Farm Fresh Murder (A Farmers' Market Mystery) by Paige Shelton

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Summary: A gardener solves the murder of a coworker at the farmer's market. 

Someone is murdered at the farmer's market where Becca sells her strawberry and pumpkin preserves, also managed by her sister. The reason Becca tells herself she is getting involved is so that her sister doesn't lose her job managing the market, but that's a flimsy excuse to go snooping.

I guess I'm supposed to like Becca Robins and how much she enjoys life. But when she fantasizes about making love to a very likely murder suspect, she turned strange, very quickly.

There are a ton of red herrings in the book, and lots of flirtation. I finished the book only because I had to know who the murderer was, but I am done, done, done with this book and this series.

Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly by Robert Dalby

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Summary: A grocery store owner runs for mayor, with the help of the NitWitts.

Reading the prequel to this book would NOT have helped. When Hale "Mr. Choppy" Dunbar decides to run for mayor of Second Creek, Mississippi, he enlists the help of Laurie Lepanto and her new husband Powell Hampton. Laurie and Powell's romance must have featured prominently in the Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly, but I didn't miss anything by not reading that book.

This book was a combination of small town politics, an evil man who is reformed in the end, and senior romance. The widows of Second Creek, the NitWitts, run radio ads showing support for Mr. Dunbar. There are random surprises and a death as well. It's not that this book was bad - it's just written for a very specialized audience, and I'm not it. I at least finished the book, but should have spent that time reading some thing else.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson

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Summary: When Laura Munson's husband asks for a divorce, she refuses.

This was a terrible book. Why did I finish it? The same reason why people rubberneck at gruesome accidents on the side of the road.

I requested this book from the library after the husband of a friend of mine told her he wanted to move out. Was there any way she could avoid a divorce? This woman did. Maybe her ideas would work for my friend.

Aspiring author Laura Munson and her husband live in the wilds of Montana struggling with money, raising two tweens and relying on their elderly parents for money, vacations and trips to find themselves. Then one day:

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind….I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.

Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”

You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d…decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.

From the way she describes their marriage and early courtship, Laura Munson was obviously the pursuer and a spoiled little rich kid accustomed to getting whatever she wanted. Then her husband tells her they're moving to Montana. She goes along with it, because she doesn't want to upset him.

Yet when her husband says he wants a divorce, she refuses and doesn't engage him in his temper tantrum, as she equates it, insisting that she knows what he needs better than he does. Instead of allowing him to leave their marriage, she gets him helicopter lessons and suggests that he go on an Australian walkabout.  She seemed so smug and condescending, staying at home and keeping the home fires burning while her husband goes out drinking and comes home late, if he even comes back at all.

I think I'm a friggin' rock. I want to be married to me. 

My biggest complaint about this book is that she is living a lie, daily, but instead calls it being reasonable. While she's thinking,

"Grow the fuck up. These are problems of privilege. You're lucky you even have a family to play around with. A house to want to leave. A wife not to love. Skiing, my ass. Fuck off. This is a time to practice gratitude. Not to stay out all night, partying your ass off like a twenty-year-old. Grow up!" But instead I say, "Take a vacation. Go somewhere. Take care of yourself."

The dichotomy between how she says she feels and what she actually says seem like the worst kind of self-delusion, not happiness. I feel so bad for her kids, who watch their mother lie to herself and to them and their father abandon her and them.

I am not in denial if I keep my mouth shut, as long as I sweep those thoughts off the front porch of my mind.

She says she loves her husband, but I honestly didn't understand why. He seems like a lazy, neglectful asshole with a Peter Pan complex. Even her therapist asks for clarity. Her husband is NEVER mentioned by name, he's only referred to as "he" or "my husband."

I accept that most memoir authors take a certain amount of liberty with their truth, seeing their world and retelling it through their eyes, but I found actual contradictions within the same chapter. On fourth of July, her family's biggest holiday, she calls her husband at three o'clock to plan buying fireworks together. She tries for the next fifteen minutes with no answer and so they all go home.

We spend the next few hours playing a dice game called Farkle on the screen porch. ... At four o'clock, on our way out the door, my husband calls.

There simply cannot be several hours and 45 minutes in the same time period. And this is her strongest memory, the example she uses to prove how patient she is and understanding. In the end, her husband decides to stay in the marriage, and tells her by getting satellite cable installed. No big declaration like, "I've been a jerk and I'm sorry." No, he gets satellite cable.

Laura Munson had 14 unpublished novels before she published this one. I've read other published novels by worse writers, and other memoirs by much better ones. I appreciate her need to be published, but the tale of a doormat who stays married to a jerk is not worth my time.

Dead Air by Kerri Miller

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Summary: A Minneapolis TV journalist uncovers an international scandal while tracking the disappearance of another journalist.

Author Kerri Miller is a local radio personality here in the Twin Cities. She has an on-air book club and hosts interesting guests. So I was excited to read this book. And it's not terrible, just disappointing.

Dead Air follows the life of Cate McCoy, a TV journalist assigned to cover local politics. Eddie Hamm is a parody of former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Hamm (even the name shows you that he's larger than life) insults women, is a former paratrooper, says outrageous things and then calls the press vultures, yet has an extremely high approval rating. Of course Jesse Ventura would provide material for a book, but I felt like the fictional  governor's antics and personality were an over-spiced side dish next to a bland, boiled main entree of a story.

"All of this protocol bullshit was exhausting, like being back in the military without the fun of jumping out of planes."

Cate, as so many fictional journalists do, gets caught up in solving the mystery under the guise of being a reporter. In this novel, it's the disappearance and possible murder of Millicent Pine, a radical aging journalist, in town to do a profile on the governor. But the antics of the governor are just a red herring, as Millicent was working on a much bigger story, the abuse, rape, murder and kidnapping of young Mexican Mennonite girls.

Cate and her trusty camerawoman Andy fly down to Mexico, sneak into a factory, and uncover a pornography smuggling operation. Cate is saved from a bullet in the back and a shallow dusty grave by the sudden appearance of a DEA agent.

"McCoy, it's been said before but I'll say it again. You are one tough broad-caster." 

Sheesh.  Yet, Cate's a reporter to the end, refusing to share any of her information with the cops and trying to solve the murder by herself. Weak character development and a convoluted plot disappointed me.

If you want nosy crime reporters, consider Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer or any one of the Irene Kelly books by Jan Burke.

One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 2) by Jeaniene Frost

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Summary: A half-human/half-vampire is employed with Department of Homeland Security.

The premise is promising, exciting even. A half-human/half-vampire named Christine (her alias) who was formerly known as Cat, is employed with Department of Homeland Security, carrying out midnight raids against vampires who break the law.

Just to clarify, since I was curious how one can be a half-human and half vampire – Cat/Christine’s mother was raped by a newly turned vampire and somehow his sperm was both human and vampire at the time of the rape, so Cat’s mom was impregnated. I know, right? But if you’re going to believe in the existence of vampires, and that they work for Homeland Security, little details like infertility in vampires requires only a minor suspension of disbelief.

Cat is tough and brutal, but haunted by her separation from her vampire lover, nicknamed “Bones.” It was Bones’ tutoring that trained her as a fighter and she can still hear his voice in her head, encouraging her during her fights.

I felt like the writing and Cat’s action were deliberately bold and shocking.

“Ruthlessly I kicked the cadaver to send more blood downward, and Juan forced Dave to swallow.”

Ugh.

But the way the plot unfolded was weak. Bones comes back into Cat’s life, because someone has taken a contract out on her life (she’s a vampire hunter, remember?) and together they will uncover the plot against her.

But Cat/Christine seems tough and disconnected to her life. I couldn’t feel her pain or her passion. She just seemed grumpy.

“Felicty took one look at the half-empty pilsner glass of gin I returned with and gasped.

“Christine, can’t you keep a lid on your drinking? This is my cousin’s wedding for heaven’s sake!”

Her prim tone made me squeeze my glass so hard to avoid slamming it over her head that it shattered. Gin spilled on the front of me, and my palm started to bleed.

“Motherfucker!” I shouted.”

I stopped reading when her vampire ex-boyfriend Bones keeps calling her “Kitten.” It sounded so close to “sex kitten” and Cat (Yes, I do get the Cat/Kitten reference) is not the cuddly delicate type.

I think Laurell K. Hamilton is to blame for creating ass-kicking female vampire hunters who have extreme violent sex.

I recommend Blood Oath if you're looking for government vampires. Can this really be a category now? Vampires who work for Homeland Security?

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

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Summary: A anorexic struggles with the death of her former friend while struggling to lose even more weight.

I hated this book and can tell you exactly why.

The writing is florid and over-blown:

“The snow drifts into our zombie mouths with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better.”

Lia is 18 years old and living with her step-mother Jennifer, her half-sister Emma and her father after her parents’ divorce.

“The breakup with my mother was the same old story a million times. Girl is born, girl learns to talk and walk, girl mispronounces words and falls down. Over and over again. Girl forgets to eat, fails adolescence, mother washes her hands of Girl, scrubbing with surgical soap and a brush for three full minutes then gloving up before handing her over to specialists and telling them to experiment at will. When they let her out, Girl rebels.”

But Lia is even lying to herself. She doesn't "forget" to eat. She chooses not to eat. Lia is institutionalized at an eating disorder clinic following a car accident she got into because her brain was too fogged to accurately drive and her body to weak to react or steer. When she gets out, she’s so angry at her mom, whom she addresses as Dr. Marrigan, that Lia chooses to live with her father and Jennifer and Emma.

I’m sure that the websites for anorexics and bulimics that Lia follows are real. I found them disgusting and disturbing.

I was hoping for a window into the mind of an anorexic.

“I started coming here after the first prison clinic stay because Dr. N Parker is a scam artist specialist in crazy teenagers troubled adolescents. I opened my mouth during the first couple of visits and gave her a key to open my head. Ginormous mistake. She brought her lantern and a hard hat and lots of rope to wander through my caves. She landed land mines in my skull that detonated weeks later.”

And much of the writing is like that - italics, strikethrus, lies. Instead of the chapters having headings or numbers, they look like weights. 085.00  Here's a sledgehammer.

Instead, I read about a spoiled little rich girl, who likely drove her former best friend to cause her own stomach to explode from bulimia. She feels guilty, and she should.

Lia doesn’t really want to get well.

So I’m afraid I had little sympathy for her. Her grandmother dies. Tons of grandparents do. Her father cheats. Tons of fathers cheat. Her parents get divorced. Tons of parents get divorced. But tons of girls don’t make crazy pacts with their best friend about who can be the skinniest. One friend chooses anorexia and one choose bulimia. And one freakin’ dies!

Feed by M.T. Anderson

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Summary: Teens have angst in the future. 

Imagine reading a blog by a 14-year old boy in the future. I was so bored.

“Marty was getting angry that everyone was like turding on his recommendation, and I just wanted them all to shut up somehow, I mean nicely, because suddenly I realized we didn’t really sound too smart. If someone overheard us, like that girl, they might think we were dumb.”

“We wanted to go to sleep by then, but we were on the moon, even if it sucked, and it was spring break, you know, with the action, so there was no way we were admitting we wanted to go to sleep.”

“It was meg big big loud. There was everything there.

There was about a million people it seemed, and light, and the beat was rocking the moon. There was a band hung by their arms and their legs from the ceiling, and there was girders and floating units going up and down, and the meg youch latex ripplechicks dancing on the bar, and there were all these frat guys that were wearing these, unit they were fuckin’ brag, they were wearing these tachyon shorts so you couldn’t barely look at them, which were $789.99 according to the feed, and they were on sale for like $699 at the Zone, and could be shipped to the hotel for an additional $78.95, and that was just one great thing that people were wearing.”

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

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Summary: A teenager meets the human version of the werewolf who's been stalking/guarding her during her adolescent years.

Shiver should have been titled “Shudder.” It’s pretty weak, and encompasses most of what I don’t like about YA adult fiction. And I think the writing is terrible. But maybe the author is fourteen years old.

Grace – not-quite a high school loner, but one of a trio of barely-connected girls - is obsessed with the wolves who surround her house. Ever since Grace was attacked as a young girl, she’s been haunted by the wolf with yellow eyes and the howls she often hears at night.
Sam-the-wolf has loved Grace ever since he saved her life.

“I was a leaking womb bulging with the promise of conscious thoughts: the frozen woods far behind me, the girl on the tire swing, the sound of fingers on metal strings. The future and the past, both the same, snow and then summer and then snow again.

A shattered spider’s web of many colors, cracked in ice, immeasurably sad.”

(You went to school right? Did your teacher ever instruct you: Show, not tell.”? )

Turns out it’s not the moon that causes wolves to change, it’s the temperature. If it stays cold enough, they are wolves. When it warms up, they’re human. Except that it doesn’t work in warm weather – in Texas and Florida, they just become werewolves when the weather becomes a little cooler. But because Minnesota has such extreme hot and cold, it’s a perfect breeding ground (if you’ll pardon the joke) for werewolves.

And even though Grace was bitten as a child, her father left her in a hot car in a Minnesota summer and she got a raging high temperature, which caused her NOT to be a werewolf. This extreme heat experience, which has been making all the parenting magazines lately as an example of what NOT to do, is actually the cure for were-wolf-ism, which Grace and her friends discover and then implement.

So when a high-school classmate is bitten, the whole town goes a little crazy and starts shooting the wolves in the woods behind Grace’s house. They shoot Sam, and he comes to Grace’s house for help.

“My breath caught painfully in my throat as I moved still closer, hesitant. His beautiful ruff was gone and he was naked but I knew it was my wolf even before he opened his eyes. His pale yellow eyes, so familiar, flicked open at the sound of my approach, but didn’t move. Red was smeared from his ear to his desperately human shoulders – deadly war paint.”

And so Sam ends up living in Grace’s house while her parents totally don’t even notice. An entire person living in a house and two people don’t notice? How come I can believe in werewolves, but not oblivious parents? That’s what ruins many YA novels for me.

After Grace lands in the hospital after being attacked by a jealous ex-girlfriend werewolf, her Mom finally notices and thinks she shouldn’t date Sam anymore.

My voice was brittle. “I would say that by virtue of your not acting parental up to this point, you’ve relinquished your ability to wield any power now. Sam and I are together. It’s not an option.”

Mom threw up her hands as if trying to stop the Grace-tank from running over her. “Okay. Fine. Just be careful, okay? Whatever. I’m going to go get a drink.”

And just like that, her parental energies were expended. She had played Mom by driving us to the hospital, watching the nurse attend to my wounds, and warning me off my psychotic boyfriend and now she was done. It was obvious I was going to live, so she was off duty.” 

This book has been called The Jacob-and-Bella story, since it's about a boring teenage girl adored by a werewolf. But Twilight is much better written, which makes this book pitiful.

The Blonde Samurai by Jina Bacarr

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Summary: Lady Katie Carlton leaves her abusive husband and finds sensuality and love in the arms of a samurai.

Written as if it were a Victorian tell-all (lots of Dear Reader, etc), The Blonde Samurai is an attempt to bring honor to infidelity. On her wedding night, Katie finds her husband involved in a wicked bout of sadomasochistic sex with two prostitutes off the street. She compromises and says she will stay married to her husband, but will never consummate the marriage.

From the first chapter, it was implausible. Not that I’ve been to many weddings in Victorian England (as I am quite a bit younger, Dear Reader) but her husband leaves her and her guests the night of the wedding (how exactly?) for an S&M romp with two maids and nobody notices? Hmmm.

So she remains celibately married and idly interested in her husband’s large collection of sex toys, until her husband abuses her one night and she runs off to be with a married samurai, Shintaro.

Shintaro's wife Nami can’t have children, so Shintaro has been bedding Akira, another man. So Katie must come to terms with her own infidelity, Shintaro’s infidelity, and his bisexuality. Once she gets those sticky moral dilemma figured out, they have another problem, a decision of hers leads to a battle where Shintaro’s lover is killed. Shintaro lost the battle and intends to commit seppuku, ritual suicide, because his honor is at stake. Then Katie intercedes with the Empress on Shintaro’s behalf, begging the Empress not to accept Shintaro’s offer of ritual suicide. Look, his honor is at stake and he’s married to someone else, why the hell would you so demean him as to challenge what his honor demanded? How shameful. The book talked all about honor and then she is crying and weeping as he’s about to commit seppuku.

Totally ridiculous!

The writing is just terrible. Florid and long-winded. If you want character-driven erotica, try Megan Hart’s Order of Solace book No Greater Pleasure. If you want pure sex, try something else, but leave this one alone.

Girls of Summer by Barbara Bretton

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Summary: Dr. Ellen Markowitz has a steamy one-night stand with her co-worker. Her life is further disrupted by the appearance of her wild half-sister.


OB-GYN Ellen Markowitz has a steamy one-night stand with her co-worker, Dr. Hall Talbot. Their small Maine town is further shocked by the appearance of Ellen’s wild half-sister, Dierdre.

Terrible book. A 35-year-old OB-GYN should not get pregnant from an unprotected one night stand with a fellow OB-GYN. But what upsets Dr. Ellen O’Brien Markowitz is not that she slept with her boss, but that he called out another woman’s name at, uh, his moment of release. So most of the book is Hall Talbot, a thrice-divorced doctor with four kids, realizing that he really doesn’t love married Annie after all, even though he’s fantasized about her for 10 years (marrying and having children with other women throughout his unrequited crush). Then he has to convince Ellen, who he really now adores, that his slip of the tongue was not a Freudian slip, but something else.

Ellen is dealing with her own messy family problems. And they are messy. Her half-sister Deirdre shows up, planning to leave her oversized dog with Ellen while Deirdre takes a harping job. (Too complicated to explain). But Deirdre and Ellen share a father and Ellen’s step-father married Ellen’s mother and raised Ellen as his own. All that changed after Ellen’s mother’s died and Deirdre’s father decided he had to be in Ellen’s life. So Ellen finds out she has two sisters and the man who raised her as a father wasn’t really her father and never really loved her step-father because she was still pining for Billy, Ellen’s biological father. Messy, messy, messy.

And the writing was terrible. Let me quote a scene:

“The glass shattered in his hand in a spray of water and glittering shards.”

...

“The ragged edge of sorrow was blunted by something else, a tidal pull of longing that wrapped itself around her and wouldn’t let go.”

...

“Then, because there was nothing else they could do, no other way to postpone the inevitable, he swept her up into his arms an carried her into the bedroom where he gently stripped away her clothes and began to make love to her body and soul.”

This book was too full. There was just too much going on for the characters in the book. Deirdre and Ellens’ father is dying of cancer; Hall's best friend Susan decides that she wants him, even though she’s married with kids and sets out to seduce him; Deirdre has a fling with Scott the Mechanic, who is trying to fix her car; and Ellen just bought a house. Just too much. Look, I get that life is messy and things often happen simultaneously, but I felt like the author tried to cram three inadequate books into one and make it work.


Girls of Summer? Who calls 35-year old women “Girls?” Really? And an OB-Gyn who doesn’t use birth control and gets pregnant from that single time and then has a crisis pregnancy and then delivers a healthy baby girl? Puh-leeze. This book was just ridiculous.

What Is the What by Dave Eggers

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Summary: A Sudanese immigrant recalls his life as a child soldier and his struggle to escape his past.


I know I have trouble with non linear books, but I found myself going, "What? What? What?"

When I wasn't cringing at the descriptions of brutality, I was sighing over human stupidity and Valentine's naivety. I sure there have to be better books of child soldiers and immigrants.

I also don't care for Eggers' writing style and that fact that this is a "fictionalized autobiography" much in the vein in James Frey, well, either be fiction or non-fiction, not that amorphous category that is neither.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

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Summary: A woman remembers her stillborn baby and her grief while carrying her second child. 


Wow. I expected to be moved to tears by a woman writing of her stillborn child's birth. Instead I was bored to tears. Where was the pathos, the pain, the anguish, the joy crushed? I've never read anything by the author and I never want to. I've read ads more interesting than this book.

A big disappointment. I know you're thinking, "Clare, the woman's baby dies! This is supposed to be a good story?" But I've read tragedies that moved me - The Shiniest Jewel, for example is one of the best stories about adoption you will ever read - and I've read boring mommy blogs - you are the best thing that ever happened to me I love you so much yada yada- and both were far more compelling than this book

Eve: A Novel of the First Woman by Elissa Elliott

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Summary: Adam and Eve's life in and after the Garden of Eden told as a family novel. 


An ambitious novel, laudable in the attempt, if not the execution. "Eve" tells the story of Adam and Eve, and their marriage and family. I most identified with Eve during her marital struggles with Adam. Yes, it's true, even the first woman had trouble getting the first man to understand what she really wanted. The honest, conflicted reflection after Adam barters away Eve's garden belongs in a Dr. Phil session. I found this novel poorly written, with often too much detail, erratic and confusing timelines, and underdeveloped characters. I wanted to like it, but there are too many fascinating novels about Biblical times for me to recommend this.


Read Mary, Called Magdalene or The Red Tent or even Lamb before this.

Julie & Julia - 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

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Summary: An underemployed woman named Julie attempts to cook Julia Childs' food and blogs about it. 


Julie Powell is not the first person to compare sex and food, and thankfully, she won’t be the last. In this self-absorbed blog-turned-book, Julie Powell, a self-described government drone, needs a project to make her life a little more interesting and give it some (or any) meaning – she’s really not sure. (Someone asked George Mallory "Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?" to which he famously replied, "Because it is there." Same philosophy here.)

Julie sets out to cook all or most of the recipes in Julia Child’s iconic cook book Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. Small New York apartment, challenging recipes, supportive beleaguered husband, a hunt for rare or unusual ingredients interspersed with fictional glimpses of Julia Child’s life – you can see why the Julie/Julia Project would seem intriguing to readers. An exciting premise certainly, but a poorly-written book. Perhaps that’s why Julie and Julia is now a movie starring Amy Adams. Hollywood certainly will improve on the book – tightening up the pointless details, the endless segues and making us care about Powell and her project more.

Powell’s not a good writer, just as many bloggers are not. (There are so many better memoirs out there I wondered how this even got published.) The inane minutia of her childhood and life leave readers exhausted and hoping she’ll get to the point – or any point, really. And the constant pop culture references? Yawn. Okay, already – we know you grew up in the 70s; you watched a lot of TV; you have a crush on Jason Bateman. I kept waiting for the Teen Wolf reference. Powell’s like that friend who only wants to tell you about everything that’s going wrong in her life and needs you as a friend only so she has someone to complain to. Sigh.

The book does have some bright spots. When Powell talks about her friends, you can feel the love and affection she has for them – that’s also when the strongest writing comes out. Her co-worker’s IM trysts with a married man are hysterical as is the co-worker’s ultimate reason for breaking up with him. And while I personally wouldn’t compare liver to sensational sex as Powell does, it made a giggling discussion for my book club as we picked a food that compared to sex with our husbands.

Powell’s blog readers – or “bleaders” – express many of the feelings that readers of this book will have: “Enough already” (referring to aspics) or “Don’t give up,” (referring to lobsters).

Powell also changes the cooking rules recommended by Julia Child when it suits her – substituting tomato paste for seeded, diced, crushed tomatoes when she feels like it but spending hours making mayonnaise. There was no explanation of why she had to follow exactly some of Child’s recommendations for ingredients or why she “cheated” with other ingredients – and don’t forget that Powell explains everything.

If you like reading blogs instead of books, and know a little about cooking but don’t really care, you will likely enjoy this book.