Wicked women? Not really

Dec29

I think I helped get a book removed from Amazon.

There was this book called Wicked women’s ways by Kumari Davies. I download it because it was free for the day and I wanted to see who received the designation of “wicked woman”. The blurb sparked interest but once I started reading the book, I was not impressed.

This is a look at women in world history. I don’t know what the author’s methodology was in choosing women for this book. They are famous prostitutes, warriors, and some criminals but not at the level of being wicked as I would believe that to be.

For example the harlot named Rahab hid Israelite spies leading to Jericho’s defeat. I guess she is considered wicked because she was a prostitute? Joan of Arc was also mentioned in the context of being wicked. But considering the fact that she was pronounced innocent years after her death, does that negate the fact that she was executed?

There are plenty of other women throughout history that I would consider more wicked then the women listed in this book.

The book did talk about women that I previously did not even know existed, but very few did I think were worth calling wicked. If a man had done some of the same things, he would be called courageous or valiant.

With e-books, it can be easy for a reader to get scammed because all you have to go on is the blurb about the book and the reviews. If the book had stayed free or even been $.99, I might not have bothered. The book regular price was $2.99

The fact that the book was so expensive for such little quality, I had to say something.

I put a scathing review on Amazon’s website. I did not want to imagine that someone would waste their money.

Now the link to the book is gone.

All searches for that author do not bring up that book. I searched every possible combination of title/author and it is not there.

Hope the author learns from this. Publishing a book is not copying and pasting some words and uploading to Amazon website.

Put some thought into your writings and I will gladly pay and give good reviews 🙂

Sweet 16th a bakery – Nashville TN

Dec29

Sweet 16th a bakery – Nashville TN
I found out about this bakery from a foodie friend. He posted pictures to his profile and I knew that the next time I was in Nashville, TN I had to go.
When I entered Sweet 16th bakery, I was ecstatic. I wanted to sing. I wanted to order one of everything. Realistically, I knew I could not do that because I would weigh 500 pounds if I ate everything I saw.
In the end I settled for some macaroons, an apple crisp bar, and something called heavenly scones. These scones were definitely heavenly. A touch of sweetness and not overly crumbly. I ate them with strawberry jam and it was delicious. The apple crisp bar had a thick cookie-like crust with apples and granola and brown sugar on top. The macaroons were as you would expect. These were coconut version, not the fancy colorful French macaroons that you see everywhere now. Full of coconut flavor. They were tasty as well.

Best of all was the price. Everything was super cheap in my estimation. I think that when I see food of this caliber, I immediately expect to pay Panera/Atlanta Bread Company prices (If you don’t understand the reference, you can spend close to $10 easy for pastries/bread/sandwiches for one at those aforementioned places).

Sweet 16th has become one of my go-to bakeries when in Nashville.
My advice to you: Order your goodies. Order a cup of tea or coffee. And you are set for the morning.

Hey Cupcake – Austin TX

Dec27

Hey Cupcake – in a food truck park on Congress in Austin Texas
If you have not figured out by now, I love desserts especially cupcakes. When I was in Austin Texas I saw this on the converted it into a food truck selling cupcakes. I had to have one of course.

Of all the flavors, carrot cake cupcakes stood out the most for me. I used a couple of factors in determining my choice.

  • The difficulty or time involved for me to make myself. I like to bake so I know what goes in to baking a cake. So if I am going to buy a cupcake I like to choose flavors that are very complex and would require more time and effort for me to make myself.
  • The availability in my home town. There are several bakeries in my hometown that also serve cupcakes. If I’m going to buy a flavor of cupcake, I wanted to be something that I cannot readily purchase in my hometown.

So that being said, any time I can get a carrot cake cupcake I’m going to try that one (I don’t like spending all that time shredding carrots).

heycupcake

This carrot cake cupcake was so delicious. It had large pieces of walnuts in its which made me so happy. The cake was moist and full of carrot pieces which provided a rich flavor. The cream cheese frosting was also very tasty. It was super creamy with a consistency of room temperature butter. This was quite possibly one of the best carrot cake cupcakes that I have ever had. I did not ask the food truck vendor for the recipe for the cupcake (I think that would have been rude to ask for the recipe at a restaurant since they might think you want to make at home instead of buying from them) but the cake tasted very similar to a recipe that I downloaded from food network’s website. It was an Emeril’s carrot cake recipe.

Final verdict: When I am in Austin Texas again, I definitely have to stop by Hey Cupcake for more delicious treats.

Inconvenient duchess came at the right time

Dec26


The Inconvenient Duchess
by Christine Merrill

In the prologue Marcus makes his mother a promise while she is on her dying bed. He promises to marry a girl who was coming because of a promise his mother made to her childhood friend. Marcus is a duke and needs to get married to produce an heir.

Miranda arrives at his door during a rainstorm. Soaked to the core, the Butler does not turn her away. While she is waiting, she meets a very charming man and is hopeful that he is the Duke. Only to find out later that he was St. John, the Duke’s brother and the Duke and St. John do not get along at all. Miranda is so naive that she does not discern the undercurrents of animosity between them. Marcus marries  Miranda to save her honor but he makes it plain that he does not really want to do so.

Marcus bad attitude come about because he is quite jaded with women. In the beginning it seemed that he was still grieving his first wife, but he was disgusted with her deception and thirst for position and wealth. With all his emotional baggage, he has a difficult time understanding how Miranda can be true loyal and seemingly innocent.

After a non-eventful wedding night Marcus goes on his fact-finding mission in London to determine his mother’s sins. He wants to understand what caused her to feel so guilty to make him promise to marry Miranda. And while the Duke is away, young brother is doing his best to charm the new bride Miranda. It was like leaving a lamb in the company of a hungry wolf. She is confused because she thinks he’s being overly kind to welcome her to the family. Considering she is an innocent, she is clueless to his real intentions. As the reader I could tell St. John was up to no good.

I was wondering:

  • How far would St John really go?
  • When is Marcus getting home?
  • When will Miranda get a clue?

Marcus was in need of an honest woman who would live in harmony with her marriage vows. Miranda had a hard life through no fault of her own and she needed a chance to prove her worth. I got my happy ever after ending and Marcus and Miranda get what they need. St. John got some of what he deserves and a great dose of undeserved kindness.

The title The Inconvenient Duchess still puzzled me.  The only thing I can think of is that Miranda arrived at Marcus’s house at an inconvenient time I’m not sure what other title I could suggest, but the title does not really give any indication of the plot. Nevertheless I enjoyed the story. I was stressing a little bit because I wanted it to work out for Marcus and Miranda and knew that St. John was the main source of conflict.

Greek mythology love story new millenium style

Dec26

Aphrodite’s Kiss (Protectors (Superhero Series))

This book is a modern-day version of Greek mythology meets the X-Men. There are people with special powers and mortals. A person who is considered a halfling is a person with a parent with superpowers and the other mortal. Once they reach the age of 25 they have a decision to make. They have to decide whether they want to embrace their powers or to become fully mortal.

So in the story, Zoe is almost at her 25th birthday and she’s trying to make a decision whether she wants to become mortal and reject her powers or whether she wants to embrace her powers. In order to embrace her powers she has to tell her mother about them. Which is made a little bit more difficult because her mother rejected her father when she found out about his powers years ago.

So while she has this inner struggle going on, she meets Taylor. She’s always stayed away from guys but for some reason Taylor and her have an instant attraction. Her mortal friend Deena tells her that she should pursue the relationship with Taylor even if it is just a fling.

One of her powers is hypersensitivity.  She can barely eat food because of all of the sensations that she has in her mouth from eating them. So she’s trying to figure out how is she going to deal with a physical relationship with a guy having this hypersensitivity. Deena tells her that she should see this as an opportunity to enjoy her life, while her brother (who is very overprotective) tries to tell her not to pursue it at all. Zoe ends up pursuing the relationship. Yay.

The characters were very sweet. Taylor was hilarious and Zoe was conflicted but she had good reason. Taylor is looking for a girl that is without drama without excitement. At first Zoe seems that way. He falls hard and then he finds out the truth. But just like Zoe, having to embrace her powers, he embraces his love for her. I won’t give away too much of the story but it has a lot of different twists. It’s very interesting how Zoe comes into her own to embrace her powers. I like the dynamic between her mom and her and her mortal friends.

It makes for a very interesting story. Zoe was the type of person who seem to stand out, never really fitting in with the group. So it is good that she is able to find friends that support her and care for her. Since I have expounded numerous times how much I like happy endings and I like Aphrodite’s Kiss (Protectors (Superhero Series)) , it had a happy ending.