I read Whole Latte Life for awhile. (Check my Rainy Days and Mondays blog on April 4 for the review:  blog tour).

A DELICIOUS READ!

Don’t you love this cover?

Finally, after enjoying the reading and blogging moments for awhile, I did my dreaded weekend chore.  One I’ve been postponing for…well, several weeks.  I must admit that the huge piles of leaves on my patio made me keep closing the blinds, refusing to acknowledge them.

But if I want my delicious mimosa treat, I must do this dreaded chore.

So out I went with trash bags, a broom, and a cloth to dust things down.

Surprisingly, the task didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and I didn’t even fill up one trash bag!  Amazing…

Now I can start to enjoy my patio, as spring approaches.

Why did I procrastinate for such a long time?  Of course, I’m now sneezing like crazy, since I’m allergic to almost everything out there!

But all I have to do is a quick sweep-up every Saturday and I won’t have to deal with this huge pile again.  Maybe I should also go out there with the pruning shears and clip back those plants.

Okay, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

My pile of leaves was brown and ugly…dead.  Perhaps if they’d been lovely, like those in the photo above, I would have enjoyed this task more…lol

What is your least favorite weekend chore?  What guilty pleasures do you promise yourself after you’ve finished?

DELECTABLE SLICE OF LIFE TALE — A REVIEW

Two young girls grow up side by side in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights district, but they live totally separate lives. Julia St. Clair is the wealthy daughter of Lolly and Tad; Annie Quintana’s mother Lucia fled Ecuador as a teenage single mom, and now works as a nanny/cook for the St. Clairs.

Over the years, however, the girls become best friends, attend the same schools (thanks to the largesse of the St. Clairs), and seemingly are like family to one another.

But what happens during the high school years, and how Julia played a role in those changes, will inform their lives for more than a decade. Annie’s mother’s death is like the final event that breaks the bond.

When Julia comes back to SF after living a successful life in New York, the women connect again when Annie caters a charity luncheon at the St. Clair home.

Julia reaches out to Annie with a business proposition: she wants to invest capital and help start up a cupcakery with Annie, whose talent for cupcakes borders on perfection. The contract includes a clause where Julia will exit the business after she marries in about a year. So, despite her reservations, Annie agrees.

But what secrets have captured Julia that could devastate her future? And what strange events happening regularly at the Mission District cupcakery dubbed “Treat” could threaten their security, their futures, and possibly their lives?

How to Eat a Cupcake: A Novel is narrated alternately between Julia and Annie. Just when I thought Julia could not be more annoying or self-absorbed, I would read her story and start to understand her perspective. Annie’s sharp wit and sarcasm evaporate when, in her voice, we come to understand the loneliness, the sadness, and the hurt that have populated her life. I really felt that something important could happen between them, but instead, we see the conflicts and misunderstandings dissipate rather quickly after a horrific event at the cupcakery. Perhaps that moment could have made everything clear to them, but I don’t think emotional distance could dissolve with such ease.

What kept me rapidly turning pages, however, were the mysterious events at the cupcakery and trying to sort out who was vandalizing and threatening them. I had it figured out before the end, but there was still some suspense as the exciting and dangerous events kept unfolding until the final piece fell into place. I also loved the delicious descriptions of the cupcakes and the unique presentations of each of them. A delectable cozy read with a few plot points that didn’t work for me. Four stars.

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TEASER TUESDAYS: HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE — FEB. 7

 

Welcome to another edition of Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by Should Be Reading.

Here’s how it works:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.

Today I’m excerpting from an ARC I’m reading:  How to Eat a Cupcake, by Meg Donohue.

Blurb:  Free-spirited Annie Quintana and sophisticated Julia St. Clair come from two different worlds. Yet, as the daughter of the St. Clairs’ housekeeper, Annie grew up in Julia’s San Francisco mansion and they forged a bond that only two little girls oblivious to class differences could—until a life-altering betrayal destroyed their friendship.

A decade later, Annie bakes to fill the void left in her heart by her mother’s death, and a painful secret jeopardizes Julia’s engagement to the man she loves. A chance reunion prompts the unlikely duo to open a cupcakery, but when a mysterious saboteur opens up old wounds, they must finally face the truth about their past or risk losing everything.

***

Teaser:  I had, I’ll admit, affected a certain style—a method, if you will—of cupcake eating.  To begin, you remove the cupcake liner carefully so as not to unnecessarily crumble the cake, and set it aside.  You then turn the cupcake slowly in your hand, taking bites along the line where cake meets icing, your mouth filling with a perfect combination of both components.  p. 31

Are you salivating yet?  I’m going to develop a serious sweet tooth with this one!

What are you teasing us with today?  Come on by and share some comments and links.

DAWN IRELAND: WHO IS SHE & WHAT INSPIRED “HOT CHOCOLATE”? — FEB. 3

About Dawn Greenfield Ireland:

Dawn Greenfield Ireland has been writing stories since attending summer camp around the age of seven. To date she has five completed novels (science fiction and contemporary), 15 completed screenplays (one optioned in 2009) and as many scripts in various stages of completion. Dawn is the author of two award-winning self-published books: The Puppy Baby Book (hardcover) and Mastering Your Money (print and eBook). Many of her screenplays have won awards. She spends her days editing and formatting engineering documents as a senior technical writer.

Dawn’s Website.

What inspired Hot Chocolate, by Dawn Ireland

In a nutshell: Janet Evanovich. I posted this blog on my website in November:

How Janet Evanovich changed my life, by Dawn Ireland – 11/4/2011

Everything had been going gung ho from 2000-2002. My new dog book (The Puppy Baby Book)  just launched and won an award shortly after publication.

Artistic Origins, my technical writing business, was thriving with contracts/work, and I was renovating my new house.

While that part of my life was great, my dating life was non-existent. It had been six (6) years since I even HAD a date. That is not a typo.

I guess there is a reason for some things and we just have to wait until the veil lifts to see clearly.

You are most likely sitting there wondering what on earth does this has to do with Janet Evanovich, but I promise you, it is coming. Bear with me.

A guy roared into my life in early 2002 and swept me off my feet. I was blindsided. I ended up selling my house, moving out of state and living an idyllic lifestyle for one year.

At that point, the great grandfather of all disasters struck.

I should have asked way more questions than I did prior to moving, but I did not. Oh well…

Toward the end of summer in 2003, you-know-what hit the fan. I am talking beyond bucketfuls – it was clearly by the dump truck-full.

In a nutshell, within minutes on that fateful day I was not only destitute, but had nowhere to go. I was homeless! Good friends back in Houston took up a collection so I could move back home.

Then even MORE you-know-what hit the fan. I couldn’t find work. It seems that while I was off lolly-gagging in my new princess lifestyle, technical writing had been outsourced overseas.

If that isn’t enough, like rubbing a raw onion into an oozing sore, I had to hire an attorney to handle the nightmare legal mess, which had me living in fear.

And because all those jobs were outsourced, I did not work for the remainder of 2003 through 2005. My resume went around the country and around the globe with little or no response. I lived off credit cards and the charity of friends and family.

My brain was frozen and I could not write one word. Total creative shut down for months.

Then, someone gave me a battered copy of One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. I read that paperback overnight.

O M G! That book changed my life!

I loved Stephanie Plum. What a sassy, wild and crazy gal! I loved Lula! I loved Morelli. I loved Ranger. I loved Grandma Mazur. I loved all the wacky characters that poured out of Janet Evanovich’s head.

Then, one night I had a crazy dream about this wealthy woman named Lila Mae Alcott whose family was rich out the wazoo from their chocolate empire.

I must have had a hot fudge sundae or something before bedtime for that to end up in my head.

Hence, my mystery novel Hot Chocolate was born. And my characters are so sassy and outrageous, but unlike Stephanie Plum, these gals are middle-aged wealthy women from Houston’s elite River Oaks!

Janet uplifted me. Those characters were in my brain cells. I started writing again.

Work came through. A gigantic technical writing project dropped into my lap. I could hardly believe my good fortune.

Over the next two years I bought every Stephanie Plum book that I could get my hands on.

So – many, many thanks to Janet Evanovich!

Janet taught me so much about writing and characters.

I love her.

I hope I get to meet her in person one of these days!

***

And thank you, Dawn, for your inspirational story…and this wonderful book!

DELICIOUS, COZY MYSTERY — A REVIEW

 

The middle-aged Alcott sisters, heiresses to the Alcott chocolate fortune—Madge, Lila Mae and Dorothea—are fit to be tied. In the midst of busy lives, they must deal with their ninety-two year old father, Bernie, who has become quite the handful.

His nurse Bambi, is another kind of handful, but when they decide they must move Bernie to an assisted living facility, the generous severance package they offer to Bambi is not enough to ward off a lawsuit brought by Bambi’s husband, Jimmy Ray Chaline.

Luckily, the Alcotts, very wealthy and well-known in Houston society, have a great lawyer. Chances are good that the suit will be dismissed as frivolous.

Hot Chocolate is a captivating tale with vivid and fun characters. I could almost visualize myself socializing with them, and I definitely enjoyed their interactions with one another. They felt like real sisters, albeit high-society ones. Dorothea is typically the “baby” of the family, and definitely likes being the center of attention. Lila Mae relies on astrology and believes that proper Feng Shui arrangements in a room can make all the difference. Madge, as the oldest, has some unusual habits. Even the peripheral characters, like the staff at each of their homes, as well as Lila Mae’s astrologer, felt like important pieces of the production. I also enjoyed close-ups of the relationship between Chance (a detective with the police force) and Lila Mae, not a typical pairing.

Jimmy Ray is another kind of person altogether. As the owner of a local bowling alley, he is something of a cheap-skate and seems to keep Bambi on a short leash. His good looks disappear when he opens his mouth, as he has very bad teeth.

All the players are in place, and we think we have them figured out. So when something unexpected happens one night at the bowling alley, the Alcotts, Bambi, and countless others are caught up in a mystery that had me turning pages rapidly. Who or what could be responsible for the shocking events? What will Bambi discover when she starts searching through her husband’s dresser drawers and files? And what other surprises await the Alcotts?

Through all the excitement and intrigue, we are gifted with wonderfully descriptive moments in the lives of the characters, including the delicious food they enjoy. The dishes are presented so realistically that I could almost taste them. As a final pleasing treat, there are several wonderful recipes at the end of the book. A five star read.