Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

From the author's website:

Coming in April -- A teenager well-liked at the island youth center dies in an accidental fall. A wealthy businesman booms with laughter at those around him until a shot rings out at the center's annual program. Max Darling suspects a connection between the two deaths. Another teenager is attacked. The center's director faces arrest which will separate her from her dying sister. Annie and Max Darling race against time to prove her innocence and scramble to solve three inter-locking puzzles: the pulled-out pant pockets of one victim, three guns that appear and disappear, and the disappeartance of a teenager who may have seen too much.

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (April 6, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061453099
ISBN-13: 978-0061453090

Carolyn Hart is one of my favorite cozy authors. Last year I had the privilege to interview Carolyn. In case you missed it and would like to see what she had to say, see here. This is the 20th book in the Death on Demand series.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted each week by Marcia at The Printed Page. Anyone can play along. Just leave a link to your MM at Marcia's blog and follow the links to other blogs to see what books are finding their way to mailboxes. Caveat: participation in MM can cause your tbr list to grow exponentially. *Penguin at mailbox image used with permission from Penguin Club.* Here's what showed up last week:

Monday: The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen from Mary (bookfan). Thanks, Mary, I'm looking forward to it!

Little Black Ant on Park Street by Janet Halfmann from Soundprints. Janet writes the most wonderful children's books; not only entertaining but educational.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry from Harper Collins via SA.

Tuesday: War On the Margins by Libby Cone won at the WWII challenge. Thanks, Anna & Serena.

Coming Home by Mariah Stewart snagged from LT.

Thursday: A Bolt from the Blue by Diane A.S. Stuckart won from Ariel at Mystery Suspense

Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell from Random House through SA. They sent an ARC so the cover below is not what I have. I just love Monet's paintings so I'm hoping this story will be well done.

Friday: Drood by Dan Simmons won from Debbie at Wrighty's Reads. Thanks, Debbie!

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold won from Kim at Metroreader. Thanks, Kim!

Review: An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor

This is the fourth book in the Irish Country series. I haven't read the previous three so I wasn't sure what to expect. The story starts out in Ballybucklebo in Ireland during 1964. It's Christmas day and Kinky Kincaid, housekeeper/cook to Dr.O'Reilly and Dr. Laverty is getting ready to cook dinner. A group of young children had been carolling outside and Kinky invites them in for hot drinks and a snack. While they are eating, she tells them a story of how she got the "sight" complete with banshees, faeries and the St. Stephen's Day ghost.

Those children must have had the patience of Job. The story rambled on and on for 105 pages at which point I was ready to give up. The author would have done more justice to the book by making this section a lot shorter with less rambling and more realistic. Honestly, what 8-11 year old uses the word suppurate?

When the kids leave, Kinky sits down for a bit of lunch and begins to reminisce about how she came to work for the doctors. This is when the story became very interesting. The time frame was during Kinky's mid to late teens and chronicles her school years, her desire to become a teacher and how she met her future husband, Paudeen Kincaid. It's also a most wonderful tale of the O'Hanlon family life. Kinky's sister Fidelma was as interesting a character as Kinky. Taylor managed to mentally transport me to Ireland and be part of the story.

This last two thirds of the book redeemed the whole thing for me. Once I got past the first section I was hesitant to put it down. Taylor includes a 20 page glossary at the end of the book with words that are used in the book. Also woven into the story, which I liked a lot, is how the unfamiliar Irish words are to be pronounced. I found these features to be most helpful. If the other three books are as good as the last part of this one, I will be willing to try another one. 3.5***

Show Me 5 Saturday: Evenings At the Argentine Club by Julia Amante

Alipet at That's a novel idea started a new MEME called Show Me Five Saturday. Unfortunately, our host has been missing in action but Jenners puts up a Mr. Linky if you would like to play along. This meme will give each blogger an opportunity to give a brief description of a book they have read or reviewed during the week. It will work like this: Each Saturday you will post the answer to these questions.

1. Name of book: Evenings at the Argentine Club by Julia Amante


2. Words to describe book: Contemporary fiction


3. Location it took place or characters you met:

• Burbank, California


• Victoria Torres: daughter of Victor and Jacqueline, who works somewhat half-heartedly in her parents Argentine style restaurant. She would rather be doing her own thing; interior decorating. Victoria does not want to distress her parents by going against their wishes to follow in their footsteps or leaving the close knit Argentine cultural club they belong to.


• Eric Ortelli: Successful young real estate speculator whose parents wanted him to be a lawyer. After much arguing over this point, Eric left home for seven years and is now back to make amends. Being on his own has definitely mellowed him besides making him realize how much he misses and loves his family.

4. Things you liked/disliked about the book:

• I liked the clashes between parents and adult offspring. Although both sets of parents in the story have emigrated from Argentina to make a better life for themselves, they still cling to old world traditions and attitudes. Needless to say, their children have their own more up to date ideas.


• I liked the romances that developed in the story.


• I liked the emotional growth of all the characters as told from their own point of view. Parents learned to let their children follow their own hearts.


• I also liked the story line of marital stress in the Torres's household. Jacqueline finally let Victor know she was unfulfilled as an empty nest wife while he worked at the restaurant almost non-stop. It took a lot to get Victor to see the error of his ways.

5. stars or less for your rating: 4**** I don't know what I really expected from this book but it turned out to be very good. I read it almost non-stop as it is a quick and easy read. When I did put it down, it was somewhat reluctantly.

Disclosure: This book is from my personal library.

Giveaway: The Local News by Miriam Gershow

To celebrate the paperback release of The Local News by Miriam Gershow, Random House is allowing me to give away one copy of this book. Not sure what the book is about? Here is a link to my review.

Giveaway details:

Residents of US & Canada

P.O. boxes are okay for this one.

Be sure to leave an e mail address in your comment.

+ 3 Bonus points can be earned by putting a link in your sidebar or tweeting .

Deadline is April 3rd at 6 P.M. EST Good Luck!

Teaser Tuesday and Review: Devil's Food Cake by Josie Kilpack

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B at Should be Reading

This week's teaser is taken from Devil's Food Cake by Josi S. Kilpack.

"Sadie squinted in the faint glow from the exterior lights, finally picking out the shape of a person leaning against her car. Sadie's heart abruptly began racing within her chest. Fear wasn't something that came easily for her, but finding herself alone in a parking lot with a stranger- and armed with only a devil's food cake- was a precarious circumstance."

Like the teaser? Here's my take on the book.

My thoughts One of my favorite genres to read is the cozy mystery. Pair that with culinary skills of a middle aged amateur sleuth, add in some quirky characters and perhaps a budding romance and you have a winner in my opinion. Devil's Food Cake is just that!

The main character Sadie Hofmiller, a widowed cooking aficionado who just seems to easily channel her inner busybody, sets out to solve a murder mystery in Garrison, Colorado; not exactly what she had in mind for the evening.

When Sadie arranged for Tom Mortenson, a former resident, to speak at the library fund raiser dinner regarding his best selling book, everyone expected a nice quiet dinner meeting. Between the prime rib and devil's food cake, no one could foresee that just fixing a microphone would set off a shot gun blast that immediately killed Tom's agent, Mark Ogresky. None of the attendees paid $150.00 a plate to be scared out of their wits!

Who could possibly have gone to such trouble rigging the shotgun like that? What was their motive and when did anyone even have the opportunity to set it up? This made Sadie wonder if Mark was the real target or was it a mistake and did someone have it in for Tom?

Tom had left Garrison years ago following the suicide of his son and murder of his son's girlfriend. Sadie had to first figure out if anyone from the past still held a grudge. Through a lot of digging and some madcap adventures, Sadie, her son Shawn and a new acquaintance by the name of Eric managed to get themselves in the thick of the action despite the police telling them to just go home. Of course, that didn't stop Sadie!

Just when I thought it was a wrap and I had it figured out, a big turnaround happened at warp speed. Whoa, didn't see that twist coming. Good one, Josi! I had to speed read to the end I was so surprised and couldn't wait to see what happened.

Sadie Hofmiller and her teenaged son, Shawn, were fun characters to read. It's as if he and his mother had been solving crimes together for a long time, their thoughts meshed well together in figuring out what clues to follow. I also really liked another character that was introduced in this book and that was Eric. He turned out to be much more than I thought he would initially. I hope to see him again in the next book.

For fans of culinary cozies, this is definitely one for your wish list. And the recipes? I was drooling just reading the devil's food cake recipe. Devil's Food Cake is the third in this culinary series by Josi Kilpack. For more info on the author and her books you can visit her website or her blog .

Disclosure: A review copy of the book was provided by the author through

Pump Up Your Book promotions.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted each week by Marcia at The Printed Page. Anyone can play along. Just leave a link to your MM at Marcia's blog and follow the links to other blogs to see what books are finding their way to ailboxes. Caveat: participation in MM can cause your tbr list to grow exponentially. Here's what showed up last week.

Tuesday:

Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack from the author for review in April through Pump Up your Book Tours. Thanks, Josi!

The Swimming Pool by Holly Leclaw from DoubleDay through Shelf Awareness. This one looks most interesting as it takes place on Cape Cod. There's a great Q&A with Holly at Amazon.

I'll Mature When I'm Dead by Dave Barry from Lydia Hirt, marketing coordinator for G.P. Putnam's Sons. Thanks so much, Lydia!

Characters' actions - How do they affect you?

Hmmm. . . . . .So what do you think about this?

While reading Tell me Something True by Leila Cobo, the main character, 21 year old Gabriella Richard is confronted by her grandmother and her cousin Juan Carlos about a man she has started to date; Angel Silva, son of an imprisoned drug lord. Gabriella is on her usual annual visit to Cali, Colombia to stay with her grandmother for a month. While there, Gabriella finds her late mother's journal and discovers her mother had had an affair while working in Colombia. Her grandmother knew about it but her father never found out about his wife's infidelity. Gabriella gets defensive when her grandmother tells her to stop seeing Angel as she fears for her safety.

Now, when her grandmother says she will have to tell Gabriella's father, she lashes out at her grandmother that if she does tell him Gabriella will tell him about her mother's affair and that her grandmother knew all about it and did not stop that. Gabriella up to this point had been somewhat of an inocuous yet likeable character. Right about now I'm not liking Gabriella too much. Not only is she willing to hurt her own father but she is not showing her grandmother any respect. This is how it went down:

"You tell him," Gabriella says carefully, "and I'll tell him that you knew about this Juan Jose character and my mother. I'll tell him how she had an affair wiile staying in your houre, and you let it happen. And that you didn't have a problem with."

The words spill out before she can stop them, and she is appalled at how awful they are.

She wants to grab them back, but now they hover in the hushed room and she can see them poisoning the air, physically attacking her grandmother, who suddenly looks to Gabriella like an old woman.
Okay, so she feels some remorse. Still, shouldn't a 21 year old have some more restraint and not act like a small child saying anything to hurt her beloved grandmother, especially when she is staying in her home? Maybe because I never knew any of my grandparents, ( they had all died by the time I was born) I feel people should show respect for theirs.

This is about one third of the way into the book. So far, Cobo has not shown me any of Gabriella's feelings about her discovery. I hope Gabriella can redeem herself in my eyes. Am I being unreasonably judgemental when it is just a fictional character? Have you read books where you did not approve or like a character's actions? Did it color your opinion of the rest of the book? Did it make you feel more empathy for the one who has been wronged?

Show Me 5 Saturday: Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Alipet at That's a novel idea started a new MEME called Show Me Five Saturday. Unfortunately, our host has been missing in action but Jenners puts up a Mr. Linky if you would like to play along. This meme will give each blogger an opportunity to give a brief description of a book they have read or reviewed during the week. It will work like this: Each Saturday you will post the answer to these questions.

1. Title of the book: Fireworks over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff
2. Words to describe the book: Southern romance
3. Characters you met or location:

• Lily Davis Woodward : twenty year old young woman who meets and falls in love at first sight with Jake. Although Lily's husband Paul has been fighting in WWII for three years and is due home in several days, Lily has no qualms about having a two day tempestuous affair with Jake. I found Lily to be a fanciful young woman with a bit of the rebel in her no matter how much she tried to kowtow to societal mores.
• Jake Russo: young Italian immigrant who is commissioned by the town of Toccoa to set up a fireworks display for the July 4th celebration. When Lily stops by to see his practice fireworks, he is immediately taken with her; so much in fact he writes the formula for a rare blue firework star that he names Stella di Lily. Even though Jake realizes Lily's husband Paul will be home soon, he pleads with Lily to leave Toccoa and Paul behind to follow him around the world setting up fireworks. One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the whole book involve Jake's flashback to seeing his father in an internment camp in Tennessee just because he was of Italian descent.
• Honey Davis: Lily's mother who keeps reminding Lily of her duty to Paul and to society. Honey is a formidable woman who rides roughshod over everyone else's opinions if they do not coincide with hers. She has definite ideas of what a woman's place is in 1945.

4. Things you liked/disliked about the book:

• I very much liked the southern setting of Georgia and the WWII time frame. Stepakoff really put me in the scene in the small town of Toccoa with his characters and their mannerisms.
• The relationship beween Lily, her granddaughter Colleen and her parents was very well executed. I could feel how close she was to her father and granddaughter and how she felt intimidated by her mother. Even though Colleen was a minor character it was easy to see that Lily had a good realtionship with her; probably one she wished she had had with her own mother.
• Descriptions of the time and the area were extremely well done. It was easy to feel the heat and humidity of the summer days.
• The torn feelings Lily experienced about her decision to leave Paul or stay and do what was expected from her; adherence to responsibility, duty and vows made. She swore she loved Jake. I'm not too sure I belive in life changing decisions of this magnitude based on a two day affair but Stepakoff does know how to write a tender love scene. I'm just not sure how believable it all is.

5. Stars or less for your rating: Due to some doubt on my part about Jake being her true soul mate I gave the book 3.5 stars as I did enjoy the story. The time frame, the setting, a lot of historical facts about fireworks and Georgia (who knew Georgia had a gold belt ?) and the descriptions probably contributed to most of the rating. Definitely worth a read for a debut novel. I would certainly read another one of Stepakoff's work.

Disclosure: An ARC of the book was provided by St. Martin's Press through Shelf Awareness.

Friday Finds: Low Country Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank

Friday Finds is hosted by Should be Reading and asks what new books did you hear about or discover this week.

I found out at The Book Resort that Dorothea Benton Frank, one of my favorite authors, has a new book coming out June 15th titled Low Country Summer, the sequel to Plantation. I'm so looking forward to it. Diane did a great interview with Dorothea so if you didn't catch it, please visit.

Product Details
Pub. Date: June 15, 2010
Publisher: Harper Collins

Format: Hardcover, 352 pages

ISBN-13: 9780061961175

If you have never read Dorothea's books before, you have been really missing something special. You might want to start with Plantation. Here's a little blurb about Plantation from Goodreads;

Caroline Wimbley Levine always swore she'd never go home again. But now, at her brother's behest, she has returned to South Carolina to see about Mother - only to find that the years have not changed the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation. Miss Lavinia is as maddeningly eccentric as ever - and absolutely will not suffer the questionable advice of her children. This does not surprise Caroline. Nor does the fact that Tall Pines is still brimming with scandals and secrets, betrayals and lies. But she soon discovers that something is different this time around. It lies somewhere in the distance between her and her mother - and in her understanding of

what it means to come home...

Ah ha, got you intrigued now, I bet! For a complete list of Dorothea's books, visit her website.

So what books sparked your interest this week?

Review: The Girl From Junchow by Kate Furnivall

From the back cover:China, 1929. For years Lydia Ivanova believed her father was killed by the Bolsheviks. But when she learns he is imprisoned in Stalin-controlled Russia, the fiery girl is willing to leave everything behind-even her Chinese lover, Chang An Lo.

With her half brother, Alexei, Lydia sets out on a dangerous journey. Tension grows between the two as Alexei's search for his past threatens Lydia's quest to find her father and forge a new future for herself. But when Alexei abruptly disappears, Lydia is left alone, penniless in soviet Russia. As she continues her search for information, Lydia finds herself caught up in a perilous entanglement with a Russian officer.

But Chang An Lo has not forgotten Lydia. He knows things about her father that she does not. And while he races to protect her, she is prepared to risk treacherous consequences to discover the truth.

Once again Furnivall managed to captivate me with her story of Lydia Ivanova. This story picks up where The Russian Concubine left off as Lydia, her half brother Alexei and Lydia's Cossack friend Popkov board the train from Junchow to Russia in search of her father, Jens. Lydia has not seen her father since she was five years old but what memories she has of him are loving ones. To think that he is still in a labor camp in Siberia is heartbreaking to her.

Being a stubborn willed seventeen year old, Lydia sometimes acts before she thinks. Fortunately for her she has the intrepid Popkov, a great bear of a man, to watch out for her. It's a good thing too as he manages to get Lydia out of some very dangerously sticky situations. Although Alexei secretly thinks their father could not possibly have survived the brutal labor camps, he travels with Lydia in the off chance Jens is still alive and that they could possibly rescue him. Alexei manages to get into his own sticky situation, namely getting involved in the Russian mafia through no wish of his own.

Meanwhile back in China, Chang An Lo, Lydia's Chinese lover, has become more embroiled in the Communist Party moving up through the ranks. Chang manages to get a committee sent to Russia to view the new factories being built by the reigning Stalinist regime. Chang is a member of the committee and against all odds, he hooks up with Lydia no matter what the danger and tries to help her rescue her father.

At one point in the story while searching for Jens, Chang An Lo and Lydia have been separated under extremely horrifying circumstances. Chang agonizes over not being able to find her again. Furnivall shows us his emotion in the following gorgeous and passionate writing.

"Chang would not give up. He'd find her. Or die. There was no middle path. He called her name without ceasing,but the flames swallowed his words. The smoke suffocated life. He could feel it dying in his own lungs, and his fear for Lydia tore his heart into pieces.

He called out. He roared her name into the fire and the flames roared back at him, their laughter in every crackle and explosion that they spat in his face. He could see nothing beyond the inferno towering around him whichever direction he turned, and quite suddenly he realized he was looking with the wrong sense. Eyes could lie and confuse and panic. So he closed them. He stood totally still and exhaled the poisons from his lungs.

He listened for her again. But this time he listened with his heart."

Want another sample? To see a brief synopsis of The Russian Concubine and my Tuesday Teaser from the book, see this post. I just love Furnivall's writing. She manages to get me invested in the characters' lives so completely that it is almost hard to believe it is all fiction and to come back to the real world. Combined with beautiful writing, the addition of interesting, multi-faceted characters, heart stopping moments, and an historical overview of Russia during early 1930 made this book very difficult to put down. The ending leads me to believe there will be a sequel. If so, I will be eagerly anticipating it. 5*****

Disclosure: A copy of the book was borrowed from the county library system. Thanks to my tax dollars!

Guest post with Josie Kilpack, author of Devil's Food Cake

Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Josi Kilpack, author of Devil's Food Cake , the third in her culinary mystery series published by Deseret Book. Here's what Josi had to say about characterization. I found it fascinating and I know you will enjoy reading her thoughts.

"I believe that the most important element of any story is the characters it is about. Whether the character is a rock or a pig or a prince of nations, they have to be interesting and relatable. The Harry Potter series is not about magic, it’s about a boy. The Da Vinci Code is not about cryptography, it’s about a professor and a cryptographer trying to solve a murder. Even novels that are plot driven (suspense, horror, etc.) are only there because something is happening to someone, therefore every other element of a story is based upon the characters—they are, therefore, the foundation of every story and because of that they deserve a great deal of attention during the creation process.

The process of ‘making a character’ is call characterization, and it’s part of the story making process that I absolutely love because I find real people fascinating and therefore it’s a lot of fun to use what I see in real life and translate it into a fictional person. First, you have physical characteristics, or the exterior character; tall, short, fat, skinny, broad chested, stooped, limping. Then there is colors for hair, eyes, skin, lips. You have wide set eyes, almond shaped eyes, hook noses, pointy chins, long necks, droopy shoulders, pot bellies etc. Are they young or old, do they look their age, or are they defying mother nature so far? Literally hundreds of characteristics you can mix and match together in such a way to MAKE a person.

For inspiration, I can go to the mall, a PTA meeting, church, or just a family reunion and blend together physical traits until it fits what I want. TV is probably the worst place for inspiration in this way because so many celebrities look similar in body size, shape, etc. Real life is the place to go to find those physical traits that give a visual. Amid the physical description is often their ethnicity, level of activity, and personal hygiene—each of which says a lot about them.

Then I get to move inside and work on the interior character. One of the first questions I ask is how does the character feel about their physical selves. Do they love being tall, do they hate having blue eyes, do they look like their parents, do they look nothing like their parents? How do people perceive them physically, and how does that perception affect them? Are they kind, greedy, secretive, boisterous; how do they react to people? Are they introverted or extroverted—hiding in a corner or the life of the party? The interior character is as limitless as the external character and, again, real life is a great pool of information. I look at how different people react in a crisis, how they engage in conversation and then wonder why they act differently than someone else. While the exterior is all about how they look, the interior is all about who they are.Once I’ve developed the exterior and the interior, I get to paste together their histories. The exterior and interior get to come together here as I decide where they are from, what kind of family they were born into, how they have made it to this point in their lives. Did he go to college? Did she break off an engagement? I like knowing what their zodiac sign is, what the world was like when they were a child and what their parents did for a living that then influenced their lives.

Finally, when I have created these parts I work on the part of the character that works closest with the story; goals. What does the character want? Every story basically comes down to the characters pursuit for that goal and what obstacles they face along the way. The exterior, interior, and historical part of the character add up to equal their goals and desires in life and it’s those very things that, through the course of the story are thwarted.I’ve filled out employment applications in the past so as to keep track of the information because I know once the story starts, I’ll forget. And then the final thing I add is the flaws. No one likes to read about perfect people, therefore as a writer it’s important to have our characters have weaknesses, imperfections, and now and then a down right annoying habit or two.

One of the most important parts of a story is the growth of the character, which means they have to have some part of them in need of improvement. It makes them relatable and real, which is the entire goal of fiction; to make the unreal feel like reality.And yet, despite all the work and imagination, it’s inevitable—at least for me—that many things will change through the course of the story. My character might get taller or fatter or ruder or less educated as needed, usually to increase a conflict they are facing the story, but since I am in charge, I get to make and break the rules all I want. In the words of Robert Cormier “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, brain surgery.”

About the author: Josi S. Kilpack was born and raised in Salt Lake City and now lives with her family in Willard. In addition to her writing, she loves to bake, travel, can her own peaches, watch criminal justice TV and study the oddness of human nature. In 2007 she won a Whitney Award in the mystery/suspense category for her book Sheep's Clothing. Lemon Tart is her ninth published novel , and the first of the Sadie Hoffmiller mystery series that combines many of her great loves into one delicious book. (from publicist material)

A review of Devil's Food Cake will be posted here March 23rd. In April I will also be reviewing Lemon Tart. Please visit Josi's website or her blog .

Review: Sealed With A Ring by Mary Margaret Daughtridge

From the publisher: Sealed With a Ring follows medic Davy Graziano, sidelined after being wounded in action. He meets ambitious and beautiful JJ Caruthers, who has her own motives to quickly find a military husband that will be away on tour and never around. Davy surprised himself by accepting JJ's proposal, but soon after their marriage of convenience ceremony, they suddenly realize they're both falling fast for one another! Can the savvy business woman and dutiful military man put their rising passions aside, or can they find a formula to fall in love?

JJ had put her heart and soul into the family's car business and now her grandfather threatens to sell it if JJ is not married within a year. Not wanting to let go of the business and let down all Caruthers's employees, JJ plots to make a marriage of convenience. When her friend jokingly advises her to marry a Seal as they are rarely home, JJ thinks that is a good idea. A year ago at a wedding, JJ had met a navy Seal named David. The two shared an impetuous night of passion but the next morning went their separate ways.

When she runs into David at a get together, JJ proposes to him and he accepts. David is more than willing to marry JJ but he has some stipulations of his own if he goes through with the deal. What does he want? He wants her! He wants a real marriage. But can he convince JJ of that? The funny thing is she starts to fall for David and he for her but trying to get past the negotiations and dealing with the reality of David's injuries and his desire to resume his military duty is another thing.

Daughtridge spins a true love story that is not without its ups and downs. After a lot of painful heart searching, JJ learns a lot about herself and her grandfather while David comes to a few realizations of his own. Trying to get past their stubborness, they all finally learn what is truly important and that is one aspect of the book I liked; the characters were not portrayed in perpetual hold. They all showed some emotional growth.

Although I found the book to be a tad predictable at times, I certainly enjoyed the story. A few of the sex scenes were a little prolonged but that is just my personal opinion. Some readers will find they really like the play by play steamy action. Sealed With a Ring is not just a fluffy romance; there are a few interesting tidbits about traumatic brain injury along with post traumatic stress disorder. With a Vietnam veteran and Navy Seals woven into the story, the tale becomes all that more believable. For contemporary romance fans, this one is sure to be a winner.

Disclosure: A review copy of the book was provided by Sourcebooks, Inc. Thank you, Danielle!

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Anyone can play along. Just leave a link to your MM at Marcia's blog and follow the links to other blogs to see what books are finding their way to ailboxes.Caveat: participation in MM can cause your tbr list to grow exponentially. Here's what showed up last week.

Monday: The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova won from Dar at Peeking between the pages. Thanks, Dar!

Wednesday: The Crazy School by Cornelia Read won from Toni at A circle of books. Thanks, Toni!
Wild Irish Sea by Loucinda McGary from Sourcebooks.

Farm Fatale by Wendy Holden also from Sourcebooks. Thanks Danielle!

No cover images for these two yet.

Friday: The Life O'Reilly by Brian Cohen from the author Thanks, Brian!Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein from Sarah at Terra Communications. Thanks Sarah!

3/14 = Pi day

Not too long ago we went to some friends' house for dinner and for dessert my friend Phyllis served Key Lime Pie which The Big Guy and I thought was so delicious; ever so light, full of flavor, very fluffy and needless to say made a nice presentation.

I thought she had been slaving for hours squeezing those tiny key limes but she said it only took 5 minutes. Really? Huh? Homemade key lime pie. . . . in five minutes? Was I surprised when she handed me the paper insert from a Keebler pie crust. Who pays attention to those recipes? Certainly not moi. But this one looked too easy for words!

So, the next week I had to try it for myself but since I didn't have lime yogurt but I did have strawberry and a mixed berry, it's was time to experiment. I used a strawberry gelatin with these yogurts. Ooh, la la ~ was it ever so pretty! And tasty, if I do say so myself.

Since I just read today that tomorrow (Sunday which is today for you readers) is pi day, it goes without saying I don't have my own pie pic to show you. The photo above is purloined borrowed from the Keebler site. I'm sure they won't mind since you will be using their crust. You will be using their crust, right? Just nod and say emphatically, yes of course!

Anyway, it seems you can use any combo of yogurt and gelatin you would like. Just be sure to use the sugar free gelatin. If you come up with any better combos, let's hear them. Here's what you need.

5 Minute Key Lime Pie

1/4 c. boiling water
1 pkg. (4 serving size) sugar free lime flavor gelatin
2 containers ( 6 oz each) fat free key lime pie yogurt
1 tub (8 oz) frozen low fat non dairy whipped topping, thawed
1 Keebler graham cracker ready crust.

1. Dissolve gelatin in the boiling water.


2. In large bowl whisk together gelatin mixture and yogurt. Fold in whipped topping carefully. Spread in crust. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or until set.


3. Garnish as desired. Store in refrigerator.

Voila, now wasn't that easy ~ yield: 8 servings