My Current Interest

Love & Saffron Photo of book cover taken by Kate Dorsey      If you love food, this is the book for you. There are different descriptions throughout of the food the characters discover and try. Something people who are into food will probably love.      If you’re not a food person, Love & Saffron is for you as well. I say this being not a huge food person myself. I tended to zone out at the food parts, which is what made me think I would not finish this book at first. Then I thought how silly it would be to drop out on a book so quickly when it was less than 200 pages long. At least get to page 50. Which I did. Then I got to page 100, to page 150, and to the end. By keeping going, I found myself reading a great story about a beautiful friendship.                             It all started with a packet of saffron. Joan Bergstr...

     I am always looking for a new mystery series to read. That is why when I find a premise or title I like, I give the series a try. This time it was the title Leave No Scone Unturned I found intriguing. But, as so often happens, I discovered this book was not the first in its series. Something I figured out after I brought it home from the library . I then had to rush out and get the first book. Once I had that one home, I read both books very quickly.      Dani Sloan’s life is up in the air. She lives in an apartment building full of college students. Her HR job is over after leaving it because of an ethics issue; plus, the fact she simply did not like it. And she has broken up with her boyfriend after discovering he is engaged to another woman.      All this going on in her life is why Dani finds it such a relief when she learns she has inherited a mansion from one of her grandmother’s friends, Geraldine Cook. Geraldine is a woman D...

     The entire time I read Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates I felt I read it before. Yet, by the end of the book, I still couldn’t figure out for certain whether I had or not. Not that it really mattered. Whether I read this book or not, I enjoyed reading it this time.      Chocolatier Michelle Serrano is thrilled to have the renovations done on her book and chocolate shop. Her best friend Erica runs the book side of things, while she runs the chocolate. It is a great situation. The two friends can work together and still do what they each love.      With the shop up and running, Michelle and Erica are working with other local business owners to put together a Memorial Day Weekend festival. It will include the first ever West Riverdale Arts Festival and a Great Fudge Cook-Off. The festival is a lot of work, which always manages to grow when Mayor Gwen Ficks comes around. She loves adding things to the festival plan.    ...

     Just when I think the situation with rival baker Olivia has been eliminated, it rears up again.  When will this conflict end?!      It’s off to Las Vegas for the owners of Fairy Tale Cupcakes .   They are going in hopes of opening their first franchise.   Something head baker Mel Cooper is not happy to have happening.        Mel’s recipes and cupcakes are precious to her.   She does not want to risk the quality going down in a place where she does not have control.   Her two business partners, Angie DeLaura and Tate Harper completely disagree with Mel’s determination to stop the franchise.   With a vote of two to one, the franchise is happening.      While Tate is the one who set up the meeting with the woman who wants to franchise, it is the very reluctant Mel who must actually conduct the meeting.   Tate and Angie claim they missed the meeting because they lost track of time (pe...

     What is the fascination with zombies?   It is a phenomenon I don’t understand.   Dracula .   Frankenstein’s monster.   Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.   Those I get.   Maybe because these characters are part of literature, I understand people’s fascination with them more.   There might be a book about a zombie, I just don’t know it.   But zombies as a whole, and wanting to walk around like one on a day other than Halloween, I just don’t get.        It’s Zombie Walk time, and the owners of Fairy Tale Cupcakes have decided to sell their cupcakes during the festivities.   Things do not go well from the start.      First, co-owner Angie’s rock and roll ex-boyfriend shows up to perform.   Then two kids follow bakery employee Marty around because they think he’s a ghost.   Co-owner Tate gets in a fight because of a false accusation cast at employee Oz .   And co-owner and head ba...

     You have no idea how much I would love to see The Victory Garden turned into a film or mini-series.  And you have no idea how much I would love to write the screenplay for it.  That is how good this book is, and how much I loved it.  There is a little bit of a slow start, but once I got past that, I did not want to put this book down.      Emily Bryce is eager to strike out on her own.   While others are off fighting in the war (World War I), she is at home living in luxury.   Emily feels she should be doing something important for the war effort, but doesn’t know what.   So far all she has done is visit the wounded soldiers in the hospital next door, and the few other parent-approved tasks she has been allowed to do.   Her friend, Clarissa, is a nurse.   Her brother, Freddie, died while fighting.   She, herself, has done and sacrificed nothing.      Her parents are the biggest reason why...

     It’s cupcake and mystery time! Road Trip Treats /Artwork by Kate Dorsey      Things between cupcake baker Melanie “Mel” Cooper and her mother, Joyce , have not been going well.   Ever since Mel and her boyfriend Joe broke up, Joyce has refused to talk to her daughter.   That’s why when Joyce and her friend Ginny come asking Mel and her Fairy Tale Cupcake bakery to make cupcakes for a local beauty pageant, Mel is furious.   Now her mother will talk to her.   When she wants something.      The situation worsens when her two business partners, Angie and Tate , say they think baking for the pageant is a good idea.   This backs Mel into a corner.      Reluctantly, Mel agrees to making the cupcakes.   One benefit of doing this is she will be around to support Lupe, who has decided to enter the pageant.      Lupe is a friend of Oz, Mel’s intern now-turned employee.   She...

     It seems the Olivia situation may have FINALLY gotten taken care.  The resolution doesn’t come until the end of Going, Going, Ganache , but it gives me hope for the future of the series.  It’s about time.         Cupcake bakery owners Mel Cooper and Angie DeLaura are going to be featured in a popular and prestigious local magazine, Southwest Style .   It is a great honor which goes badly from the start.   Instead of being photographed as themselves, Mel and Angie are forced to pose in costumes.   Then rival baker Olivia Puckett crashes the photo shoot.   A fight breaks out, the photo shoot is damaged, and Fairy Tale Cupcakes are the ones blamed.      To cover the cost of the damages, and to get his publishing team to finally work together, the new owner of Southwest Style , Ian Hannigan, has Mel and Angie hold a cupcake bootcamp.   His team must work together, guided by Mel and Angie, in...

Images provided by Kensington Books.      Sometimes with a series there is a book that puts me on edge.   I have a hard time reading it.   Sometimes I don’t finish it at all.   If I don’t finish it, I tend not to continue on with the series.      That is something that almost happened with The Poppy McAllister Mysteries .   I loved the first book, Class Reunions are Murder , but the second book I had a really hard time with.   There were so many annoying characters!   Something told me to keep going, though.   I found the annoying characters evened out, and I was able to finish Midnight Snacks are Murder .      Then came Restaurant Weeks are Murder .   I enjoyed this book, so I read the fourth, Theater Nights are Murder .   With this fourth book, I fell in love with the series all over again.   Now I am greatly looking forward to the fifth installment to see what happens next.   ...

     Olivia really, truly has got to go.  She is incredibly obnoxious.  To make matters worse, Mel and Angie act really immature when they deal with her.  Even when Olivia is hardly in the book her actions grate on my nerves.  She is definitely a character that has to go.                    Business has been slow at Fairy Tale Cupcakes.   When an opportunity comes along to sell their cupcakes at a rodeo,  bakery owners Mel Cooper and Angie DeLaura think it’s a great idea.   At first, they think they will be able to bring only one other person with them, but everyone involved in the bakery insists on coming along.   That makes five people, in a new cupcake van, on a road trip out of town. Road Trip Treats /Artwork by Kate Dorsey      Upon arrival, selling cupcakes at the rodeo seems like it will be a great adventure as well as good for business.   Then, Sli...

Image provided by Kensington Books.            Well, I must say Juliet has toned down her relationship meddling now she has her own relationship to concentrate on.   This was my wish with the last book .   How long this behavior will last, though, I have no idea.                        Juliet Brody is about to get married.   She has been crazy about Reverend Simon Brook for quite some time.   Now they are going to be husband and wife.                 Candy maker Bailey King is the maid of honor.   She’s dating Juliet’s son, Sheriff’s Deputy Aiden Brody.   Juliet loves Bailey and would be thrilled for Bailey to become her daughter-in-law.   In fact, if she wasn’t getting married herself, Juliet would probably be doing her usual habit o...