Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke My rating: 4 of 5 stars I admit it. Most of my impulsive behavior involves food. So I just happened to be scanning through the list of Goodreads giveaways about to come due, and I saw this book and signed up for the giveaway, never expecting I would win. This is the nineteenth in a series of a genre I never knew existed, cookbook cozy mysteries. But after I read the first few pages, I was hooked. This book is one-fourth mystery, one-fourth soap opera romance-drama, one-fourth with characters talking about food and exchanging recipes, and one fourth is the actual recipes. OK, I'm a sucker for red velvet cake. There were times when I thought the mysterious near-death and deaths were taking a backseat to the food planning and recipe swapping, but it was a fun read. I give it four stars and I'm not even a cat person.
View all my reviews
As I have done in past years, I am offering my memoir, Motherless Child - stories from a life for 99 cents from May 1 through May 14, 2013 Kindle version only Click here.
And my latest book, Tell Them I Died will also be available for 99 cents during that same period, May 1 through May 14, 2013 Kindle version only. Click here.
About Motherless Child - stories from a life: Imagine you gave a baby up for adoption forty years ago, and after years of trying to find her, she finds you. Now come the hard questions. She's healthy, beautiful, and successful, but she wants to know why you gave her away and why you didn't marry her father. And there is also the unspoken question of "What kind of black woman gives her baby away?" How do you explain to her that giving her away was the best gift you could offer? This is Sarah Weathersby's first published work, a coming-of-age-in-the-sixties-single-black-pregnant and on the way to Germany, memoir. Click here.
About Tell Them I Died TELL THEM I DIED is a romance, but it is different from the standard romance novel in that the protagonists are all over fifty years of age, retired, and with discretionary time and funds to do whatever they want, and online friends to share every minute. And unlike other romances, much of the action takes place on the internet on social networking sites. We baby-boomers sometimes have the idea that we're grown, we know it all, and the rules that may apply to teenagers don't apply to us anymore. WRONG! The world of dating has changed a lot since we were teenagers, and even grown-a$$ adults can be surprised by STDs and domestic violence.
When it comes to long-distance internet romances, Sixty is the new seventeen. Click here.
Welcome to the Friday BoomerLit Blog Hop. http://boomerlitfriday.blogspot.com/ Check out this week's snippet. For those of you who remember "that woman" in Las Vegas, she's back, as Jackson is about to check out of a rehab facility. At mid-morning, the sun was shining in Jackson’s room. Bonita walked in, ready to take him to her house. “I know you’re ready to get out of here and get back to Memphis. They told me you would be ready this morning,” she said. Jackson looked at her with a scowl. “I appreciate all your help, but I called Carlton. He said he would come this afternoon to get me. It took me days before I could talk. I don’t think I’ll look at a bowl of gumbo ever again.” “I told you I misunderstood. I thought you were asking about shells. I took all the shells out.” “Yeah, anyway. I’m glad you got me to the ER, came to visit me and all, but Carlton said he would help me get my strength back so I can go home. Besides I need to talk with him about things.” “If you’re sure you don’t need anything from me, you have your wallet and suitcase,” Bonita said. “The hotel was kind enough to take a day off your bill and check you out since you were in the hospital. The car rental wasn’t as nice...I’ll be going then. You have my number if you need anything. I hope we can stay in touch.” She kissed Jackson on the cheek, turned on her heel and left.
TELL THEM I DIED is available as an ebook or in print from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and others. You can find direct links on my website:
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi My rating: 5 of 5 stars "Kweku dies barefoot on a Sunday before sunrise, his slippers by the doorway to the bedroom like dogs." The first line of the novel. Kweku Sai, a Ghanaian physician educated in the US, father of four children born in the US, dies of a heart attack in Ghana, leaving his slippers so as not to disturb his second wife. And so it begins with the ending, a circuitous tale telling of the medical career of Kweku, the growing of his family with his beautiful wife, Fola, and the raising of their children in Boston. Until it all falls apart. Kweku leaves his family. Fola does what she can to provide the best education for her children, all brilliant young minds. But somehow the parenting gets lost in the fracture of the family. When they learn of Kweku's death(after puzzling how a surgeon could not have saved himself before the final beat of his heart, and how could he leave his slippers behind, in an intentionally long parenthetical expression) the family comes back together revealing years of secrets in attempt to heal their relationships. I puzzled over the title until "Ghana Must Go" was explained on page 237 as the expulsion of two million Ghanaians from Nigeria in 1983. Click here I loved this book. It took me a few pages to get into the rhythm of the stream of consciousness, and then it all clicked. I was reading into the night, worrying about those beautiful "shiny" twins, Kehinde and Taiwo, the brilliant surgeon Olu, and baby Sadie who does not know her beauty. I hate having to take it back to the library. I may even have to buy the book for myself.
View all my reviews
Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke
