Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (Book Review)

Title: Hidden Figures
Author: Margot Lee Shetterly
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 2016
Genre: Nonfiction/History/Women’s Studies

Plot: The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner, opening in January  2017.

Chocolate Thinsies (Recipe)

Chocolate Thinsies were always our 'go to' cookie recipe when I was growing up if we had unexpected afternoon guests and were out of eggs.  They are fairly quick to make, and we were usually well supplied with the other ingredients. Try them warm from the oven with a cold glass of milk!

Ingredients
1 cup less 2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons Hershey's cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash cinnamon
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Cream shortening and sugar.  Add milk gradually. Mixture will look slightly curdled (this was always my favorite line from the recipe).  Mix dry ingredients together prior to folding them into the shortening mixture.  Stir until well blended.  Add vanilla.

Preheat the oven to 350°.   Spread the mixture about 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick onto a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.   Cut into squares while warm, using a spatula if necessary to remove them from the cookie sheet.

Enjoy!  I don't remember where my mother found this recipe but it used to be taped inside her kitchen cabinet for convenience.   I will add a picture later.

The City Baker's Guide to Country Living (Book Review)

Title: The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living
Author: Louise Miller
Publication: Viking, Hardcover, 2016
Genre: Fiction

Plot: When Olivia Rawlings, pastry chef at an exclusive Boston club, accidentally sets the historic building on fire with a flaming dessert, she more or less loses her job. Humiliated, Livvy flees for comfort to her best friend in Vermont and ends up employed at the nearby Sugar Maple Inn. The curmudgeonly owner is on a quest to regain dominance of a local apple pie contest, and Livvy is up for the challenge, even though they don’t always see eye to eye. Despite her flamboyantly dyed hair and distaste for the country, Livvy makes friends quickly, including a quiet farmer, Martin, and his family who may be the first to make her feel she really belongs somewhere. Can she find lasting happiness in rural Vermont?

Audience: Understood Betsy for grown-ups! Guthrie, Vermont also reminded me of Stars Hollow, although I believe that is supposed to be Washington, Connecticut. Readers who enjoy Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Elinor Lipman should appreciate this debut novel as well.

My Impressions: First of all, I loved the descriptions of food, although it is always a mistake to read a book about food when you haven’t had time to go to the grocery store for days - I was almost ready to gnaw on the book. Second, I loved the quirky, minor characters, including Alfred the chef (I enjoyed how at first they shared the kitchen and communicated without meeting; they communicated beautifully when collaborating as well); Dotty, who welcomes Livvy to family gatherings; Tom who delivers milk and devours Livvy’s cooking; and Margaret, whose gruff demeanor hides the hurt caused by an unrelenting Mean Girl. Finally, as a city girl myself I am always fascinated, if disbelieving, of young women who find fulfillment in rural communities. It is possible that Livvy’s transformation happened too quickly – also, in Boston Livvy wasn’t making enough money to pay her rent so how is that she could be solvent as a pastry chef in Vermont? Admittedly, she was living rent-free in a cottage on the Inn’s premises.

The obstacles between Livvy and Martin seemed contrived, making the last 30% of the book less interesting and satisfying. Either Martin’s motivation was unconvincing or his character was not very likable, I couldn’t decide which.  However, his parents were so sweet they compensated for his unreliability.  I was disappointed with Livvy for not valuing her friend Hannah more. Hannah is loyal in a way few friends are when the BFF and the husband don’t get along.

For another take on Understood Betsy, try the most recent installment of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick: Mother-Daughter Book Camp.

Source: I learned about this book when I saw it listed on my library website as an “in demand” new release.  I was convinced when I saw it had been edited by my former colleague, Pam Dorman, and I promptly put it on reserve. Later, I learned that Miller is a local author which made the book even more enjoyable. I am enjoying her Instagram posts as well. Recommended!

First Star I See Tonight (Book Review)

Title: First Star I See Tonight
Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Publication: William Morrow, Hardcover, August 2016
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Plot: A star quarterback and a feisty detective play for keeps in this sporty, sassy novel—a long-awaited new entry in the beloved, award-winning, New York Times bestselling author’s fan-favorite Chicago Stars football series.

Piper Dove is a woman with a dream—to become the best detective in the city of Chicago. First job? Trail former Chicago Stars quarterback, Cooper Graham. Problem? Graham’s spotted her, and he’s not happy.  Which is why a good detective needs to think on her feet. “The fact is . . . I’m your stalker. Not full-out barmy. Just . . . mildly unhinged.”

The Whiskey Sea (Book Review and Giveaway)

Title: The Whiskey Sea
Author: Ann Howard Creel
Publication: Lake Union Publishing, trade paperback, 2016
Genre: Historical Fiction, 1920s New Jersey
Giveaway: Thanks to the author and publisher, I have a copy of this book to give away to a US or Canadian reader! If you are a fan of historical fiction, please leave a comment telling me your favorite setting or time frame and I will pick a winner at or around the end of August.

Plot: Homeless when their mother (the town whore) dies, Frieda and her sister Bea are adopted by a kindly fisherman Silver. Frieda loves the sea and Silver’s way of life while the more delicate Bea excels in school. But Silver doesn’t approve of Frieda’s desire to join him deep sea fishing when she leaves school, so he sells his boat to a quiet young man named Sam Hicks who admires Frieda.

Another Brooklyn (Book Review)

Title: Another Brooklyn
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Publication: Amistad, hardcover, August 2016
Genre: Fiction

About the Book: "The acclaimed New York Times bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming delivers her first adult novel in twenty years. Running into a long-ago friend sets memory from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn't. For August and her friends, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them. But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion."

Audience: I was reminded of another coming of age story, Black Ice by Lorene Cary, which my book group read many years ago. Cary wrote about being one of the first African-American women to attend St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and the lasting image of that book is her loneliness. In a way, Cary’s book is the missing section of Another Brooklyn as it is made clear that August improbably attends Brown University but the part of her story where she excels academically in order to reach the Ivy League is reduced to an offhand mention of APs and PSAT review.

Another coming of age book I thought of was Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons about a Southern family in which the heroine’s mother is also the victim of mental illness and, if I recall correctly, appears and disappears mysteriously when she is receiving psychiatric treatment. August yearns for her mother and refuses to accept that her mother is dead and not returning.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

What I liked: I chose this book because I had heard a lot about Jacqueline Woodson but never had an opportunity to read any of her books, and I thought this would be outside my comfort zone. Her writing is beautiful despite the background of violence that is commonplace for the heroine and her friends. The descriptions of Brooklyn are incredibly vivid and make the reader feel she is there with August, although, truthfully, I did not like this Brooklyn, full of sexual predators and drug users, and did not want to visit.

The most interesting relationship is between August, her father, and her brother. Her father is lonely and brings women home to the couch in the family living room which serves as his bedroom. He is not comfortable in traditional churches, believing they are for whites only, and is recruited by the Nation of Islam, where he becomes a fervent supporter (but doesn’t stop bringing women home – ah, hypocrisy, thy name is religion). The father provides for his children as best he can and while they run wild and are dressed shabbily, he is caring enough to take the day off when August’s friend Angela’s mother disappears and to find August an educated woman from the Nation of Islam to talk to when she is a depressed teen.

August’s nameless brother follows his father’s religion and maintains it as an adult, but August, compliant on the surface, dislikes the new lifestyle and diet the family follows, and yearns for bacon. I was worried that when August made friends and started hanging with them every day that her brother would wind up in trouble but perhaps his love of math kept him as safe. Eventually, August becomes an anthropologist (having honed her powers of observation) and does not appear to have much time for religion but she and her brother have a good relationship as adults and it is clear the bond of their neglected childhood still unites them. The book begins when they are burying their father.

What I disliked: The book moves from present to past to not so distant past, and one reviewer compares it to a “fever dream” which is very apt. Reading books that consist of streams of consciousness is not really my thing. The book was extremely readable but very sad, and I was distressed by all the different threats August and her friends faced in their neighborhood. As August points out, she and her brother were lucky their father cared about them and did his best to give them a home where they were never hungry. However, they were neglected and in danger. On the other hand, August’s friend Sylvia was from an affluent home and provided with most advantages, and that did not prevent her from misadventure. I had a hard time keeping August’s friends straight until the end, although they were very different.

Source: Thank you to Amistad/HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours for giving me this book in return for an honest review. You can visit other stops on the tour by clicking here.

The Hating Game (Book Review)

Title: The Hating Game
Author: Sally Thorne
Publication: William Morrow, trade paperback, 2016
Genre: Fiction

Plot: When two publishing companies merge, the co-CEOs manage to hide their hostility and disdain for each other but their executive assistants do not. Wildly competitive and sniping at each other all day, Lucy Hutton is emotional and passionate about the industry while her counterpart Josh Templeton is a disciplined numbers guy. Once a coveted new management position is created and both decide to apply their “hating game” becomes even more intense. But after Lucy and Josh get to know each other outside the office, she wonders if she really hates him - and vice versa . . .

Audience: This is chick lit with dimension and reminded me of books by Kathleen Gilles Seidel and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

What I liked: I loved The Hating Game from the first page. Hasn’t everyone had a rival at work who, accurately or not, you suspected of watching and sabotaging your every move? Lucy is warm and funny, obsessive about documenting each offense made by Josh, with whom she shares an office (and somehow notices the shade of every shirt he wears as well). She gives him a hard time and he promptly responds to every snide comment; their banter is pretty entertaining. Josh appears to be a genuine villain until, following a corporate game of paintball (ugh, I had to do laser tag once and that was bad enough), Lucy gets sick and he refuses to abandon to her to her misery. Although the reader certainly wants them to get together, I liked that there were genuine obstacles, including not just their work rivalry but complicated family situations to deal with. Both Lucy and Josh are appealing characters (I liked him before Lucy admitted she did) and author Thorne provides some good supporting characters to distract from the fact that the outcome is never in doubt.
ate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

 What I disliked: A small quibble but Bexley & Gamin is not a very convincing publishing company, and Lucy and Josh seem overqualified to be executive assistants, yet not sufficiently experienced to become Chief Operating Officer.

Source: I received a copy of this charming debut novel from TLC Book Tours in return for an honest review. I really enjoyed The Hating Game and can’t wait to see what this talented Australian author writes next.  Follow her on Twitter for news.

The Traitor's Story (Book Review)

Title: The Traitor’s Story
Author: Kevin Wignall
Publication: Thomas & Mercer, trade paperback, 2016
Genre: Suspense

Plot: Six years ago, Finn Harrington, a British espionage agent, was about to retire but agreed to take on one last assignment on his way out – it went disastrously bad and he retired to Switzerland. When 15-year-old Hailey Portman disappears, her parents, who live in Finn’s building and heard rumors about his past from an indiscreet girlfriend, ask him to help when the police seem indifferent. Finn has guarded his emotions closely in recent years and is reluctant to get involved but finds himself investigating Hailey’s disappearance. Once he digs into Hailey’s background, he finds chilling evidence of a connection between Hailey and the disastrous events that ended his first career.