In the Good Old Summertime. . .
I hope all of you in the US enjoyed a happy and healthy Memorial Day. It’s a shame that a day that originated as a time to mourn our fallen military has devolved into a day to celebrate the unofficial start of summer, but that’s the reality.
It’s one of the two times a year (the other is the Fourth of July) when my husband and I ditch our healthy diets and enjoy traditional US-style holiday cookout fare, with hot dogs, hamburgers, potato chips, and so on. Watermelon usually plays a role as well.
So, with summer unofficially begun, the timing was right for me to beta read another author’s book. I won’t give you a lot of specifics about it until it’s ready to publish and I have permission to publicize it, but the author beautifully captured the idyllic sense of warmth and vacation I remember from my own summers as a young teen.
While I’m waiting for feedback from beta readers on Drowning in Deception, I’ve gone back to work on the second novel in my series, and I now have a working title for this one as well. I’m calling it Chords of Deception. Any guesses what it’s about?
What I’m Reading
The Birthday Mystery by Faith Martin
I thought this was an appropriate book to read this week since, by the time you see this newsletter, I will have just celebrated my own birthday. This is the first in the Traveling Cook mysteries, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jenny Starling is a cook. Not just any cook, mind you. She travels from place to place taking on cooking assignments. As this story begins, she’s just arrived to cater a birthday bash for a pair of wealthy, entitled twins in their large English manor house.
To do her job, she faces opposition from the family’s permanent cook, and she has to deal with the twins. Neither task is for the faint of heart. But Jenny pulls it off, providing a wonderful sit-down dinner for fifty guests, and hors d’oevres and nibbles for many more who come for the party but aren’t important enough to eat dinner with the family.
Everything goes off without a hitch, until, just after midnight, the butler rushes into the kitchen with tragic news.
I’m looking forward to reading more of Jenny’s adventures.
Notable Quotes
She had the look of a woman who’d contemplated throwing in the towel many times before, and had now been floored by the final body-blow. On her small dark face was an expression of resignation, and it looked as though a matching letter would soon follow.
- Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett
Clever use of words by the author.
‘They were handing out field promotions to officers like they’d won a load in the church raffle and didn’t know what to do with them.’
- The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds by TE Kinsey
Isn’t this more interesting than saying something like, “They were bestowing a flood of field promotions?”
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Wise Words
Oh, my readers are clever. Yet another puzzle that fooled none of them. Here’s the quote:
It’s easy to stash stuff in the _______. They’re never going to unload thousands of pounds of marble to check every one.”
- 86 The Chef by Adam K Watson
The choices were palates (the roof of the mouth, sense of taste, or a taste or liking for) and pallets (a portable platform for handling materials and packages). And, of course, the correct answer is pallets. Congratulations to this week’s players.
We’ll have another game next week.