Sophie awakes in utter fear. She is in the woods & blood is everywhere. Her best friend Mina is beside her -- bleeding, choking, gasping, dying. The flashback of a masked man stepping out of a car, pointing a gun, and shooting her dearest friend pounds in her head. In the hospital the shock is over powering & at home the reality is too much to bear. Who would kill Mina? Why had Mina driven down the wooded road? Why hadn't Sophie asked more questions? Did the masked man really say, "I warned you?Sophie tries to piece the details together.
This 2014 Academy Award Winning movie for Best Original Screenplay written and directed by Spike Jonze is your typical boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl is an advanced computer operating system....wait, what? Actually, Her is anything but a typical love story. It is instead a very interesting exploration of the increasing role that technology plays in our everyday lives and where that might take human relationships in the future.
Welcome to Paris! Cade Corey of America's favorite chocolate maker, Corey Chocolate, has just landed. Her dream is to transform the name of Corey (synonymous with comfortable) by including a new gourmet line of chocolates to be created by the top chocolatier in Paris, maybe even the world. The top chocolatier happens to be Sylvian Marquis and he (not so politely) says no. Cade does not give up. She tries a few other chocolatiers on her list but she really wants Sylvian Marquis to be her chocolatier. But Cade might have to break a few rules to make it happen.
If you enjoy cooking from scratch with simple wholesome ingredients, then this is the right cookbook for you! I love how the layout of the book takes you through the ingredients necessary for a “perfect pantry” and then straight into a chapter on Everyday Basics, including my two favorites, Perillo's All-Purpose Baking Mix and her Whole Grain Baking Mix. With these two recipes alone you have a third of the work for so many other delicious homemade foods already complete.
If you’re not a fan of what happens to your food from one end of your body to the other, stop reading this review right now! For those that are curious, Mary Roach’s Gulp is the book for you. Roach humorously covers both silly and taboo topics: pet food taste-testers, internal deodorizers that keep bathroom odors away, resourceful prisoners who know just where to hide unbelievable amounts of contraband, and, yes, even the constipation that may have killed Elvis. For me, the chapter describing an American surgeon in 1825 that used a wounded trapper as his own lab r
The Sinclairs spend every summer on their private island, Beechwood. Born within a few short months of each other, 3 of the Sinclair grandchildren and one friend of the family spend the summers thick as thieves, calling themselves The Liars. Cadence, Johnny, Mirren and Gat are inseparable every year, but the summer of their fifteenth year, things start to change. Cadence begins to fall in love with Gat (a friend of the family who is invited to Beechwood every summer) while the Sinclair family falls apart around them.
The First Fifteen Lives is an excellent and satisfying journey through time travel. Harry August is a Kalachakras, a group of people born and reborn many times. After a message from a young girl is passed to Harry that the world is ending, Harry is left with the task of saving the world. From the beginning of the story "Let us begin at the beginning" I was hooked. The author lets us see just enough of Harry's previous lives to allow the reader an idea of how being reborn works. North had me questioning the people I cross paths with.
Zack Dylan has a voice like Tim McGraw and a dream for fame. He tries out for a popular star search show, Fifteen Minutes. There is more at stake than fame, however. Zack’s family farm in Kentucky is nearing the auction block, and this might be his last chance to save it. Zack’s chances are good for making the Big Time, and he is committed. He promises his college sweetheart Rene that being famous won’t change his beliefs.
There are some books that I’ve read that could have benefited from being trimmed down. It seems that authors sometimes try to get dense and intense, especially in the sci-fi/fantasy genres. Dune springs to mind. And while I haven’t even finished the Game of Thrones, its emphasis on royalty and lineage and so forth intimidates me. I like to be challenged with what I read, but if it gets to be more-work-than-fun (particularly in a genealogical way) I usually give up. Call it a mixture of ADD/laziness…
In The Book of Heaven, Patricia Storace creates the mythology of an alternate universe, but one the reader recognizes, as if through a veil, from its allusions to Greek legends and Old Testament stories. It is different from anything I’ve read and therefore hard to describe. Although the sections hinge on central themes, such as of the oppression of women and the nature of God and of love, they can be read in isolation. Each section presents the tale of a different woman, eulogized in the stars themselves in this world Storace creates.
