Month: October 2011

(Review) So Sweet!

Posted on by Cindy

Title: So Sweet! Cookies, Cupcakes, Whoopie Pies, and more
Author: Sur La Table
Pud Date: October 2011
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Pages: 144

Source: I received a copy of the book for my honest and sincere thoughts on the book.

About the book:
Proving that life is indeed oh So Sweet! cooking authority Sur La Table offers 50 fabulously sweet recipes with intriguing flavor combinations. From cookies and cupcakes to doughnuts and whoopie pies, you’ll find them all in this attractive and giftable full-color package.

Gathered inside So Sweet! are 50 mouthwatering baking recipes presented alongside photographs of tasty treats such as Milk Chocolate Toffee Bars, Boston Cream Upside Down Cupcakes, and Strawberry with Lemonade Filling Whoopie Pies, as well as Blueberry Buttermilk Doughnuts with Orange Glaze, Cherry Oatmeal Cookies, and Chocolate-Mint Cupcakes. And just in case you’re uncertain what your sweet tooth is craving, a handy flavor profile reveals whether you’re in the mood for sweet, salty, chocolatey, fruity, or nutty. Remind yourself of the sweeter side of life with So Sweet!

One of my favorite genres books to review is cookbooks. Not only because they are pretty much a quick review but I am the kind of person who loves trying new things with food wither it be with food or desserts. So I am always thrilled when I get a cookbook to review.

So Sweet is no exception to the rule. I admit from the cover alone I was drooling. I admit I have a huge sweet tooth and pretty much everyone in the family does too. So when  I got this cookbook I couldn’t wait to try it out but the only problem was what do I want to try first because there is about 50 yummy recipes in this book.

The cookbook is broken down into four delicious sections labelled cookies, cupcakes, whoopie pies and doughnuts. Most of the recipes are accompanied with a photo, which I love because I like to see what the finished product is suppose to look like.

All the recipes include ingredients I could easily find and the instructions were easy to follow and didn’t require much which is another thing I love about the book. I have to say that I like straight forward recipes that include simple and easy steps. Anything complicated I always shy away from.

I realized that if I left the decision up to me I would probably back the whole book so I gave it to Michael and he picked out Smile Cookies. I think the thing that drew him in was the fact that the cookies are covered in icing sugar when they are cooked.

Thanks Andrews McMeel for sending me this great coobook and I can’t wait to try more of the recipes very soon.

Smile Cookies
(bakes about 45)

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter softened (room temp) ( 2 sticks)
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons of pure vanilla extract
  • 2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour to finish
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

  1. Position 1 oven rack in the top third of the oven and the other rack in the bottom third of the oven. Preheat to 350 and then line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and using a mixer, beat for about 1 minute on low speed. Then beat at medium speed for about 5 minutes or until it looks very light (almost white). Turn of the mixer and using a spatula scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and mix for about 30 seconds. Turn the mixer off and scrape down the bowl again.
  3. Add the flour and mix on low speed until the flour is blended in and scrape down the bowl again to make sure there is no clumps of flour hiding.
  4. To shape each cookie take a piece of dough that is about 1 tablespoon and roll it on your work surface back and forth with your fingers, shaping it into a log that is about 3 inches long. Make sure to add some pressure to the ends to give them a point. Place onto bakig sheet and form into a smile. Place one inch apart of the sheet.
  5. Place each sheet on each rack and bake for about 7 minutes and then switch the sheets and bake for another 8 to 9 minutes (so what was on the top rack will go to the bottom) The cookies should appear to be a light  sand color and firm to the touch and golden brown on the bottom and edges. Let cool 10 minutes.
  6. Sift powdered sugar into a bowl and while the cookies are still warm roll each into the sugar until completely coated and place back on the pan to let cool completely. When completely cool roll them back into the sugar mixture again.

These were so good and I will be making these again.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

(Book & Author Spotlight) Just A Few Seconds by Nemo James

Posted on by Cindy

Nemo James dreamt of becoming a professional musician from the first time he picked up a guitar following a talent content disaster. Thought of by his friends as being the person most likely to make the big time he turned professional but was continually side tracked by the need to earn a living from music.

His journey takes him all over the world from private gigs for the rich and famous to the roughest pubs. Starting in the late sixties when heavy rock was born, through to the 1980’s and 90’s when discos and electronics decimated live music dance halls.

Just a Few Seconds is an amusing and heartrending story of perseverance showing how the road to success can lead us down the strangest of paths.

About The Book:
Just A Few Seconds is a story of one man’s experience in the music business. It is an amusing and true story of a successful freelance musician whose gigs ranged from private parties to the very rich and famous to the roughest London pubs where playing the wrong song at the wrong time meant the difference between life and death. He takes more twists, turns and knocks than a mouse trapped in a pinball machine but the ending shows how the road to success can lead us down the strangest and most desolate of paths. If you are looking for the usual rock star memoirs full of sex drugs and rock and roll then this book is not for you, but if you are interested in a unique insight into the music business that reads like a thriller then this book won’t disappoint.

About Nemo James
Born and based in England, Nemo James worked as a professional musician and singer/songwriter for more than 30 years. He now lives in Croatia with his wife Federika and their cat Jutko who is becoming intolerable following his rise to fame on Youtube.

You can check out Nemo James on his web site.

You can also check out Nemo’s you tube page. Here is a sampling of his work:


Click on this text  to take you to Pump Up Your Book to see Nemo virtal book tour schedule.

Nemo James did a Book and Chat with Storyheart. You can click on the Book and Chat to listen to the interview.

You can purchase the book by clicking here.

Thanks to Pump Up Your Book for allowing me to be a part of this tour.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

(Review) Utterly Charming

Posted on by Cindy

Title: Utterly Charming
Author: Kristine Grayson
Publisher:Sourcebooks Casablanca
Pub Date: October 2011
Pages: 320

Source: I received an Advanced Readers Copy from publisher for my honest review.

About the Book:
Bestselling author Kristine Grayson’s fairy tale romances bring the classic stories into the present day, where fairy tale characters must grapple with the complexities of modern life as well as their own destinies.

This time when Sleeping Beauty wakes up, she wants nothing to do with the man who kissed her. Consoling Alex Blackstone, the rejected suitor who is a brilliant magician but inept when it comes to women, falls to modern career woman and lawyer, Nora Barr. Nora now has to deal with Beauty’s evil stepmother, and the discovery that Alex just might be her own personal Prince Charming…

This is the second book in Kristine’s contemporary fantasy trilogy based on classic fairy tales. The first one is Wickedly Charming and the third one is Thoroughly Kissed (which I think will be a continuation of the Sleeping beauty tale).  Kristine writes about classic fairy tales but with a modern day twist.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for bringing these books to the US. I am so excited that I have discovered another author that I love reading her books and can’t wait to read them as soon as I get them.

 Utterly Charming is about the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. This was one of my favorite fairy tales growing up. What little girl doesn’t dream about being put to sleep only to be woken up by a handsome prince charming?

The book opens up with ten years ago. Nora is a young attorney running her own practice but honestly is barely making it and is on the verge of loosing it all if she doesn’t get some new clients. Its almost like a blessing in disguise when we are introduced to Aethelstan Blackstone and his associate Sancho Panza. They are in need of an attorney and one they know they can trust.

Well following from where the classic fairy tale sort of leaves off we find out that Sleeping Beauty (Emma) is apparently Aethlestan (Alex’s) sole mate and they are to be together forever but it seems that Emma’s guardian, Ealhswith has decided to back out of the arrangement and wants nothing more to do with him.

Aethlestan realizes that he has to fight for Emma and her well being. Nora listens to them but quickly dismisses them because there isn’t a case there. Thinking this is the last time she will see them she is quickly mistaken because shortly after that meeting she is contacted by Sancho for help. It appears as though Aethlestan has been arrested for burning up a neighborhood and that there might possibly be a murder involved.

Unsure on how she wants to approach the situation she calls in her friend, Max who is another lawyer and they went to law school together. Max goes to meet Aethlestan in jail and he gets the dirt on Aethlestan and quickly needs to speak with Nora so that he can share it with her. Sancho’s also needs Nora to hide a microbus and has given her enough money to cover the next ten years and then some and all she has to do is keep this microbus hidden and not look inside. Nora remains true to this because she realizes there is enough money to keep her practice open.

Then ten years to the day of meeting the duo she is plagued by terrible dreams and goes to the garage to look inside the microbus. Its there that she seems a glass coffin with someone inside it with instructions on what to do. Nora follows them to a tee and Sleeping Beauty is awaken.

Although things don’t go according to plan with these characters. Will Sleeping Beauty be able to handle living in the 21st century?

I absolutely loved the book and I admit to reading it all in one sitting. It was a fun and quick read. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

Thanks so much Sourcebooks for sending this to me.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

(Review) The Kingdom of Childhood Blog Tour

Posted on by Cindy

Title: The Kingdom of Childhood
Author: Rebecca Coleman
Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)
Pub Date: September 2011
Pages: 352

Source: I received a copy from the publisher/Meryl Moss Media for my review and blog tour participation.

About the book:
The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman: sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother’s extramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts each of them. Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved as a child, but what Zach does not realize is that their relationship is–for Judy–only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

Rebecca Coleman’s manuscript for The Kingdom of Childhood was a semifinalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition. An emotionally tense, increasingly chilling work of fiction set in the controversial Waldorf school community, it is equal parts enchanting and unsettling and is sure to be a much discussed and much-debated novel.

When I first heard about The Kingdom of Childhood I was curious to read it and even more so to find out what exactly the Waldorf School is. I was surprised to find out that here in Quebec there is actually a Waldorf School here. When I searched further I found one right here in Montreal.

So in case you are like me and have no clue about Waldorf Schools, let me explain that it was
developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1919. A Waldorf education is based on knowledge of child development whose needs change from childhood to adolescence. Waldorf teachers aim to transform education into an art to educate the complete being – thinking, feeling and will.

I have to say it was very interesting what I read.

Judy is one of the main characters in the book and she grew up in a military family living in Germany. When she was older she moved back to the US, got married, had two kids and started to teach kindergarten at a Steiner Waldorf school. Up until the book starts you presume that Judy is having the ideal life but as the story progress you quickly see that her live isn’t so.

Judy is feeling very lonely because her daughter is off at college,  her son is in his last year of high school &  busy with his girlfriend and her husband is busy trying to get his doctoral dissertation so he is always busy. So through this you see that Judy isn’t happy, she realizes her marriage is failing, she is still grieving the loss of her best friend and she is feeling alone.

Then enter Zach. He is sixteen, lonely, getting use to a new town and school  and is trying to deal with the fact that his mother is pregnant and they moved because of her affair. The affair between Zach and Judy is slow at first its like they both are testing the water before going in. They both know its wrong but risk it all just the same because its exciting and thrilling. They are both there for each other when they just need the love and getting over the loneliness. Although as time progresses you see that they are both struggling with it and its Zach that wants to end it because he knows its wrong.

As I was reading this I couldn’t help but feel for both of these characters because they both just wanted to be loved and felt wanted. They could be anyone you know.

When you look back onto the story you realize how much it could be a real life story. You hear of this happening all the time and as a person and perhaps a parent you wonder how this could happen. I know I struggle with this as a parent.

I have to say that I did struggle through the book because I found personally for me it it seemed to start off a little slow and then there would be something happening that peaked my interested and it seemed to go up and down. The book is told in the past when Judy lived in Germany and the present and this didn’t bother me because it was nice to get a little history into Judy and what made Judy not think twice about going into a relationship with Zach.

This is Rebecca Coleman debut novel.

Thanks to Book Trib Blog Tour for allowing me to be a part of this tour. You can click on Book Trib to find out the other blog stops the tour has made and is making.

Following is my excerpt and my part of the scavenger hunt:

I turned into the school parking lot, but it was still full of cars from extracurriculars. “I forgot about that,” I said. “Damn.”

“It’s not a good night for it anyway,” Zach said. “I’ve got a lot of
homework tonight, seriously. And I’m out of condoms.”

*Head over to Good Books and Good Wine on 10/4 for the next installment from THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD*

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Montreal Book Bloggers Meet Up Again

Posted on by Cindy
Yesterday, (October 1st, 2011) I got to meet up once again with a huge group of Montreal Book Bloggers. The last time I seen most of this group was at our last meet up this summer and this time two other bloggers joined our group.
I will start off by sharing a group shot of us. Sadly Cindy B from Tynga’s Reviews , Cat from Beyond Books and Tina from Bookshipper were unable to join us this time. We missed you guys and hopefully the next time we meet up they will be able to join us.

Those that showed up were: (front row)  Lucy from Moon Light Gleam, me, Amanda from Tales and Treats , and  Ilana from From Smiler, with love.

If you haven’t checked out their blogs you really should they are a great group of ladies.

I have to say that first off Donna and I agreed to meet up and go together and what an adventure we had. We arrived at the commuter train station and proceeded to wait for what seemed like forever only to discover that our train was MIA. It never showed up but thankfully we quickly decided to use public transit (the bus) and we didn’t have to wait very long for it to come.

Although I think of all the buses we could have taken we took the bus that did a scenic route that goes around and to the airport here. Wow I knew the airport was huge but I never realized it was that big. Once the scenic route was over we managed to finally get to the bus stop that would take us into down town Montreal.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, thankfully!!! We finally made it to our restaurant.

After the trip we had it was so nice to see the restaurant. We were lucky and had a great spot upstairs. We pretty much had the section to ourselves apart from a group of Chinese tourists behind us. I think we overwhelmed them.

So it was great to sit down and say hi to everyone and to meet the two new comers. We exchanged some books amongst everyone and I came home with a few great titles which you will find out about very soon. So not only did we talk about books (what we are currently reading etc), we talked about ereaders (there was plenty on hand such as Kobo, Kindle, Sony and an iPad) of course lately I have been having trouble with my Kobo with it being very slow to turn on and to turn pages.

Lunch was fantastic and I loved seeing the great selection of food everyone ordered. I went with what i thought would be a small meal (Chicken Cesar Salad) but it was huge and then after that Laura and I shared this yummy cheesecake called a MooMoo Cheesecake but it tasted more like a mousse and it was so good.

I just has to share with you another picture from the restaurant and it was the lighting. Isn’t that pretty? And yes that would be bottles of wine.

So after lunch was over a few of the group slowly started to leave but the rest of us hit the local Indigo (which is part of the Chapters big book chain). Once in the store we all sort of seemed to spread out. Lucy and I hit the upstairs to check out the magazines and YA section. We slowly met up with everyone else and wandered around and talked about books what we read, what was good etc. I did really good and bough only one.
It was a fantastic day and it was so nice to see everyone and I actually got a chance to talk with Melissa, Lisa, Jennifer and PK more then I did the last time we met up.

So this is the book goodies that came home with me:

In the front is a clear plastic wrap that you can put on your books (this is about the size of a trade paperback) and you can reuse it over and over to save your books) and Donna so graciously brought one for everyone. You just fit the book into the sleeves.

From Natalia I got Dark Lover (bk1) and Lover Eternal (bk 3)by J.R Ward. I have been hearing amazing things about this author from Lucy and Cindy B.

I bought Lover Awakened (bk 2) by J.R Ward at Indigo. So that when I start reading them I have the first three. I will probably be on the look out for the other books in the series.

From Jennifer I got Pale Demon by Kim Harrison. Another author I have been dying to read.

From Amanda I got An Abundance of Katherine’s.

From Lisa I got Mystify by Artist Arthur and Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon.

Thanks so much everyone for the books and I can’t wait to read them all.

It was great to see everyone once again and I can’t wait for our next meet up in November.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.