Summer Gardens And Zucchini...

I have about 25 different zucchini recipes because normally there are about a million zucchini plants in our garden.  And as everyone knows...you cannot give enough zucchini away and for some odd reason they seem to multiply...the more you pick them the more you get.  Except for this year.  Not totally sure why but we had hardly any zucchini...and I barely got to use all my accumulated zucchini recipes.   Yesterday, however, I made these pancakes and they were incredible...easy to make...I barely measured ingredients...just sort of tossed stuff in...and they were soooo good...I may have to buy zucchini to make another batch.  The recipe came from a great site I love called Serious Eats.

Fantasy Books...

I love this site. It is UK based.  Lee, the founder, has a keen interest in finding the best fantasy books for children and adults.  He is wonderful to chat with.   Some of my reviews are published on his site. Lee would just love it if you checked it out!!!

Hex Hall And Humor...

Hex Hall was a truly delightful book.  Magic mixed with mayhem.  Mystery mixed with demons and vamps and witches and fairies.  All of these wonderful characters thrown into one school...Hecate Hall.   Sophia...star and main character...has no clue as to how to use her witchy powers.   She has no idea what her powers are.  She is surprised by them and by her classmates on a daily basis.  The opening part of Hex Hall was the funniest opening I have read in a long long time.   Her love spell and the havoc it caused...OMG...I was actually laughing out loud and rereading it to my husband.  And...who does not love a book loaded with mean girls?  And mean girls who are trying to form a coven...are the best mean girls around.  Oh...and I cannot forget Sophie's reaction when she finds out her roommate is a vampire...priceless.

This was just a fun great spunky little novel...I know this is the first in a series...so Hex Hall Book 2 should be great fun.

Steamy Summer Reading...

This was in my email yesterday and I wanted to share it.  I think NPR has come up with some really interesting summer reading this season.  This one is for steamy sizzling beach reads.

Review Of Fallen...

Angels and…well…more angels and then fallen angels and angels who are sort of in between. Lucinda Price is not an angel. In fact she is spending her junior year of high school in a reform school called Sword and Cross. She has been bothered by shadowy images for much of her life and lately these shadows have begun to alter her life. She has come to Sword and Cross because of an accident involving a friend. She is not trusted by her parents and is very unsure of how her actions caused her to be at Sword and Cross. The one thing she is sure of is that when the shadows come…she cannot control them and bad things tend to happen. She begins to make friends at school but they are questionable friends. After all they are all attending a reform school where they are locked in and watched by cameras and sent to detention and life is very regimented. Lucinda is drawn to one person at school and that is Daniel Gregori. She is unsure why and he appears to have the opposite feeling about her. At the same time she is warned to stay away from him and is sort of charmed and wooed by another classmate…Cam…who appears to be able to provide picnics and limo rides and tons of other contraband items. Luce is drawn to him even though she does not want to be. As I read this beautiful novel alarm bells went off in my head when Cam gave her a gold necklace with a serpent on it. To me…that meant that he was quite the opposite of an angel but the story was still unfolding.

The author writes beautifully about the angels…their wings…every angel seemed to have a different kind of wing pattern and when they are tucked away and then unfolded again…it was quite magical. I totally loved this story. It was sort of oddly spiritual. I know that the author has planned two more within this series. I cannot wait to read them.