Review: Strawberry Shortcake Murder

Strawberry Shortcake Murder by Joanne Fluke
3 stars

Reasons for reading: Set in Minnesota; May book for Every Month is a Holiday Challenge (May is National Strawberry Month)

Book description: "When the president of Hartland Flour chooses cozy Lake Eden, Minnesota, as the spot for their first annual Dessert Bake-Off, Hannah is thrilled to serve as the head judge. But when a fellow judge, Coach Boyd Watson, is found stone-cold dead, facedown in Hannah's celebrated strawberry shortcake, Lake Eden's sweet ride to fame turns very sour indeed. Between perfecting her Cheddar Cheese Apple Pie and Chocolate Crunchies, Hannah's snooping into the coach's private life and not coming up short on suspects. And could Watson's harsh criticism during the judging have given one of the contestants a license to kill? The stakes are rising faster than dough, and Hannah will have to be very careful, because somebody is cooking up a recipe for murder...with Hannah landing on the "necessary ingredients" list."

First line: "The sound of a crash startled Hannah Swensen awake."

Favourite line: "If chocolate were a mandatory part of breakfast, people wouldn't be so grouchy in the morning."

My thoughts: I thought this was the first in the series, but it's the second, after Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. But I managed to enjoy it without having read the first - there's a bit of backstory about Hannah's relationship with Mike the cop and how she got her cat, but overall it was fine.

I'm fond of all things Minnesotan, so that was a big plus for me. I enjoyed the whole baking theme - there are some mouth-watering recipes included in the book and I liked that each one has a note about how different characters feel about the dessert, as if it was straight from Hannah's personal recipe box. It did make me really want to eat some cookies, though! And I envied how almost all of the characters munched on them regularly throughout the book - I feel guilty having one cookie!

There were multiple murders, which added interest to the story. I semi-guessed the killer towards the end, but it was still suspenseful. The final scene was a bit like a Bond movie where James doesn't get killed because his arch-nemesis is so full of himself that he has to explain everything rather than killing our hero, but it was still exciting.

I can see myself bringing another Hannah Swensen mystery on vacation to Minnesota with me. There are certainly a bunch of them, and their titles all sound delicious.

Book Awards II Challenge

My stars, another challenge! But this one goes into 2009, so I think I can handle it. (I hope!)

How does the AMAZING 3M manage to give us these great challenges?? She's a reading superhero!

Details and sign-up are here. Basically it's:

• Read 10 award-winning books in 10 months (August 1, 2008 - June 1, 2009)
• Cover at least 5 different literary prizes in your list
  

Here's what I have so far:

1. The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook (Spur Award, 2007)
2. The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas (Spur Award, 2003)
3. The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (Nebula Award, 2007)
4. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane (Anthony Award, 2002)
5. Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner (Man Booker Prize, 1984)
6. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (World Fantasy Award & Hugo Award, 2005)
7. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Orange Prize, 2006)
8.
9.
10.

Review: The Three Miss Margarets

The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer
3.5 stars

Reasons for reading: Southern lit; Numbers challenge

Summary: "Thirty-odd years ago the three Miss Margarets did something extraordinary, clandestine, and very illegal. Although their lives are haunted by the night that changed their lives, they believe that their crime was simply a matter of righting an egregious wrong. But when a stranger’s arrival in town and a tragic death open the floodgate of memory, their loyalty, friendship, and honor are tested in ways they could never have imagined."

First line: "She'd gone to bed with her shoes on, and not by accident."

My thoughts: The three Miss Margarets are 80-ish Dr. Maggie, 70-ish Miss L'il Bit, and 60-ish Miss Peggy. The first two come from fine old families in Charles Valley, GA and Miss Peggy married into the Garrison family, for whom almost everything in the area is named. Circumstances decades ago forged a strond bond among the three women, and it's about to be tested.

This was a really interesting book. I really enjoyed that it had so many different stories to tell - about each of the Miss Margarets' lives, about an amazing black girl and her family, about another girl whose family was torn apart by their lie, and about the mighty Garrison family, especially its ruthless last son, Grady. And, the main one, about the tragic events that bind all of these stories together.

Each Miss Margaret is a fully imagined character, bound together by the past and by their own eccentricities. Depending on which Miss Margaret is speaking, they're either weird or outsiders or odd. They're at once completely part of their Southern world of 30 years ago while also being very rebellious - Maggie became a doctor and started out by treating poor black patients, L'il Bit was all but orphaned and inherited her house and fortune and 17, and Peggy rose above her humble station to marry into the most important family in the region and outlive all of the Garrisons.

It also explores some interesting moral questions. Can you justify hurting one family to save another? If someone deserves to be punished, does it matter how that punishment comes about? Are some people more deserving of being saved than others?

Review: Lock and Key

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
4 stars


Reason for reading: I love Sarah Dessen!


First line: "And finally," Jamie said as he pushed the door open, "we come to the main event. Your room."

Book description: “Ruby, where is your mother?” Ruby knows that the game is up. For the past few months, she’s been on her own in the yellow house, managing somehow, knowing that her mother will probably never return. That’s how she comes to live with Cora, the sister she hasn’t seen in ten years, and Cora’s husband Jamie, whose down-to-earth demeanor makes it hard for Ruby to believe he founded the most popular networking Web site around. A luxurious house, fancy private school, a new wardrobe, the promise of college and a future - it’s a dream come true. So why is Ruby such a reluctant Cinderella, wary and defensive? And why is Nate, the genial boy next door with some secrets of his own, unable to accept the help that Ruby is just learning to give?

My thoughts: This book has a lot to say about what makes someone part of your family or one of your friends - sometimes people you expect to be there for you aren't and sometimes people you've just met or never given much thought to will really come to your rescue. This theme is woven skillfully throughout the book (especially with the recurring lock and key metaphor), constantly coming back to the ideas of home, family and belonging.

Nate is a great character - uber-nice guy, but with a terrible burden to bear. I liked (well, thought it was interesting and good for the story) the aspect of a male victim of child abuse, on top of Ruby's horror story of neglect. And I really enjoyed seeing Ruby come out of her shell and learn to trust and care about people.

Overall, yet another winner from Sarah Dessen!

Quote that stayed with me:
"Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete - like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key."

Review: Bet Your Bottom Dollar

Bet Your Bottom Dollar by Karin Gillespie
4 stars

Reasons for reading: Recommended by my friend Vidalia; South Carolina setting

First line: "Yellow and red leaves spun around my face as I tramped up the cracked sidewalk to the Bottom Dollar Emporium."

Book description: Welcome to the Bottom Dollar Emporium, where everything from coconut mallow cookies to Clabber Girl Baking Powder costs only a dollar, and coffee and gossip are free.
For Elizabeth, Mavis, and Attalee, logging nine to five at the Bottom Dollar is not just work time, it's family time. So when news gets out that the Super Saver Dollar Store chain plans to set up shop and run the Bottom Dollar out of town, things go catawampus. Manager Elizabeth, who has a good head for business even though she flunked pin-curling in beauty school, teams up with a crew of dedicated do-gooders bent on saving the Bottom Dollar from the fate of spare change. But when Elizabeth's unlikely new love interest -- who also happens to be Cayboo Creek's wealthiest bachelor -- pitches woo, out come some startling revelations about her past that turn life more than a little interesting for all her friends and neighbors.

My thoughts: Yup, another SC book! I actually took this one on the trip but didn't have time to read it. I gulped it down it in about a day while I was home sick after we got back.

This was a lovely little book - I actually just recommended it as an "inspirational" read because it was such fun and the Bottom Dollar girls worked so hard to save the shop (come on, you knew they would!). It's another book full of quirky small-town folks and each chapter begins with a quote from a bumper sticker, sign in someone's shop, someone's favourite quote or a song from the jukebox in the Tuff Luck Tavern, such as selection F-7: "I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim Is Getting Better."

There are some twists to rival a soap opera, but they don't seem over-the-top. Elizabeth is a great character - a very clever small-town girl with a heart of gold. So drop into the Bottom Dollar Emporium - you won't be disappointed!

Review: The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square

The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square by Rosina Lippi
5 stars

Reasons for reading: An ad in Shelf Awareness; South Carolina setting

Book description: For John Dodge, moving to new places and reviving ailing businesses is a way of life. So when he sees an ad for Scriveners, a stationery shop in a small town in South Carolina, he decides to take the plunge. As soon as he arrives in Lambert's Corner, Dodge falls happily into the whirl of gossip, gifts, and quintessential Southern hospitality. Link Kay, one of his employees, warms up to him after Dodge admires his expertise on pens. Bean Hurt- a feisty and outspoken ten-year-old-becomes a fast friend. And Maude Golden, the mayor, supplies him with indispensable information. But the one person who really catches Dodge's eye is Julia Darrow-the beautiful but aloof pajama- wearing owner of the Cocoon, a popular store specializing in luxury linens. Dodge tries to befriend her, but she remains elusive and mysterious. Everyone knows that she is a widow, but no one seems to know why she came to town or why she never leaves Lambert Square-or does she? Like Dodge, Chicago-born Julia is fleeing a tumultuous past. But with the help of a hilarious and endearing cast of characters, Julia and Dodge learn that, sometimes, you don't need to go far to find home.

My thoughts: Just super! Words like "sparkling" and "fresh" come to mind. I read this in the first 24 or so hours after getting back from Charleston because I couldn't bear to leave SC (little did I know, Lippi is a Pacific Northwester - but she does a great job of the setting).

John and Julia are excellent main characters - they're both trying to escape something, but they still manage to be kind, intelligent, and interesting. I love that the girls in Cocoon wear beautiful pajamas and that Julia wears them almost exclusively. I'd love to do that!! Despite his permanent case of wanderlust, Dodge goes out of his way to be friendly and help people. One of my favourite parts were his attempts to record his answering machine message after each caller leaves him advice on how it was too terse or too wordy or not friendly enough or too friendly.

The townspeople of Lamb's Corner make excellent secondary characters - Link's habit of squirreling away the best pens, two of Julia's more elderly Needlework Girls who know everyone's business and (like the rest of the town) have no problem barging into Dodge's apartment to offer all kinds of food, gifts, and advice; bombshell mayor Maude; and Bean and her mother Mayme who just want to find happiness after Bean's daddy left them. Plus the rather bewildered Swedes who are coming to Lamb's Corner to open a plant for Kallsjo (or, as the locals say it "Kallie-Jo) cars. Another favourite scene has the Needlework Girls completely at a loss as to why Kallsjo can't just build Dodge trucks instead of those impractical, silly little foreign cars, anyway.

This book has it all - romance, humour, tragedy, family struggles, friendship... I definitely recommend it.

Review: Sullivan's Island

Sullivan's Island: a Lowcountry tale by Dorothea Benton Frank
4 stars

Reason for reading: Its South Carolina setting, took it on my trip.

First line: "I searched for sleep curled up in my quilt - the one made for me at my birth by my paternal grandmother's own hands."

Summary (from Publisher's Weekly): "Susan Hamilton Hayes's comfortable Charleston existence is shattered when she finds her husband in bed with another woman. Faced with a failed marriage, a confused teenage daughter and a mediocre job, she sets about the business of healing. Slowly, supported by visits to her sister in their childhood home on sleepy Sullivan's Island, Susan becomes a successful newspaper columnist, regains her confidence as a woman (despite a hilariously deflating date) and finally explores the death of her complex, abusive father decades before. Chapters alternate between the present and 1963, the year her father died, as Susan faces both the strength and the damaging effects of her family legacy... both the setting and the characters are blazingly authentic. Frank evokes the eccentric Hamilton family and their feisty Gullah housekeeper with originality and conviction; Susan herself - smart, sarcastic, funny and endearingly flawed - makes a lively and memorable narrator. Thanks to these scrappily compelling portraits, this is a rich read."

My thoughts: This was the perfect book to take to Charleston with me! Even though we didn't get to Sullivan's Island itself, the novel is dripping with local details of Charleston and the surrounding area. I always get a charge out of reading about a place I've just seen, even if it's just something trivial. For example, the Citadel Mall - Susan and her daughter go there to get makeovers, we'd just been there to shop at Target.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel had this to say: "Authentic characters and setting...a very moving story of family, love, and place." And I think that sums it up very well. Susan's relationship with her older sister Maggie was very well done and Susan's relationship with her teenage daughter Beth is very realistic - incredibly loving but also a lot of frustration! The best part of the novel was the family's Gullah housekeeper, Livvie - a strong, wise, spiritual woman with a sense of humour and a fiercely protective streak, she basically raised the 6 children because their mother was a non-steel magnolia and their father was incredibly abusive. Maggie and Susan still speak Gullah to each other and their families, decades later. The family home on Sullivan's Island, the Island Gamble, is a character by itself - it has weathered hurricanes and is completely bizarre-looking, with rooms added on as the family needed them. Maggie turns it into a wonderfully welcoming home where her siblings can connect with the comforting parts of their past, rather than the tragic ones.

A glance at the Southern section at the Mount Pleasant Barnes and Noble revealed that Frank is even more prolific than I'd realized - I can tell she's going to keep me in South Carolinian books for quite some time! And I can't wait to visit Sullivan's Island on our next trip down there!