Saturday, August 5, 2017

Weekend Book Reviews

Peppers of the Americas by Maricel E. Presilla is packed full of information on peppers.  The first part of the book is a thorough history of peppers and covers how they were used and changed over the years.  The second part of the book is a description of the types of peppers.  I was thrilled to see one of my favorites, the fish pepper, included.  The final section is recipes featuring many different varieties of peppers.  The pictures are absolutely gorgeous.  My favorite part of the book is the section focusing on the peppers.  It is a bit dangerous as now I have a list of peppers to add to my garden next year.  If you are a fan of peppers, I recommend checking out this book.

Sarah Schmidt's See What I Have Done is a debut novel that gives a fictional account of Lizzie Borden.  The book focuses mainly on the time immediately before and after the murders of her father and stepmother.  While the subject matter is interesting, I found the book to be lacking a bit.  It dragged at points.  Lizzie, her father, and her stepmother are imagined as a mixture of horrible and mentally unstable.  The only likable characters are Emma Borden and the maid, Bridget.  A final character is Benjamin, who has been hired by Lizzie and Emma's uncle to take care of how the sisters are being treated by their father.  The book does not tackle the mystery of who actually committed the murders.  Still for anyone interested in alternate ideas of the story and life inside the Borden house, this is worth reading.

Cat About Town by Cate Conte is the first book in the Cat Cafe Mystery series.  I loved this book, and I am so happy I was able to start this series at the beginning.  Maddie owns a successful business in California but has returned to Daybreak Island for her grandmother's funeral.  She stays to help her grandfather adjust to life without his spouse.  She discovers that her grandfather is being harassed into selling the family home.  This situation gets more complicated when the harasser turns up dead, and her grandfather is the main suspect.  I loved the setting, the writing style, and the orange cat named JJ (who reminds me of the JJ I used to have).  I look forward to the next book in this series!

disclosure:  I received these e-books from NetGalley but was not otherwise compensated for these reviews.  All opinions are my own!

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