Isabel’s Daughter

2 November 2005 by Melissa

Judith Ryan Hendricks

Hendricks’ second book is a departure from the cozy Seattle she wrote about in Bread Alone, and returned to in The Baker’s Apprentice. This time, the setting is New Mexico, primarily in and around Santa Fe, and instead of bread, the main themes are art, herbs, and family.

Avery James, raised in an orphanage with only an embroidered t-shirt as a memento of the family she never knew, comes face to face with a painting of her mother while working as a caterer for a prominent artist. He befriends her, and offers to tell her about her mother, who died several years before, and she grudgingly accepts the offer. Swirling around the pair are rumors, old lovers, and a collection of old Mexican women who took Avery off the streets, and gave her a home, and their knowledge of herbs.

Like Bread Alone, Isabel’s Daughter paints vivid pictures of both people and food, but unlike Hendrick’s first book, this one’s ending is somewhat more bitter than sweet.

The Baker’s Apprentice

25 October 2005 by Melissa

Judith Ryan Hendricks

I was first introduced to Ms. Hendricks’ work through the novel Bread Alone, which I mostly read in a single night in a hotel in L.A. that had an extremely uncomfortable mattress. That book was warm and funny, and when I finished it, I was inspired to bake bread for the first time in years, so when I discovered that a sequel was published this year, I immediately added it to my amazon wishlist, and then ordered it when I spent the birthday gift certificates I’d amassed.

I regret to confess – I’m disapponted in the sequel. The Baker’s Apprentice lives up to all those negative stereotypes of second novels (though it’s actually her third), and while the old familiar characters – Wynter who fled her cheating husband in L.A. and moved to Seattle to bake bread, her friend and sometime roomate, the dancer CM, young blue-haired art school dropout and cake decorator, Tyler, andMac the bartender/novelist who wins Wynter’s heart – are all there, they seem pale shadows of their earlier selves, and instead of coming away from this book feeling cozy and wanting to sip coffee and smell bread baking, I feel cold and sort of hollow and unsatisfied.

If Bread Alone was a perfectly flakey croissant with sweet cream butter and bitter dark marmalade, The Baker’s Apprentice is Wonder bread – bland, spongey, and utterly lacking in color.

Peach Cobbler Murder

6 September 2005 by Melissa

Joanne Fluke

Hannah Swenson owns a bakery called The Cookie Jar in a fictional town in Minnesota, and when she’s not pushing sugar, she solves crimes. The formula for a Culinary Mystery is not new: cozy murder mystery combined with a cookbook, but unlike Diane Mott Davidson’s tales, the mystery here is predictable, and the text is desperate for a good editor.

I confess that the book did inspire the need to make cobbler (mine was strawberry), and the recipe worked, for the most part, but I find it jarring to have the recipes within the chapters, and not grouped together at the end.

STTNG: A Time to Love & A Time to Hate

30 April 2005 by Melissa

Robert Greenberger

* * * * *

The fifth and sixth volumes in the A Time to… series re-introduce us to Kyle Riker, and the flawed relationship he has with his son Will.

It also involves a dispute between rival factions who mysteriously became peaceful when they colonized a specific planet, never realizing that the environment itself was drugging them – interesting questions of medical ethics are brought up, as Beverly Crusher tries to find a cure that doesn’t end in a brutal war.

And of course, the set-up of Nemesis continues….

A Stroke of Midnight

27 April 2005 by Melissa

Laurell K. Hamilton

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I’m beginning to think that I need to start keeping a scorecard while reading the books in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series, because I’ve lost count of which men she’s bedded and how many times, and where. It’s a good thing Meredith is a fictional character, because otherwise I’d have to hate someone who has more good sex in a single DAY than most of us have over the course of a lifetime.

At any rate, stepping back into the world of beautiful sidhe men, and Princess Meredith was just as much fun the fourth time around as it was the first time. Perhaps more so, because by now I expect it to be almost PWP.

A Stroke of Midnight takes place in a single day, picking up pretty much immediately after the previous book, and also takes place entirely within the sithen. There is a murder mystery – someone’s killed a reporter and a member of the court – but mostly it’s about the different men that Meredith encounters, and their individual magical talents. Mostly. There’s some political intrigue in it, of course, and the next novel should be pivotal, if the setup is to be believed.

Faerie porn: gotta love it.

American Gods

9 February 2005 by Melissa

by Neil Gaiman

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I read this at the beginning of February, 2005, and am posting this in April (backdated), so I’m not posting a review, just this: gripping, creepy, stark, horrible, visceral, and amazing. Recommended.

Memoirs of a Geisha

1 January 2005 by Melissa

Arthur Golden
I read this, initially, a couple of years ago, and fell in love with it. I remember posting in my open diary account, in fact, that this was so well written, and Sayuri (the main character) so vivid and real,that I had difficulty believing it was written by a man.

Desperate for something, anything, to read, and in the mood for something gentle and lyrical, I pulled it off my shelves again a couple of days ago, read most of it on various trips to the bathroom, and then finished it during one of the times I was awake last night.

I still love the story, and have no problem envisioning the inherent grace of the geisha as they dance or sing, no problem letting my mind’s ear hear their high tittering laughter.

It’s a great book.
A fabulous book.

The Well of Lost Plots

23 December 2004 by Melissa

Jasper Fforde
The thing about Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series is that, while they’re entertaining if you only read modern literature, they’re even more entertaining if you have a thorough grounding in the classics.

The Well of Lost Plots, the third installment in the life and times of Ms. Next, is just as much fun as the first two books in the series – so much so that I don’t know why I waited so long to read it.

In a sense, it’s the ultimate crossover – what else would you call a novel that mixes original characters with visitors from Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and even a cameo by a certain bleached-blonde vampire named Spike?

But being a crossover doesn’t make it any less smart, or make the plot turns any less convoluted.

Highly recommended, especially to English majors.

Stardust

17 December 2004 by Melissa

Neill Gaiman
I was in the mood for light fantasy, and I always love classic fairy tales, so Neil Gaiman’s Stardust was perfect for my mood. Unlike American Gods, which I’ve set aside until I can deal with it again, it’a gently whimsical story, about growing up and finding your heart’s desire.

Thorougly enjoyable, and just enough creepy to not be childish.

Incubus Dreams

13 December 2004 by Melissa

Laurell K. Hamilton

I’ve been a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series since 1998, when I spied a copy of The Lunatic Cafe on the shelf at the Barnes and Noble in Sioux Falls. Of course, I immediately had to go back and read the rest of the novels in the series, which was, at the time, only four books long.

Now, eight books later, I’m still addicted to Hamilton’s cast of characters and soft-porn storytelling, but I wish there was a little bit more story in this offering, Incubus Dreams.

To be fair, it is a transitional novel, and it does that job well. Anita, in this incarnation, is finally beginning to make peace with who and what she is. In fact, for the first time, she’s beginning to show real signs of maturity.

The plot, what there is of it, isn’t very obvious – there’s a string of murders, of course, but there are vast stretches of the novel where they’re not even mentioned, and the solution, when it comes, is sort of a throwaway, but the character development is much more interesting – Nathaniel is becoming three-dimensional, and Richard is ‘back’ in a sense.

I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next.