The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Ho-Ho-Homicide Kaitlyn Dunnett, 2014 Christmas crossposting! (Note: Many of the Christmas books I am reading this year have one notable thing in common -- they were all cheap or free on Kindle some time in the last few years. No other qualifications.) Premise: When Liss’ old friend Gina blows into town with a request concerning an inherited Christmas tree farm, Liss thinks it’s a good opportunity for a casual vacation. It’s been years since she stumbled into a murder investigation, after all. This is a perfectly serviceable mystery novel. The characters are fine, the writing is good, the plot is interesting even though the villains are too obvious. The best part is the fact that it is set on a Christmas tree farm. It actually takes place in late November, and Liss and her husband are tasked with figuring out whether Gina can turn a profit that year, and eventually with figuring out what happened to the previous owner and an unknown man killed on the property years ago....

The Vor Game (Vorkosigan Saga) Lois McMaster Bujold, 1990 Hugo Winner - 1991 Premise: Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Imperial Service Academy and gets his first assignment: Weather Officer at a remote, unhappy base. Later, foiling plots and surviving the complex intrigue of interplanetary warfare should be easy. In the internal chronology of the series, this book follows The Warrior’s Apprentice (and the Hugo-winning novella The Mountains of Mourning ). However, it was written after several additional novellas and a novel which take place later. This isn’t one that I re-read as frequently as some others in this series, but reading it again now, perhaps I should revise that habit. The story mainly concerns a series of adventures and misadventures in the Hegen Hub, a crossroads in space held between four planetary powers, each jockeying for position, spying on each other, and nervous about increased tensions. The beginning isn’t the strongest part. Miles is shipped...

I have two reviews in queue, but I don't feel right posting anything yet. I'll just leave some old links here, shall I? The Handmaid's Tale Bitch Planet: Extraordinary Machine (Volume One) The Feminine Mystique Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Gabrielle Hamilton, 2011 Challenge Book! Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016 - Read a food memoir Premise: Gabrielle Hamilton has a successful restaurant in New York City, but she’s always trying to capture an experience of food that you don’t normally find in the food industry. In this memoir, she traces her life from her quirky childhood through her unconventional attempts at education to her unusual marriage and the relationship with food that runs under it all. I struggled with finding a book for this challenge. I started one and dropped it, perused a lot of lists and nothing called to me. Then I saw this book on several lists of great food memoirs, and it was available from the library as an audiobook on a day when I needed a new audiobook. It must have been fate, because I really liked this one. And it’s only partially because it contains some of the best descriptions of my alma mater I’ve ...