Mindful Musings Book Blog

Aaand maybe some old ones, too. ;) No, I didn't fulfill my 2018 Reading Resolution, but that won't stop me from creating a new menu for the new year! Here's the jist of what I ordered, finished, and left on the table: The Butterfly Hunter – Chris Ballard   STATUS: Started, Didn't Finish Tilt-A-Whirl – Chris Grabenstein STATUS: Finished! And Reviewed: https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/08/foodfic-tilt-whirl-chris-grabenstein.html Gone – Michael Grant STATUS: Never Started Switch – Chip and Dan Heath STATUS: Started, Didn't Finish Feral Youth – Shaun David Hutchinson STATUS:Started, Didn't Finish Life As We Knew It – Susan Pfeffer STATUS: Never Started So High a Blood – Morgan Ring STATUS: Finished! Discovering Vintage New Orleans – Bonnye Stuart STATUS: Finished! And Reviewed: https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2018/03/foodfic-discovering-vintage-new-orleans.html We Have Your Daughter – Paula Woodward STATUS: Finished! Socialism is Great! – Lijia Zhang STATUS: Never S

About 6 years ago I was working at BAM and developed some back problems. It caused me to wake up in the middle of the night and I would make some coffee and sit at the computer for several hours, waiting for the pain to die down so I could go back to bed. It was so quiet! I finally decided to put that quiet time to good use by writing my first book. I had written a few stories when I was a teenager then life got in the way and I just didn't come back to it. I have always loved books and working at both a library and a book store just fed that passion. The first book I wrote was Jade. It was rough and ragged and pretty silly but overall it was a great story with a lot of action and plenty of humor. Jade was a mix of supernatural creatures and because of that there were only a few things her stomach could handle. If you did a word search of Jade you would find coffee mentioned twenty times, espresso eleven, chocolate thirteen times, and wine thirty-nine (Too funny). I have always l

Daphne Martin is a cake decorator with an enormous problem in Killer Wedding Cake -  her oven is on the fritz. With her mind consumed with finding somewhere else to do the baking for her business, she isn’t very concerned with eating. When her sister Violet agrees to let Daphne commandeer her oven, Daphne orders pizza and breadsticks to feed herself and Violet’s family of four. Still feeling guilty for taking over Violet’s kitchen, Daphne awakes early the next morning to make breakfast. Eyes lighting up at the sight of pancakes, Daphne’s nephew Lucas hugs her and invites her to move right on in. Besides pancakes, she prepares eggs, toast, and sausage—plenty of comfort food for the baker who’s not only dealing with a broken oven but also with the return of her abusive ex-husband…the week before her wedding! Oh, and did I mention that the night after he visited Daphne, her ex was found murdered? When Daphne’s family arrives to help, and Daphne realizes the wedding planner she hired is a

But What Are They Eating on Deeyae? My science-fiction novel, The Seas of Distant Stars , tells the story of a human girl—Agapanthus—who’s abducted by aliens and grows up on Deeyae, a red-rocked, watery planet in another solar system. It may not have the same name in real life, but Deeyae is a real planet. It bears the stoic title of Gliese-667Cc, and it’s known to scientists as an Earth-like exoplanet. That means it’s close to its home star, and could potentially harbor liquid water—and complex life—on its surface. Gliese-667Cc revolves around a red dwarf star (named Imn in my book), which tinges everything on the planet with a pink-red glow. Red dwarf stars aren’t as warm or as bright as yellow giants like Earth’s sun, so I imagined that life wouldn’t be based around a sun-fed food chain. Here on Earth, everything starts with plants, but, on Deeyae, the food chain revolves around hydrothermal vents, and the so-called “extremophile” bacteria who thrive in such environments. From there