You Had Me at Cupcake

 My body and brain are ready for it to be Autumn! This means asides from craving apples, cider, crunchy leaves, and crisp weather I am also craving cozy mysteries. Yesterday I wandered over to my local library and perused the New Mystery shelf. There I found Sprinkle with Death and Buttercream Bump Off by Jenn McKinlay ... a mystery series about a cupcake bakery ... with recipes??? Yes please!!!

I got home with my books around 4 o'clock and I had torn through both of them by 10 o'clock. When I finished I turned on my Kindle to see if there were any other books to the series because I didn't want to be left hanging. Turns out the third book in the series, Death By the Dozen, isn't being released until October 4th. I preordered my copy, but however shall I make it through?

 Though the cupcakes sound divine I have to say that the charm of this series extends beyond the wonder of the cupcakes. That being said I am totally trying some of the recipes this weekend. One of them is called Tinkerbell and it is a lemon cupcake with raspberry buttercream frosting and pink sugar topping ... so what if I need to lose the 7 pounds I gained back in Florida last week ... but I digress, back to the stories!

 The main character Mel and her best friends Angie and Tate feel like people I would be friends with. I especially identify with the girls who have each been in love with two of the other characters since they were twelve. This speaks to me. I have been a (mostly secret) torch carrier for the same guy since I was sixteen. Since I've always been a chicken and my love has been unvoiced and unrequited it is nice to see characters who are a. in the same boat and b. in the case of one character the possessor of a happy ending (for now at least). The characters are well written and fun. I just hope they don't fall into the cozy mystery love triangle trap! I really enjoyed Angie's older overprotective brothers (priceless spy mission in Buttercream Bump Off) and Mel, the octogenarian romeo! I would recommend these books to anyone who enjoys Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series or Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swenson series. I liked them so much I wrote a thank you e-mail to the author today which brings my fan letter lifetime total up to five (Kristopher Turner, John Green, Melissa Marr, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, and now Jenn McKinlay in case you were interested).

Books, Books, Books

Grad school has put a serious cramp on my recreational reading. I miss fun reading. For me a day without reading for fun is basically a day where I'm cranky and grumpy. I've been cranky and grumpy A LOT lately. I decided to put an end to this ... partly because I was starting to fear for the lives of the innocents around me. I learned how to read quickly but asides from a love affair with The Baby Sitters Club books, Sweet Valley books, The Little House books, The Anne of Green Gables series, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the works of Beverly Cleary, Marguerite Henry, Madeleine L'Engle and picking up books here and there, I started reading adult books early on and rarely looked back. It wasn't until I was running the Children's & Young Adult sections of a bookstore that I finally realized how much I had missed. Don't get me wrong, it turns out I had read more than I remembered, but man the stuff I had missed!

In the interest of saving my overworked brain cells I have decided to devote 2010 to reading the Children's and Young Adult titles that I missed along the way ... with old favorites thrown into the mix. The first two series I jumped into were the Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers and the Paddington books by Michael Bond. Both very enjoyable and oh, so British that I wished I was back in London curled up in my bed in my old terrible flat (REALLY TERRIBLE, but great duvet) with some crumpets and tea happily reading away while the rain pattered on the window.

Next up is A Wrinkle in Time. This is one of my absolute favorite books of all time. It tops the "Books I Re-read Every Year" List, but that's another post entirely. Just reading the first sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night", takes me back to a million and one places and a million and one feelings. I have so many favorite lines and moments that I don't even know where to begin. Each time I re-read it I take something new away. I have read my way through four copies and I will own a copy until the day I die. I often feel as lost as Meg and I'm still looking for my Calvin O'Keefe ... someone to tell me I have "dreamboat eyes" and who will love me prickles and all. In the words of Mrs. Whatsit, "wild nights are my glory" ... A storm is blowing like mad outside and I'm ready to hop into bed and dip into Chapter Three a cat by my side. Sheer bliss!