LeseLust & LeseLiebe

My Jane Austen Society cozy mysteries are set in Yorkshire, England.  Erin Coleridge and her best friend Farnsworth Appleby are British, as are most of the other characters in Pride, Prejudice and Poison .  So they’re all eating English food. British food was a joke when I was growing up in Ohio – think bland, overcooked vegetables, stodgy meat pies and gloppy, tasteless puddings.  By the time I was twelve, I had memorized the famous Monty Python sketch about spam. No.  No, no, no.  That is not the Britain I know.  In fact, when I think of the United Kingdom, I think of the food.  We had fresh roasted vegetables and coconut shrimp skewers in Bath, grilled fish with ginger and duck pie in Oxford, smoked trout with endive in Edinburgh, and chicken tikka masala where it was actually invented in Glasgow – the Shish Mahal, and they have a charming origin story.  (By the way, chicken tikka masala is now widely considered one of the national dishes of U...

A Mixture of Mischief (Walden Pond Press, February 4, 2020) is the third and final book of Anna Meriano's Love Sugar Magic series, that tells the story of how Leo, the youngest daughter in a family of magical baking burjas, finds her own gifts for magic and her own place in her family. Leo, still fed up about her place as the youngest sister (there are four older ones), is chomping at the bit to learn all she can about the magic that makes her family's bakery so successful.  Finally, her mother is starting to teach her, but before she can relax and enjoy being a dependable part of the bakery, dark clouds appear.  A rival bakery is about to open in town, and her family's magical heirlooms, part of what makes their baking magic work, start to go missing. But most disturbing at all is the appearance in her life of her father's father, who abandoned his family when he found they hadn't inherited his magic.  Her grandfather has discovered that Leo's' magical gif...

The Good Hawk , by Joseph Elliott (Walker Books US, January 2020), is a magical version of early Scottish history (9th century-ish), with tons of heart and lots of violence that tells of two teens desperately trying to save their kidnapped kin. 15-year-old Agatha takes her job as Hawk very seriously, patrolling the walls of her clan's island home, always on the lookout for danger.  Though many are dismissive of her abilities (she seems to have Down's Syndrome) she knows she's a good Hawk.  She has a special gift, too, one she keeps hidden--she can communicate with animals.  Then one night she makes a mistake, and fires a burning arrow at one of her own clan's boats, and she's no longer allowed to be a hawk. Her friend Jaime, always anxious, a thinker rather than a doer, was assigned to be an Angler, though he gets seasick. For reasons he doesn't understand, the clan has chosen him for another role--he must marry a girl from a nearby clan, though his own people h...

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is an older English one-- The Wind Eye , by Robert Westall (upper MG/YA 1976, still in print).  Westall's work ranges from picture books to adult, often exploring how the past hits the present in dark and mysterious ways.  Which is what happens in The Wind Eye.... It begins when a family, comprising a mother and her teenaged son married to a father with two daughters (one a young teen and one a little girl), setting off to the northeast coast of England to stay in the old house the father has just inherited.  They are not a happy family.  The kids get along fine, but the parents are not getting on well at all. And then the past and the present collide.   St. Cuthbert still is a real person to the people of this part of the Northumberland coast, and he becomes so to the kids as well when they find a boat that travels back to his time, taking them out to the island that was his retreat from the world.   Along the way, there's...

Here are the posts about mg fantasy and sci fi that I gleaned in my blog reading this week!  Please let me know if I missed yours. The Reviews Agent Weasel and the Abominable Dr Snow, by Nick East, at Library Girl and Book Boy Agent Weasel and the Fiendish Fox Gang, at Twirling Book Princess The Bootlace Magician, by Cassie Beasley, at Sloth Reads The Haunting, by Lindsey Duga, at Not Acting My Age and Cracking the Cover The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, by Christopher Edge, at Charlotte's Library Nevertell, by Katherie Orton, at Booktrailers for Kids and YA Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez, at Sonderbooks Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at Good Reads With Rona A Sprinkle of Sorcery, by Michelle Harrison, at Book Craic The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady, by Gerald Morris, at Leaf's Reviews Urchin of the Riding Stars (The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 1) by M.I. McAllister, at Semicolon Wild and Chance, by Allan Zadoff, at Ms. Yingling Reads...

In my worldview, pizza and beer go together just like peanut butter and jelly. When my friends and I would dig into a meaty concoction filled with sausage and pepperoni, our favorite brews always accompanied the choice. This pairing wasn’t about flavor or the palette; pizza and beer were simply a known pairing. When I went on a trip to Napa Valley to do some research for my book Windstorm , which has winery themes, I was surprised to find dozens of pizza places within Napa Valley, all of which served wine with their pies. While I’d never heard of such a thing, I quickly discovered that Napa Valley does not have ordinary pizza…and they certainly don’t have ordinary wine. Skewered shrimp and tomato pizza? This pairs well with the Sauvignon Blanc from a specific winery. Spinach and artichoke pizza with grilled mushrooms? Try a sweeter wine such as Riesling. Duck pizza braised with barbeque sauce? Try a Merlot. For every type of pizza, there was a wine to accommodate. And what I learned as...

I'm still holding on to the middle grade sci fi/fantasy books of 2019, with a slightly over the top grim determination to read all the ones at hand before the end of January...(fortunately January 2020 is not a huge mg sci fi/fantasy release month, so I'm sure I can catch up on this year's in just a few days of reading!). The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day , by Christopher Edge, is an English import that came out here in the US back in April 2019 (Delecorte), and in 2018 in the UK.  It's a story of sisters caught in an altered reality, with time and space gone wonky, with birthday balloons and tasty food meeting a horror of chaos and despair. It's Maisie's tenth birthday, and her parents are making a huge effort to give her a great party.  The greatness of the party is supposed to make up for the fact that none of her friends are coming.  Maisie in fact has none at all.  She's a home-schooled science and math prodigy, who's never had a chance to socialize ...

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed! The Reviews Alien Superstar, by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, at Good Reads with Rona Boy Band of the Apocalypse, by Tom Nicholl, at Always in the Middle Cog, by Greg van Eekhout, at Sonderbooks The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Horwitz, at Geo Librarian A Dash of Trouble (Sprinkle of Spirits #1), by Anna Meriano, at Leaf's Reviews The Girl who Stole and Elephant, by Nizrana Farook, at Lily and the Fae (I haven't read this myself yet, so not sure it counts as fantasy....) The Girl with the Dragon Heart, by Stephanie Burgis, at Book Criac Lampie and the Children of the Sea, by Annet Schaap, at Whispering Stories The Mystwick School of Musicraft, by Jessica Khoury, at Sharon the Librarian Race to the Sun, by Rebecca Roanhoures, at Ms. Yingling Reads , Book Page , and Bookshelf Fantasies The Red Winter (The Tapestry #5), by Henry H. Neff, at Say What? The Revenge of Magic, by James Riley, at Imagi...

I am still stubbornly refusing to say good-bye to the middle grade sci-fi/fantasy books of 2019.  Though I did read around 200 of them, when I went through the Goodreads list of 2019 MG fiction, I found some that I had overlooked.   If I'd started focusing on 2020 back when it started, I don't know when I'd have gotten around to reading those books, and I'm very glad to have read them, so here I am. I'm really surprised that The Twelve , by Cindy Lin (HarperCollins, July 2019), didn't get more buzz (or at least, more buzz that trickled down to me).  This is a debut East Asian zodiac fantasy that is a really fun adventure, with tons of kid appeal and fascinating magical powers! Usagi's island home was supposed to be kept safe from invasion by the powers of the 12 zodiac warriors, trained in the use of the magical gifts of their signs on Jade Mountain, home to not just the warriors and their heirs, but to 12 wonderfully magical treasures.  But the Dragon warri...

When Abe Freeman left New Jersey and his Jewish roots for the enchanted land of New Mexico, he discovered that new adventures can be more than romance and danger. There are also those of the culinary kind. Leaving his matzo balls behind, he had his first food encounter in a small town diner just west of the Texas border. When the waitress asked him if he wanted "red" or "green" on his enchiladas Abe, puzzled, settled for what she called "Christmas", a serving of both red and green chile served atop two cheese enchiladas and accompanied with a generous serving of refried beans and rice. That was only the beginning. His introduction to Navajo Police Officer, Emily Etcitty led him to try such delicacies as mutton stew, fry bread, Navajo tacos, and, reluctantly, blood sausage. Although their relationship started off rocky, the food adventures continued to grow. On special occasions such as ceremonies, kneel-down bread, made of mashed corn and baked underground...

The Thief Knot , by Kate Milford, is the third of the Greenglass House series (though there are other books set in the fictional town of Nagspeake). The first, Greenglass House, will always have a special place in my heart, because not only did I myself love it, but it was the last book I read out loud to my little one (now 16), and he loved it too....So it was a treat to anticipate returning to Nagspeake with The Thief Knot (it's a real pleasure to keep a book you really want to read out for a few days, so that every time it catches your eye you get a happy zest moment), and a treat to actually do so (because it was really good)! The Thief Knot is essentially the story of a group of kids coming together to solve a mystery--in this case, the kidnapping of a politician's little girl, Peony.  Best friends Marzana and Nialla had been wanting excitement, and despite all the curious and dubious things about their home in the Liberty district of Nagspeake (full of shifty characters w...

welcome to another week of middle grade sci fi/fantasy goodness, gathered by me from around the blogs for your reading pleasure!  Please let me know of any posts I missed. The Reviews The Big Shrink (Upside-Down Magic #6), by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins, at Puss Reboots The Book of Secrets, and The Book of Answers (The Ateban Cipher books 1 and 2) by A.L. Tait, at Always in the Middle Brown, by Håkon Øvreås, at Charlotte's Library The Good Hawk, by Joseph Elliott, at Log Cabin Library Jinxed, by Amy McCulloch, at Ms. Yingling Reads and Waking Brain Cells Magical Mischief, by Anna Dale, at Leaf's Reviews The Mask of Aribella, by Anna Houghton, at Book Murmuration The Monster in the Lake, by Louie Stowell, at Book Craic The Obisdian Compass (Time Castaways #2), by Liesl Shurtliff, at Charlotte's Library Orion Lost, by Alastair Chisholm, at Book Craic and Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books Secondhand Wishes, by Anna Staniszweski, at Ms. Yingling Reads The S...

In the thriller Deadly Secrets , Gavin Shawlens is scoffing a pineapple to save his life. In a desperate scene, Gavin is poisoned, and he turns to the power of the pineapple. How can the humble pineapple save him? The popular fruit contains a smart component normally involved in the ripening process; an enzyme called bromelain. The medicinal properties of pineapple were known over 600 years ago by South American Indians who found magical healing properties and pineapple became a symbol of good health as well as a gift for friends and strangers. Pineapple flesh was used as a digestion aid and as a cleansing agent to improve skin texture. Warriors prepared a poultice using pineapple flesh for serious wounds and a 'bandage' from pineapple leaves for superficial cuts. Another regular use of pineapple by the Indians was to overcome painful bellyache that accompanied feasting on meat. Consumption of meat 600 years ago was much greater than that of today. After a successful hunt, a hu...