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).

Dear Rush, Time Really Doesn't Stand Still No Matter How Much You Want It To!

Spring sprang and major leaks (some might even say floods) appeared in my life. My mom got sicker and between looking after her, housework, homework, actual work, and such I basically forgot what fun was. Don't let the Rush reference fool you, this entry is about books. There hadn't been much recreational reading going on in my life until last week. My recent genre of choice, you may ask? The cozy mystery. I normally go on "cozy" binges during the fall and winter, but they just seemed to fit my mood right now.

Mystery devouring was going along swimmingly, I had read 5 or 6 in a row, when I suddenly had a thought ... "cozy" mysteries are odd if you really take the time to dissect them. In most cases the author creates a charming small town or village that we the readers would love to move to. The people are interesting, the hobbies relaxing, the architecture soothing; all in all the world is indeed cozy ... that is until you remember that the death rate in these towns are HIGH! Come on, think about it, there I was finishing up the newest Seaside Knitters book, Moon Spinners by Sally Goldenbaum, and I found myself thinking that I would move to Sea Harbor in a heartbeat. It has everything I'm looking for in a hometown: a. the ocean, b. a really great LYS (local yarn store to you non knitters out there), c. a bookstore, and d. nice people including single rugged fisherman and single handsome artists/ musicians ... and a lot of murders. Hmmmm. Maybe I need to rethink how I would decorate my fictional Sea Harbor cottage .... or maybe not. It's possible that I could learn to overlook the danger because of all of the above mentioned benefits. Anyway, this realization isn't enough to get me to stop reading "cozies", after all I have a lunch appointment at a little tea shop in Charleston scheduled for tomorrow and it would be bad manners to cancel at this late of a date.