Happy Monday everyone! I have the day off of work and am planning to enjoy the day with a good book.
This post originated over on Book Date, so thanks for the idea and letting me continue on the discussion about what books I am reading.
JUST FINISHED
I am really enjoying this series. I like Kylie Scott’s style and her characters always have more depth than they initially appear. This is a rock star romance and it was fun to escape from reality for a little while.
I started three books before I decided to revisit one I remembered enjoying, hoping it would help me get my reading mojo jump started. Sure enough, I didn’t have any trouble getting back into this old favorite!
Nashville Ballet’s virtual book club is on Chapter 6 of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Does anyone else picture the Disney movie when you think of Peter Pan? I know I do and I’ve been surprised how easily their version supplanted the classic tale. Of course it’s based of the Barrie novel, but some of the less savory elements of it were Hollywood-ized. Is that a word? Maybe not, but you get the drift. It’s been fascinating to compare what I remember to what is in the actual novel.
Chapter 6 is narrated by James Beard award winner Chef Sean Brock. He is very well renowned in the southeast for his Charleston and Nashville restaurants Husk (the best Shrimp and Grits dish every!) and very nicely volunteered his time to read this chapter for Nashville Ballet.
If you haven’t been following along, please go to Nashville Ballet’s YouTube page and look for Chapter 1. Each chapter has been about 15-30 minutes and can be a nice mommy break if you plant your kids in front of your computer to listen.
Enjoy!
Deb
If you’d like to purchase the book to read along, please click this link!
Alright folks, it’s been awhile since I’ve read a rock star romance and I had this audiobook in my files. I remembered I really enjoyed the first novel also narrated by Andi Arndt and wanted to give this second one a try. Play is the story of drummer Mal Ericson who meets Anne Rollins at a party and decides to convince her to become his pretend girlfriend. In actuality it doesn’t take much convincing since Anne has had a longtime crush on Mal and pretty much finds him irresistible. Is there a reason for his wanting to convince everyone that he’s happy? Of course.
I really enjoyed this novel and thought Andi Arndt did a great job narrating all of the characters. Mal was kind of a crazy character and Anne gave him a kind of calm he needed to survive what was going on in his life. I felt like the balance of those two characters also gave the narration a kind of sanity. It could have easily gone down the crazy guy road and Andi Arndt made them real instead of caricatures.
Ok, who doesn’t love the fantasy of having a rock star fall in love with an average woman? That’s why we read these right? Mal, to me, was easy to like but hard to love. He was just so over the top! He felt kind of like he was manic depression and honestly, I thought that’s where this novel was heading. No spoilers here, but that wasn’t it at all. Thankfully the conflict had heart and emotion, something I really needed from Mal in order to round his character and make him feel more attainable.
Anne was totally the girl next door. She could be you, me or the girl who bags my groceries. She was calm and hid her inner feelings really well. Of course the narration was from her point of view so we heard those inner feelings and knew she was screaming like a girl who just saw her every dream realized. I liked Anne and was able to root for her right from the get go.
All in all, this was a fun novel with a couple of hidden surprises that helped me enjoy it even more. If you’re looking for your next rock star, you may want to start with the first novel, Play, but I think this whole band is going to rock your world. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Opinions from around the Blogosphere
“I do recommend this book to lovers of the genre of contemporary romance, though I am going to try and hold myself back a bit before going on to #4, I will definitely be going there sooner rather than later.” Omnivorous Reader Book Review
Nashville Ballet’s virtual book club continues with Chapter 5 as narrated by company dancer Sarah Cordia. This chapter introduces Captain Hook to the story and Sarah’s narration is enhanced by some playacting by her husband Judson. Their goofy playfulness is entertaining and perfect for young kids. So, if you need a half hour break sit your kids in front of this video!
If you are reading along, or just listening to these chapter’s while taking a much needed break from work (I won’t tell!), the sixth chapter will be out soon!
Zoey Caldwell has been saving her money for-e-ver to take a bucket list trip to Alaska. A friend of hers is letting her tag along to sleep on the couch in a ritzy resort room, and Zoey is dying to do all things Alaska. On her first night there they head to a local dive restaurant called the Tourist Trap, owned by the grumpy but extremely good looking Graham Barnett. Graham is against all tourists in his neck of the woods, but for some reason he’s drawn to Zoey and her quirky personality.
The Tourist Attraction was my favorite kind of rom-com. Great setting, quirky characters, and charming main characters. From the first page, I literally couldn’t stop thinking about when I could find another 15 minutes to read another chapter. Zoey, one of my favorite rom-com heroine names, was cute and innocently odd. She was so excited to be in Alaska that she wanted to do all of the usual tourist trips; a whale-sighting trip, spotting a moose, and hiking on a glacier. Stuff a local would never deign to do. Despite his unwillingness, Graham seeks her out and finds himself by her side.
There were plenty of great side characters in The Tourist Attraction and we got to know a few pretty well. I can’t wait to see who gets the next hook-up. Will it be the super tall and bearded Easton? His pink-haired twin sister Ash? Or Zoey’s sultry well to do friend Lana? I really don’t have a preference, they were all really interesting and had some great storylines that I look forward to any one of them!
If you are still quarantining at home, this is the perfect book to help you pass the time. It’s fun, has a little action, and kooky characters that will charm the antlers off a reindeer dog!
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!
I had just finished a book when a big storm came through knocking out our power. Needless to say, that cut down on my reading as it was just getting dark. We had enough juice in a laptop to get on Netflix and start streaming The Crown. Very Good! It was kind of a nice way to end the weekend, truthfully. We put the devices down and just enjoyed each others company. Despite that, I did read a wonderful book this weekend and have plans to start a next novel.
This post originated over on Book Date, so thanks for the idea and letting me continue on the discussion about what books I am reading.
JUST FINISHED
This book took me totally by surprise! The set up was totally unique, the characters completely charming, and the emotions? Yeah, they were all there. Loved it.
JUST STARTED
I haven’t started it yet, and may change my mind, but My library loan is just about to run out. It’s going to come down to whether I think I can finish it in time!
Now you know what I may be reading. What’s first on your TBR?
My baking challenge has gotten even more challenging while baking during a pandemic when everyone and their mother is learning how to bake bread. Not only is yeast hard to find but now flour is also getting hard to come by. Luckily, I had enough in the jar to bake these yummy cookies. Funny enough, because of the Chocolate tart I baked a few weeks ago, I also had enough high quality chocolate to use for the recipe.
As this is my second cookie recipe I was pretty familiar with some of the techniques that Bouchon Bakery uses to make their cookies extra special. I gathered my dry ingredients, flour, baking soda, and salt and sifted them together into a bowl. OK, I didn’t sift them this time. I’ll admit that I ran a fork through the mix to make sure it was blended in well.
I combined the dark brown sugar and sugar with molasses. That molasses (just shy of two teaspoons) really added an extra layer of flavor to these cookies that helped set them apart from normal chocolate chip cookies. I’ll be remembering this trick!
I mixed it together until with was kind of smooth. Then I took out my two bars of Valrhona chocolate and started chopping it up into pieces. Now, I didn’t mention this previously but I actually went on a trip to France a couple of years ago with my sister and my mom and we toured the Valrhona chocolate factory. OK, I’ll be honest, we mainly toured the gift shop, but I brought back a lot of cooking chocolate on that trip. However, these particular bars of chocolate were purchased here in the good ole USA in Sur La Table for $13.00 each. Yep, you read that right. I used the remaining 40% chocolate and chunked it up.
Then I ruined it by using Kroger brand semi-sweet chocolate chips for the chip portion of this recipe. Hey, we’re in a pandemic here! I can’t go running out to the store for high quality chocolate chips!
Next up was pommade-ing the butter. I have gotten to be a pro at this technique! I warm up my glass mixing bowl, with the butter in it over the flame of the gas stove top. I do NOT sit the bowl down. That would melt the rubber on the bottom of the bowl that fits it into my mixer. You really just want to warm the bowl so that when you whip that butter for three to four minutes it turns into the consistency of mayonnaise.
This makes such a huge difference! When you mix your sugars into that whipped butter it gives the words light and fluffy new meaning! Add your eggs, mix, and then you’re ready to add in your dry ingredients. Once that’s mixed add in your chocolate chips and chunks and vôilá! You have some extremely delicious cookie dough.
If I had only known this dough would only make 2 dozen cookies I’d have made more! Now, Bouchon wants you to make 6 very large cookies with this dough. Can you imagine? Although, I could certainly eat that humongous cookie, I think my family would have a cow that they only got one cookie each. It’s a psychological game we play with our baked goods. I use a one inch cookie scoop and made two dozen. Still not a lot of cookies but better than six.
I pop them in the oven and they are truly pretty looking cookies. They spread evenly, puff up the way they are supposed to and when they cool? Devine! Slightly chewy with a tang from that small bit of molasses. The chocolate taste? Yum!
This is an easy to make recipe and one that I will definitely return and bake. I will NOT be using $13 bars of chocolate, but I’d imagine it will still be just as good with a normal bar of 40% Hersheys or Ghiradelli chocolate.
I did not purchase anything extra for this recipe and used what I had in the house. I even had the molasses because I love to make gingerbread at the holidays, so the cost of this one was cheap. $0
I didn’t learn anything new but I was able to go back and use the pommade technique and I feel like I’ve gotten very good at that and can incorporate that into some future baking.
If you’d like to purchase this cookbook, here’s a picture and click the link below to go to it’s listing on Amazon.
I haven’t written about this series lately but have still been occasionally listening to the audiobooks narrated by the very talented Davina Porter. She also narrates the Outlander books and convincingly voices characters from a number of countries. In this historical series we follow Sebastian St. Cyr who uses his investigative skills developed during the war to solve mysteries among his peers in London.
When his one time love Kat Boleyn’s new husband Russell Yates gets pinned for a murder he comes to her aid and investigates the murder of a former military comrade. As is the case with most of these mysteries there are political ties to the crown and his new father-in-law. As he fears those connections because of how it creates a wall between he and his newly pregnant wife, Hero, I love these connections. They always move their relationship into a more personal space tying them tighter together. Their feelings are no longer as one time lovers who now find themselves married, they now truly care for each other so their decisions about her father are carefully thought out. It’s both revealing and enthralling.
There are many plots, sub plots, and red herrings in When Darkness Brings and I love how I’m led down dark alleys and left to wonder what just happened to that plot point. Aha, foiled again! I had to say that, but really, C.S. Harris does a great job of giving the reader a piece of yarn to follow and then making us feel surprised but not disappointed when it doesn’t solve the mystery. As the next piece of evidence is revealed I’m immediately caught up again in the story and led down what I hope is the path that will lead to to enlightenment. Seriously, the plot was artfully woven and skillfully built. I loved this mystery, but I’ll admit, I’m a romantic at heart and I enjoy seeing Sebastian and Hero grow closer as each novel comes to a close.
Hi all! Nashville Ballet’s virtual book club is on chapter 3 of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. I don’t know if any of you listened to Ann Patchett read chapter 2, she was great! It’s been awhile since I’ve read this classic and I forgot that Mr. Darling was a not so great father. She did a great job at imbuing a certain ugliness to his voice.
Today, Amy Watson, the morning anchor for WTVF’s Newschannel 5 is reading Chapter 3. She did a very nice news story about our project!
For those of you who are following along, Nashville Ballet is having a virtual book club where we have Nashville mini-celebs read a chapter of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. Peter Pan will be Nashville Ballet’s first performance of their 2020-21 season.
Peter Pan is a magical, adventurous tale that is sure to lift the spirits of everyone during this trying time! Monday night Nashville Ballet’s very special guest, national best-selling author and co-owner of Parnassus Books, Ann Patchett read Chapter 2.
Tomorrow Chapter 3 will be read by WTVF Channel 5 morning news anchor Amy Watson!
If you click through to the YouTube video, please click like so I know you’ve enjoyed the chapter.
The Reading Chick 
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