Death of Mrs. Westaway

In the first scene of this book the main character is walking home with fish and chips....so it's British. There is some tea drinking, whiskey drinking, someone wears a Macintosh so it checks some British mystery bingo squares for sure. It does not include a reference to Monty Don, the famous British gardener.  He is huge in England and says things like Crikey!

While not as cheery as Monty, Ruth Ware tries to break the fourth wall in a little bit in this book. Our protagonist thinks her situation is like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. I'm not that big of fan of that technique. First, you are comparing yourself to a Dame of the British Empire. Next, you're going to try to compare your boobs to Dame Helen Mirren. Just don't go there because you will lose that game. Even though it is a stand alone book it leaves a some loose ends which is mildly infuriating. Those criticisms aside I did like this book. It has a nice vibe and if you like mysteries then you'll like it. I really like the beginning scenes which are set on a windswept English coastal boardwalk where our pixie protagonist reads tarot cards. But the vast majority is set in a country manor house with at least one gnarled and creepy servant. BINGO both diagonally and up the center.

Most of the whiskey drinking in this book is imbibed in neat form. Totally acceptable. In case you want a cocktail, this one sounds just crazy enough to be work: Sage Brown Derby: 2 ounces of rye, one ounce red or regular grapefruit juice, 1/2 ounce lime juice, 1/4 ounce agave nectar and few dashes of bitters. Put in a cocktail shaker with ice and really give it a good shake, strain into glasses.  Take a sage leaf and rub it between your hands and float it on the top of the drink. 

 

Borne

If my hoarding ever paid off and in a dytopian future you needed me to leave my compound David Koresh style, it turns out my weakness is blasting Billy Joel. I will run away faster than if you had thrown a Maltov cocktail.  I was in a craft store the other day and I thought it would be a good place to plan a revolution, like ya do, and then they blasted We Didn't Start The Fire and I high-tailed it out of there so fast. I thought NO DEAL, no deal!
 
Set in a dytopian future, Borne is set in very bleak scenario involving corporate biotech and monsters. Think "CRISPR" meets Dr. Moreau. Our lady, Rachel, finds a creature she named Borne but no one knows who the heck it, or what it is. Here's the deal, I love the creature Borne, he is a delight. But I'm not crazy about scavenger runs across the dystopian landscape. I said I was going to take a break from dystopia in 2018 and even though this is decent I should have kept that promise.

At least our protagonist has a normal name. I'm sick of reading the author's rejected baby names. "Finnegan" was worried that the shadow was following him.  Or "Blakely" wasn't sure she could trust the handsome stranger named "Sage." Ugh. So our girl, Rachel (whew), lives in this place has that has a stash of supplies and a maze like entrance which is an important plot point. My old house is apparently a food utopia with multiple security breaches. We've had some mice over the years. The cats do nothing. I'm convinced that there is a little hobo-mouse symbol at my house that says "Food + 2 dumb cats."

In this book you can get drunk by sucking on a biotech minnow full of alcohol. Sounds delicious. I think we can do better than that: Kentucky Mulled Cider--put 1&1/4 ounces of bourbon in a mug and add warm apple cider, put a dash of allspice and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Summer Wives

Was the past sexier than we think? Well, there are 7.2 billion people right now so maybe so, maybe so. Goodreads considers Summer Wives historical fiction. Well, I guess technically if you think a Jackie Collins novel with hats is historical fiction then fine. The author feels that she should write novels about "what women were really feeling" back in the olden times. My take away was sex, sex, drinks and more sex. While I loved history as a student this was not what we covered. Ok, those Spartan soldiers were a little freaky. That was covered in college. I went to a Catholic high school so they conveniently skipped some details.

They say teenagers are having less sex because they are on their phones all the damn time. Summer Wives was set in the 50's and at one point the young people signal each other with flashlights so I mean, that's kind like texting. I wonder if you could make filthy messages with Morse Code. Baby, I didn't think you were going to send that last dot but wow, you did.

Summer Wives was not really my thing. I liked the setting (a small island --a rich summer place, like the Hamptons off the coast of Rhode Island) but that's not good enough. But hey, if you like your historical fiction with less guns and more buns then this might be up your alley. 

They drink a lot in this book. While mostly gin and tonics, someone busts out some whiskey.  This seems classy enough for the "tony" set: Port Old Fashioned: 2 ounces of whisky, 1/2 ounce tawny port, a drizzle of maple syrup, 3 dashes of Angostura bitters and orange peel.  Take the orange peel and muddle it with the syrup and bitters to release the oils. Add the whiskey and port and one of those large ice cubes. Stir to dilute.



 

Middlemarch

I don't want to say this book is a slog but the working draft was Middleblast. *Ba-dum-tis* Actually the middle is exactly where it really starts to pick up but with such a mega book it's hard to get there. The debate about which chaplain to get for the new hospital about killed me. Admittedly, it was a realistic depiction of the boring + passive-aggressive comments of being on a non-profit board.

Even though I enjoy classics I cannot recommend this for a casual reader. I mean, it's no Moonstone. While the second half gets a little crazy, George Elliot's life was way weirder. She was like an original bohemian, an atheist, and lived with a man for years without getting married.  After her first "husband" died, she got married to a younger man, who was likely gay, and he jumped out of his window on his wedding night.  I like to think he did a Wilhelm scream. The husband lived, but that breakfast must have been awkward. 

Looks, education and class are an important part of this book as they would be for women in provincial England. George Eliot and her "husband" George Lewes were notoriously unattractive. Photographs exist and...well... they weren't wrong.  She still became rich and famous. Hey, Elon Musk's face is bizarre and he's doing fine. In fact, if you're not rich and famous it could be because you are just too good-looking. Yeah.

This book as British as it gets and Christmas is coming. Wassail Recipe: This makes enough for a crowd: 6 apples, cored, 2&1/2 tbsp. light brown sugar, 15 allspice berries, 15 cloves, 6 sticks cinnamon, 1 cup Madeira, 1 cup unsweetened cider, 2 tsp. nutmeg, 1 tbsp. ground ginger, 1 cans of ale, 1 750ml bottle dry hard cider, and the peel of two oranges.  Bake the apples with brown sugar in a water bath in a 350 degree oven for an hour.  I the meantime, toast the spices in a large saucepan for a minute or two, add the rest of the ingredients, boil and let simmer for one hour.  Add the apples and cook for ten more minutes. 

Almost Missed You

What's the worst reason you've ever read a book? What you found in a bathroom? Stuck in an airport? I picked this up because it was set in Cincinnati. Well, that's not a good enough reason. I regret everything. By the way, I've found some interesting things in people's bathrooms. Very interesting. *wags eyebrows*

Have you ever heard of Chick Lit? I hate that term as well as the genre. Someone I know at work who reads even more than I do was giving me book recommendations. She said: "Do you like romance?" My coworker who doesn't even know what I read almost interjected. "No!" So this isn't really Chick Lit but more like Mom Lit? Which is really not my thing. So not my thing. Almost Missed You is about a kidnapping by a parent and it's about motherhood and all the children and romances and weird husbands doing irrational things. Pregnancy, childbirth, and profoundly stupid names. Yes, it's as dumb as it sounds. But they mentioned Fountain Square! Yea!....(whimpers softly).

I've read worst books, believe me, and I finished it so that's something. It's just that this was written by a normal person. Like, pathologically normal. You know, someone who thinks Death Cab for Cutie is "edgy." Despite having 'Nati references you should probably skip this one.

Technically there is a cocktail called a Cincinnati but it's a joke cocktail. Boo!  Booooo!  We can do better. This is really tame--just like the book...: Apple Cider Mule:  2 ounces of vodka, 3 ounces of sparkling apple cider, 2 ounces of ginger beer.  Pour into a glass or mug with ice and garnish with an apple slice and cinnamon stick.

A Gentleman in Moscow

Punch the ceiling dance! Our gentleman is one of the most likable characters written in the last 50 years. I'll admit that Samwise Gamgee was pretty darn likable. A BFF who can cook potatoes all those different ways and be willing to put themselves in harm's way?  I can barely get a friend to text me back about going to happy hour. You'd think I just proposed a drink at Mt. Doom. Actually Mt. Doom sounds like a cool bar.

A Gentleman in Moscow has a historical context, set in Stalinist Russia, but wait, its not as depressing as it sounds. I assuming some Broadway guys have some sort of Stalin! The Musical doing pre-production workshops in La Jolla. They did a successful Jimmy Buffet musical so torture is not taboo anymore. The actual propaganda slogans already sound like Broadway songs: "Friendship of the Peoples" and Motherland is Calling" sung by Kristin Chenoweth and Patti Lupone. Hey, this thing writes itself.  Anyway, think the opposite of this cheesy scenario and read this book, it is fantastic. It would make a great book club book for those of you well adjusted enough to be in a book club.  Even on your own it could be a nice balm for the winter blues.

This is the perfect cocktail for this book in more ways that one: Very Merry Bourbon Alexander: 1 ounce bourbon, 1 ounce creme de cacao, 1 ounce half and half, one egg white, dash of simple syrup and dash of salt.  Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake hard (I'm a maniac anyway but you'll want to with that egg white) garnish with a little nutmeg, a cranberry or two and spring of rosemary.
 

The Summer that Melted Everything

Have you ever seen a movie and you can see the strings, the green screen is super lame or, my favorite, the sea rescue scene where the actors look like they are fighting a bathtub? It kind of takes you out of the movie. This book is like that and I'm not having it.

If you like a book with overblown, overwrought analogies and children making more profound statements than the Dalai Lama, you might enjoy this. It felt like if The Onion wanted to make fun of a book it would look like this. These are not direct quotes but they could be: "His eyebrows were like rows of freshly turned earth in a fallow field." "Her hair was like a corn field in windstorm."

The Summer That Melted Everything is about a man who invites the Devil to come to town. I refer to the Devil as the Debil. Someone started this on a podcast and I'm just keeping it going. Well, the Debil shows up and it turns out he is a 10 year old African American kid (or is he a runaway?) Yikes. Well, there is a whole big theme about racism but because that wasn't enough it also covers: homophobia, AIDS, dwarfism, agoraphobia, xenophobia, spousal beaters, child abusers, suicide, birth defects and the list goes on and on. Set it rural Ohio in the early 80's, everyone except a few enlightened individuals, are hillbilly racist crazies. If that isn't bad enough there is a DeLorean in the book. Considering only 9,000 DeLoreans were ever made...NO DELOREANS WERE IN RURAL OHIO IN THE 80'S. I know it's fiction, but now it's getting ridiculous.

I think if you were maybe 19 years old and hadn't read many books maybe it would seem poetic. It's also super-duper sad so....even if you like this kind of thing read at your own risk.  Don't say the Debil didn't warn you. 

Even if I don't like a book, I'm not going to recommend a crappy cocktail. I have my standards. The Sidecar is one of my favorites and this variation sounds interesting.  Rum Sidecar:  Go ahead and sugar the rims of your glasses with lemon juice and sugar, add another 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to a cocktail shaker with 3/4 ounce of lemon juice, add ice and 1 &1/2 ounces of dark or aged rum and 3/4 ounce of triple sec. Shake, strain and garnish with a lemon twist.