Lord Gray’s List by Maggie Robinson

Review by Kelsey O.

Evie Ramsay has lived her entire life either being really poor or living an okay life because of her father’s gambling problem. Now her father has developed dementia and all that is left is a printer’s shop that was won by her father. Still spurned by how things were left with Benton Gray, Evie decides to pose as a man and develops a gossip rag call The London List. Now all of Ben’s salacious exploits are splatter across the pages. Ben decides to stop this from happening anymore and purchases the paper. To his dismay he finds out that 1. Evie is the one doing this and 2. that London is not happy that he is shutting the paper down. One of its biggest supporter is his own mother!

Now Evie and Ben must bind together and make this paper work. Evie hates that she has to be near Ben but that doesn’t stop her from using her feminine ways to try to get him to leave the paper in her capable hands. Evie was Ben’s first love and obviously that is not forgotten. He plans to make sure that they work extremely close together.

The reader never really knows why Evie hates/loves Ben the way she does and Ben apparently doesn’t either. This is one part of the story that was confusing. It was never made clear were the hate comes from.

This was an enjoyable read and is like a historic version of what Gossip Girl would have been like during this time. This is a  good light read with some sassy characters and steamy love scenes.

3 STARS

Background To Danger by Eric Ambler

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Also known as Uncommon Danger, this 1937 novel was a turning point for the spy story. In the Twenties, Somerset Maugham wrote the darkly realistic Ashenden stories and John Buchan wrote adventures like The Thirty-Nine Steps. In the Thirties, Ambler combined Maugham’s realism and Buchan’s fast-paced action with well-drawn characterization, political smarts and good but not flowery prose. Voila – James Bond for adults a la John LeCarre and Alan Furst.

The novel opens in London with a meeting of the board of directors of an oil company. Its detestable chairman, Joseph Balterghen, hints at regime change as the most direct method of grabbing up oil concessions in Bessarabia, which we post-moderns know as Moldova. Balterghen coerces approval from the board to hire fixers such as Saridza a.k.a. Col. Robinson to stir up trouble among the USSR, Hitler’s Germany, and a Romania that is going fascist.

Our hero Kenton doesn’t know this plot. He is a penniless journalist who feels compelled to smuggle an envelope stuffed with papers for a man he meets on train in Nuremberg.  The man ends up stabbed to death, the cops want Kenton, and Kenton is forced to make a run for it. He is alternately helped and hindered by two soviet spies, the brother and sister team of Andreas and Tamara Zaleschoff.

Tamara is not there simply to provoke romantic thoughts in Kenton. She schemes with her brother and drives the getaway car like Danica Patrick. Andreas is partly stage Russian, with large gestures, exaggerated facial expressions, booming voice, and frankly insincere conversation. He is also a shrewd spy, though prone to jump to conclusions. Practical Tamara reins Andreas in and so does Kenton. Happily for the reader, Andreas and Tamara re-appear in Ambler’s 1939 thriller Cause for Alarm.

Saridza is a sinister character. In the 1943 movie version of this novel, Saridza was played by Sydney Greenstreet – the rotund Gutmann in The Maltese Falcon – so Hollywood casting got it right for once.  But his bully boy Captain Mailler is odious. Ambler, who was a bit of a lefty at that time, gives Mailler a resume worthy of a fascist beast. Mailler was a Black and Tan, a paramilitary unit that suppressed Irish revolutionaries by burning property of IRA men and their suspected sympathizers. Mailler is wanted in New Orleans for murder of a black woman. In a dig at John Buchan’s goody-goody heroes like Richard Hannay, Mailler was the “only professional strikebreaker in the United States that was educated at an English public school.”

In the Thirties, Ambler also produced  Epitaph for a Spy, Cause for Alarm, The Mask of Dimitrios and Journey into Fear. All of them are worth reading. During World War II, Ambler served in artillery with thriller writer Victor Canning (The Rainbird Pattern) for a short time.

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Review by Pat L. (PitterPat)

Jennifer Ferrair-Adler found herself living alone for the first time in her life at the age of twenty-seven. She struggled with how to enjoy eating solo. She went looking for books that talked about cooking for one and dining alone. Not a cookbook but inspiration for solitary cooking and eating. When she found no such books her boyfriend suggested she write her own. She sent out invitations to various food and fiction writers to participate in the project. She asked them:
Do you have a secret meal you make (or used to make) for yourself? Do you have a set of rituals for dining alone (at home or in a restaurant), or rules?

The result is a collection of twenty-six essays on the joy and sorrows of dining alone. One is from a mother of three who dreams of a solitary meal of her choosing. Some of the essays are from deceased writers such as Laurie Colwin and M.F.K. Fisher. There are a few recipes thrown in the mix.

This is a chance to view how what others do when faced with cooking and dining alone. Some of the essays will make you feel better about those odd things you eat only by yourself. It’s okay to eat the same weird meal day after day, if you enjoy it. “Cooking for yourself allows you to be strange or decadent or both.” Learn to enjoy eating in public by yourself, maybe with this book as company.

Jennifer says “It is my hope that some nights in your kitchen you will reach for this book and be comforted or laugh out loud with recognition—and try another recipe” and “I hope it will remind that alone and lonely are not synonymous; you will have yourself—and the food you love—for company”. The book has done those things for me and it is going on my keeper shelf. Reading this book is a chance to feel connected to others even when you are alone. This is not a book to sit and read all the way through. Read an essay or two then take a break, otherwise it all runs together and is not very enjoyable. I liked hearing how other people view solo cooking and eating.

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels–a Love Story by Ree Drummond

Review by Susan R. (Sue-in-AZ)

Story Synopsis

Ree is a city girl. Night clubs, high fashion shoes and all-night sushi delivery. But then she encounters the most sexy man she’s ever met. He’s a cowboy she calls Marlboro Man, a title that evokes a very specific picture of a man’s man.

This book is the true life story of Ree’s steamy romance with Marlboro Man, along with her journey from city girl to country girl. She started telling her story via her wildly popular blog The Pioneer Woman. Her simple blog grew from a few recipes and stories to become one of the most successful blogs on the web. In February 2010, Ree was listed as No. 22 on Forbes‘ Top 25 Web Celebrities — one of only three women to make the list.  She went on to author several cookbooks and a children’s book. She’s made multiple appearances on TV, and now has her own show on The Food Network.

My Review

I’ve followed The Pioneer Woman for years. I’ve made the recipes, followed the stories and watched the TV appearances. So I might be a little biased…but I loved this book.

Full of wry humor, Ree portrays the people in her life with generosity and grace. She takes the fall for anything bad that ever happens – usually in a hilarious, self-deprecating fashion. If you love romance novels but thought they could never happen in real life, you will enjoy this book.

I  have an absolute favorite recipe from Ree Drummond. In fact, running across this recipe is how I first heard about her and her blog.

Crash Hot Potatoes

Added by Ree on August 7, 2009 in Potatoes, Sides