Wow, I’ve been a book reviewer for more than 2 years now! It started with the split second decision to join Netgalley, and then it turned into creating a review request page, and now I’ve received more books than I care to count through Netgalley, from publicists, and from authors. I have so many I don’t even have time to read other books I’ve had on my shelves for a while. Guess I should schedule those in one day. Originally posted September 7, 2018 At the beginning of the year, I had a lofty goal of reading a book a week. I was doing quite well until mid-February when an…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Behind the Scenes
Just something fun I’d thought I’d do! Take a look at my process for not just ratio baking, but how I put together a baking post. When I first started ratio baking, it was chaotic. I had no idea what I was doing, or what I needed to add to anything. I kept forgetting to add basics like baking powder and vanilla extract because they aren’t included in the ratio. Honestly, I was all over the place in the kitchen. But it was good because it made me create a baking corner so everything I would need was in the same place. Things are still trial and error, but I…
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Book Review: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
Title: Spoiler Alert Author: Olivia Dade Publisher: Avon-HarperCollins Publishers Publication date: October 6, 2020 Genre: Women’s Fiction, Romance One Sentence Summary: It starts as a publicity stunt for handsome actor Marcus to go on a date with plus-size fan April, but it quickly becomes more, until their long-held secrets threaten to rip them apart. Actor Marcus Caster-Rupp has played a fictional version of Aeneas in a long-standing TV series, and I think that’s what drew me to Spoiler Alert. I prefer Greek mythology, but did enjoy reading The Aeneid by Virgil, so the mere mention of Aeneas in the book description was more than enough for me to hit the Request button. Of course, it also mentioned…
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Queen of the Garden of Girls, Part 44
Chapter Fifteen Nancy was nice. She was sweet. She was also boring as cardboard. To be honest, I just picked her at random. This companion thing was getting tiring and was starting to lose its luster, if it ever had any. We were polite, but parted as little more than strangers. I planted the __ for her. It ended up taking Robert a week to repaint and rearrange his study. On his own. Elaina had kept him company, but, the second day of painting, it was clear she was hopeless. Instead, she’d curled up on his chair by the open window overlooking where the garden parties used to take place…
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Book Review: The Archive of the Forgotten by A. J. Hackwith
Title: The Archive of the Forgotten Author: A. J. Hackwith Publisher: Ace-Berkley Publishing Group Publication date: October 6, 2020 Genre: Fantasy One Sentence Summary: When a puddle of ink mysteriously appears in the Arcane Wing, Arcanist Claire, Librarian Brevity, book character Hero, and fallen angel Ramiel attempt to solve the puzzle separately only to discover they might actually need each other. I loved the first book, The Library of the Unwritten, so much and really couldn’t wait to dive into the next book. I was approved for this months ago, but had so many other books to read it was almost like sitting on pins and needles every time I saw it on my Kindle. All the…
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Temporary Changes
September was a real struggle. Between distance learning, taking care of a toddler, finding time to read and blog, and just generally living and keeping 4 people alive and well, I’ve been on the verge of going nuts. It pains me because this blog is a huge source of escape, especially since it’s something that’s just for me, but I really need to step back a little. With our school district looking to try to reopen in November, I’m getting ready to pull my son out and homeschool him instead, while also attempting homeschool preschool with my 3 year old, so I anticipate I’ll be making some fairly long-term temporary…
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Just a Master of Blog Changes Doing What She Does Best (revisited)
I can’t believe it’s been a year now since I’ve made these changes to my blog, and they’d stuck! There have been a few minor changes along the way, but, for the most part, this one has stuck. I love supporting authors and feel so blessed to have been entrusted with novel excerpts and guest posts from a number of lovely authors. Originally posted September 3, 2019 As my long-time followers may know, I’m really good about making changes to The Lily Cafe. I suppose you could say it’s kind of my thing. I was hoping my more recent changes would stick. The focus on reading, writing, baking, and motherhood…
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Let’s Talk Bookish: Should You Review a Sequel Without Reading the First Book?
Let’s Talk Bookish is run by Dani@Literary Lion and Rukky@Eternity Books. I’ve seen several book bloggers participating in this and it always looks like a ton of fun. When they came out with the October topics, I couldn’t resist talking about this one. Some time ago, I wrote about dropping into the middle of a book series without having read the first book, which I, sadly or funnily, need to update. One of them even turned out to be the 6th book in the series! And the most recent was the last in a series. Then there was one that was the middle book in a trilogy, so, yeah, that…
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Book Review: Soundrise by Lynn Voedisch
Title: Soundrise Author: Lynn Voedisch Publisher: The Story Plant Publication date: September 29, 2020 Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy, General Fiction, Computers One Sentence Summary: Derek and George only want to find the hidden cache of information stored somewhere out in cyberspace by a notorious (now imprisoned) hacker, but, when a mysterious voice starts talking to Derek and an irresistible woman sets her sights on him, that information suddenly becomes a lot more important. There was something immensely alluring about the book description. It mentions a voice coming from over a computer, which is fascinating to me in itself. But then it goes on to mention goddesses and mysteries, and my mind just started spinning into…
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Queen of the Garden of Girls, Part 43
Note: Since I’ve been posting this for over a year now, and since I have quite a bit written, these posts will get a little longer for the time being. At least until my creative well dries up and I have a hard time working on it again. Chapter Fourteen, continued They painted in silence for awhile, Elaina busily trying to watch what Robert was doing and copying it against the poor wall. Robert was, she was sure, being a gentleman and blithely going about his own business. Part of her wished he would offer to help her, but the other half was glad he was at least pretending to…
