Things You Save In A Fire

jacqui_monet
July 28, 2019

Title: Things You Save In A Fire

Author: Katherine Center

Genre: Adult/ Romance/ International

Pages: 308

After seeing the book cover floating around online, this book instantly went on my TBR List. I can’t help it, I’m a sucker for a pretty cover. So imagine my surprise when I received and ARC/ARE/Galley as book mail from Macmillan Publishers! (Insert pterodactyl screech here.) I read it as much and as quickly as I could while holding/nursing/snuggling/diapering my two babies. It. Was. SO. Good.

This first person story is about a talented young female firefighter from Austin, Texas who, for a handful of reasons, relocates to the east coast to take care of her estranged and ailing mother. Her new firehouse is sorely out of date and underfunded, the guys are not particularly fond of having a female in their midst and the only place for her to bunk during shifts used to be the supply closet. It’s a high stakes story about love and family but ultimately forgiveness.

I recommend this book to anyone that has ever felt like an outcast or an under dog. AND it should totally be a movie.

Ratings

Plot: 5/5          Characters: 5/5          Ease of Reading: 5/5

The Daddy Arrangement

jacqui_monet
May 29, 2019

Title: The Daddy Arrangement

Author: Paige Parsons

Series: Sugar 101: Book 1

Genre: Romance/ BWWM

Pages: depends on your e-reader

The Daddy Arrangement is a cute first installment to the Sugar 101 series.We are introduced to Keila as an incoming college freshmen and her RA Bri. When Keila mistakenly assumes that Bri’s much older boyfriend, Michael, is her father hilarity ensues, deep conversations are had, and Keila’s eyes are opened to the exciting and nuanced world of sugaring.

I enjoyed that the characters sounded like real people, especially Keila and Bri. So often I read a book or a short story containing modern day college students and I’m left feeling frustrated and fatigued because 18 and 19 year old characters are speaking with the vocabulary of 30-something business executives. Personal pet peeve, I know, but it drives me up the wall. The dialogue is well written with the college girls sounding like college girls (and maturing as they age) and the businessmen sounding like businessmen without slipping into caricature.

If you want something fun to read while sipping a cocktail poolside, this the perfect book for that. Easily finished in a weekend, The Daddy Arrangement is a wonderfully easy summer read and I look forward to reading the second book.

Ratings

Plot: 4/5          Characters: 4/5          Ease of Reading: 5/5

China Rich Girlfriend

jacqui_monet
March 1, 2019

Title: ChinaRich Girlfriend

Author: Kevin Kwan

Series: Crazy Rich Asians, number 2

Genre: Adult/ Romance/ International

Pages: 479

This book, the second in the CRA trilogy did not disappoint at all! The story picks up 2 to 3 years after the first and, my goodness, it doesn’t miss a beat. Like all good soap operas we’ve got a car crash, plastic surgery, social climbers, meddling parents, a wedding, shopping sprees (in Paris!) and fabulous parties.

We’re reaquainted with past characters and introduced to a host of new ones who are hell bent on shaking things up. I loved seeing where Rachel, Nick, and Astrid are in their lives and seeing previous side characters like Kitty Pong become more fleshed out was fantastic. Kevin Kwan continues to do a great job at peeling back the curtain on the ultra elite VVIP life. I eagerly await book three.

Ratings

Plot: 5/5          Characters: 5/5          Ease of Reading: 5/5

Crazy Rich Asians

jacqui_monet
February 22, 2019

Title: Crazy Rich Asians

Author: Kevin Kwan

Series: Crazy Rich Asians, number 1

Genre: Adult/ Romance/ International

Pages: 546

I  enjoyed this book a lot. It was a pretty quick read and I appreciated that the author used authentic slang from the different languages that the characters speak and included a glossary for those terms and them bottom of each page.

Even though many of the characters come from obscene amounts of money, they still felt like real human beings. None of the characters were “all good” or “all bad” which tends to happen in these types of stories. Everyone had their own motivations, hopes and dreams. There were also a ton of characters, so I liked that the author titled the chapters with the character whose POV we were experiencing.

I’m definitely going to read the rest of the trilogy and watch the film.

Ratings

Plot: 3/5          Characters: 5/5          Ease of Reading: 5/5

Sadie’s Cinnamon Toast

jacqui_monet
August 30, 2018

In the book SADIE by Courtney Summers, the title character spends the  majority of her time making a good life for herself and her sister. She takes on the responsibility of being “the parent” after her mother skips town. even though she doesn’t have much to give, she gives her sister her all. I think that cinnamon toast is one of those foods that is so incredibly simple to make as well as being super inexpensive because most people already have all of the ingredients in their pantry. Cinnamon Toast can make a great after school snack, a sweet treat after dinner or even a yummy breakfast when paired with some fruit!

You will need:

2 Tablespoons of butter (melted)

3 slices of bread

1/2 Tablespoons of Cinnamon

2 Tablespoon Sugar

Small bowl, Toaster (or toaster oven), Basting/BBQ/or Pastry Brush

Directions:

Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Lightly brush butter onto one side of the slices of bread. Sprinkle with sugar mixture.

Repeat on the other side of the bread slices.

Toast coated bread slices to your desired firmness. I like for the crust to be crispy but not burned.

Alternative:

You can sub the butter for a butter based cooking spray or a cooking oil that doesn’t have a strong flavor.

Healing Stone

jacqui_monet
August 22, 2017

Title: Healing Stone

Author: Brock Booher

Series: N/A

Genre: YA/ Coming of Age/ Paranormal

Pages: 336

Check out my Two Minute Review of Healing Stone on my ‘booktube’ channel:

Taking The Stage Book Review

jacqui_monet
September 5, 2016

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Title: Taking The Stage

Author: Paige Parsons

Series: n/a (well, not yet anyway)

Genre: Romance, Interracial Romance (BWWM)

Pages: 134

Taking the Stage is the debut novel of Paige Parsons and I have to say I loved every second of it. I’ve never read a romance novel with the intention of  sharing my experience with the public, but I’ve decided to go for it anyway. You know, why not?! That being said, let’s jump right in to it.

This book centers around the working and personal relationships of stage manager Robyn (Roby) Rose and her director Joseph (don’t-call-him-Joey) Davis. Roby has moved back to her home state of Arizona because she suffered a massive personal blow; she caught her husband with his head between the legs of a hot young teacher. Considering that he was the principle of the school that both women worked at, he’s lucky there wasn’t a messy lawsuit along with professional embarrassment. Roby, however, stuck it out for the rest of the school year and then bounced which is more than I can say for myself, I honestly would have walked right out of his office never to be seen or heard from again.

Anyway, after a few weeks or so in good old AZ, Roby is settling into a new apartment and is handed a job at a theatre in town. Roby is chronically late to everything which drives Joseph crazy. He wants to resolve the problem and gives her a choice: 1) every minute late will be docked from her pay or 2) each minute results in a swat. A SWAT!! As in, spanking. There is spanking in this book! At first I thought, “Mm sounds like a sexual harassment lawsuit to me,” because well, he is her boss. But as the book went on I became okay with it  because the spanking wasn’t sexualized. What was sexy though, was the dialogue and their inner monologues about each other. I could feel the sexual tension between them as the story progressed. Throughout the novel, our potential lovers deal with family, meddling mentors and an old flame come back to town in the form of a desperately needed leading actress.

Now, I know I listed above that Taking the Stage is an interracial romance novel but I didn’t really touch on it. In all honesty, the book doesn’t either. The most we get is the occasional description of her skin comparing her to chocolate, which I hate! Why are black characters always described in conjunction with food? Ugh. We don’t describe white characters as mashed potato colored. Anyway, I did like that race never came up. Roby’s blackness is never used against her nor is Joseph’s whiteness used against him. Seriously, I loved that this is a modern story and that race just isn’t an issue.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Once I got past the um “original” spellings of Roby’s sisters’ names, Taking the Stage ended up being a very quick read. In fact, I wish the book had been a little bit longer; I could stand to know a little bit more about what happened between Joseph and his ex. But when all is said and done, this novel was fun and sexy and full of accurate theatre lingo. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, especially my theatre friends.

Check the links below to get this e-book for yourself!

https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Stage-Paige-Parsons-ebook/dp/B01IWQEP3G#nav-subnav

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/taking-the-stage-paige-parsons/1124141693?type=eBook

Fireworks and Tea Parties

jacqui_monet
August 5, 2016

Okay, so I went to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to visit The Husband’s family and man was it something else. Now B-Bow, as they call it, is one of those towns that’s so small you have to continually zoom in on  google maps and even then you might give up before you find it. It’s the type of place where you wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t lock their doors and people literally “drive in to town”.  At night it pitch black because they don’t have street lights and the bugs try to murder your ankles. It’s a nearly 19 hour drive from where I live, but it’s totally worth it!

While there I saw fireworks and had the chance to shoot them off for the first time. Where I live, it’s totally illegal to do that. I totally freaked out because I just knew I was going to catch my hair on fire; it didn’t help that I witnessed a kid accidentally shoot my Father-in-Law in the face with a bottle rocket. The Husband and I did take time for ourselves, though, at the local library and a tiny coffee shop called Adam and Eve (which totally had a better Caramel Macchiato than Starbucks).

cafe

I also threw a small surprise tea party for The Husband’s maternal grandmother. She loved it even though she hates surprises. I almost got a little misty-eyed when she told me she’d never had a birthday party before. Not one in her whole 78 years life! God, I was grateful that I spent hours and hours baking in my sister-in-law’s kitchen.  The party was  “girls only” which was nice because everyone was comfortable and Grandma P told us stories about her life and I couldn’t help but be thankful for the experience and the time spent with such a wonderful woman.

Look at all the food!
Look at all the food!

Enough gushing and onto the food. With a little assistance from the Mother-in-law, I made glazed croissants, scones, meat pies, individual strawberry cheesecakes, red velvet cupcakes with cutout hearts, Judy’s Trifle Cake and BLTs. I also cold brewed several flavors of green tea for a tea tasting. I don’t know about the other girls but I was a fat baby bird by the end of it!

Alright, that’s all for now. Remember, if you have a book you think I should read and review suggest it to me on my Goodreads!! https://www.goodreads.com/ReadEatDrink.

Kisses

Judy’s Trifle Cake

jacqui_monet
June 19, 2016

In Daddy-Long-Legs, Judy goes to to a girl’s college and meets many new types of people, makes life-long friends, travels to places she’d never thought she’d go and experiences incredible new things. Segue! I think that a poor orphaned girl (whose name was literally chosen from a gravestone and the phone book) would love any chocolate dessert that was presented to her while away at her fancy new college. This recipe is recreation of something that my mother used to make for my siblings and I as kids. This version though is very quick and inexpensive. It’s light and airy and oddly refreshing. Judy’s Trifle Cake will leave a great impression on your dinner guests and not just the poor college students.

You will need:

Chocolate Cake ( I used a boxed cake baked in a 13 x 9in pan)

Chocolate Pudding (seriously, I’m not against the boxed stuff you guys)

 

Whipped topping (you can make it from scratch OR Cool Whip)

Vanilla extract.

Fresh Fruit (think berries)

chocolate shavings or mint

Directions:

Prepare the Pudding as the box says and chill in the fridge.

Prepare the chocolate cake but make a few substitutions. Butter for Oil and Milk for Water. Add a cap full of the vanilla extract. Place the baked cake in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Transfer it to a cutting board or tray (upside down) and return to the freezer for another ten. Once completely cool, slice off the top to make it level and all four sides. Next, cut into cubes.

There are a few different ways that you can plate this.

  1. If you have a trifle dish  you can layer everything together. Cake, pudding, fruit, whipped topping until the dish is filled. At the top, garnish with fruit and a sprig of mint.
  2. In a mason jar you can do the same thing treating it like a tiny trifle dish.
  3. On a dessert plate you can  make a square with four cubes, cover with pudding and you can either spoon or pipe the whipped topping. Lastly, garnish!

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you enjoy this super simple dessert!

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Daddy-Long-Legs Book Review

jacqui_monet
June 17, 2016

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Author: Jean Webster

Series: kind of the sequel, Dear Enemy, takes place in the same world but not with our protagonist.

Genre: YA

Pages: 185

When I first saw this book, it was sitting sadly on the shelf at the library. The front cover was particularly boring featuring an ambiguously aged girl sitting with a pen and paper half smiling out of a window. Then I thought, “Daddy-Long-Legs? Really? What is this, the true life story of Little Miss Muffet?” So, being the strange ol’ bird that I am, I checked the book out.

You know the old saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover?” It totally applies here. Daddy-Long-Legs was a great read. With only 185 pages, I inhaled the books in a couple of hours. Two words: page turner.

First published in 1912, Daddy-Long-Legs tell the story of an orphan named Jerusha aka Judy who gets sent to college anonymously by a man who donates to the orphanage. This mystery benefactor will pay for her tuition, books, food, clothes and any and all incidentals along the way. Judy is told that she can attend school without fear of being indebted to him, but on two conditions.

  1. Judy must write a letter to him every month until she graduates knowing full well that he will never write her back.
  2. She cannot know who her benefactor is.

At first I was worried when I realized that all but the first ten pages were written in a letter format. Yet, this style never got stale. Judy’s letters were so detailed that while reading, I forgot that there wasn’t any actual dialogue. The letters are also pretty funny especially when she is angry about something. Also, the book gets its title from the way Judy begins nearly all of her letters: “Dear Daddy-Long-Legs.” She calls him this because at the orphanage, she was got a glimpse of his leggy shadow.

Another worry I had, was the book’s publish date because I hate reading a book and experiencing some type of language barrier. (For example, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere; it’s good but the British slang is confusing. I guess I don’t watch enough BBC.) Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with that one bit. It’s almost as if Jean Webster debuted this book yesterday! The diction sounds current if not a more polite way of speaking. You wouldn’t even realize that this took place in yester-year if it weren’t for the cost of things being so little back then. The story also has interesting twists and turns like Judy falling in love with her roommate young uncle, school dances, vacations with wealthy friends and potential boyfriends.

So, I’ve concluded that I love this book and I stand behind it all the way. I mean, if the only thing I don’t like about it is the outside cover, it’s great! If you read this and decided you want more, films have been made in the US (several times), Korea and Japan as recent as 2005. There are even anime and stage versions that have been created. I haven’t seen all of them yet, but I will say that the Fred Astaire film is great, but has some very bizarre sequences that are literally excuses to have him dance.

 

If this book interests you, check out the links below to experience it for yourself!

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006PV801Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daddy-long-legs-webster-jean/1120679007