Welcome to The Lily Cafe!
My name is Kat and I’m a wife, mother, cat servant, book reviewer, writer, and an experimenter in the kitchen. At some point or another, all of what I am will show up here. Except the cat. She doesn’t like people. Which is a shame because she’s really a very pretty kitty, but, whenever I try to take her picture, she always glares.
But I’m so very happy you found your way here! I don’t have many answers, if, indeed, I have any, but I invite you to pull up a seat and enjoy some cake. Maybe you’ll find something you’d like to experiment with in the kitchen or are looking for a good book to read, or perhaps you’d just like to commiserate with me because you, too, are schooling a child during the pandemic.
Most of the time, though, I am an avid reader. Most of what you will find are book reviews or other bookish content. While Nancy Drew and The Babysitter’s Club hooked me into reading (not that I needed much encouraging, according to my mom), it’s high fantasy that really holds my heart. Once in a while I’ll dip into urban fantasy, but I really love being swept off into fantastical worlds. But Nancy still has a hold on me. I’m absolutely terrible at solving a case, but I adore a good cozy mystery and a thriller now and then. Otherwise I enjoy filling my spare reading time, when I’m looking for something new, with science fiction (easy on the actual science, though, if you please – I’m not the scientist in this home!), women’s fiction, and a dab of romance. I have a particular fondness for self-published and indie books. There are so many out there, so many good ones, and I love giving them and their authors a voice, a space.
When I’m not waxing rhapsodic on books, you can find me in the kitchen. As I said, I’m an experimenter in the kitchen. While my husband may be the scientist, and the one egging the kids on when it comes to exploding things, I like to do ratio baking. Instead of using recipes, I look to ratios to guide my hands. I weigh almost everything and throw things in as I see fit. It makes things interesting, but my family will agree I’ve mastered bread, butter cookies, meringue, and custard. Cake, for whatever reason, is still a work in progress. Probably because I never have enough people to eat it, so often decide against making it.
More often, though, you won’t find me in the kitchen or my nose in a book. I have two little ones, one in elementary school and one not quite there. Currently, one is doing independent online learning and the other is being homeschooled. I look forward to the day I send them back to the classroom with a mix of excitement and trepidation. But I really do wear my mom hat most of the time, and I think, no matter how much I pulled against it, that is my role in life. For now, at least, and, most of the time, I find contentment in it.
At night, though, I’ll be feverishly pecking on my computer. Usually, it’s tomorrow’s blog post. But, sometimes, if I’m lucky, it’s one of my own stories. Currently, I find myself writing a mysterious little thing I’m calling This Story because I don’t want to give much of it away yet. It’s my little secret. I’ve also found myself, quite by surprise, writing something of a fairy tale series. It started with Queen of the Garden of Girls with a fairly strict retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Since then, it’s jumped into Sisters of String and Glass, which blends a few different fairy tales. I don’t know whose story will be told next, but I’m certainly having fun writing them, and I invite you take a peek if you’re interested.
So, please, come in! Have a seat, enjoy some tea, and have a slice of cake. Well, actually a slice of bread. There’s usually bread around here. Do sit back and enjoy a story as well!
And thank you for stopping by!
The Lily Cafe 