Book Review: Even Money by Dick Francis

If you like horses and mysteries and are curious about the world of horse racing, then Even Money is your ticket to a winner.

Synopsis: Ned Talbot has been running his independent bookmaker business at racetracks since his grandfather Teddy started it years before. Everything is routine until a customer shows up one day and claims to be Ned's father, who was supposed to have died years ago. The man is then killed in front of Ned by a mugger with close-set eyes and a scarf over his face, demanding money.

Ned confirms that the mystery man's fatal stabbing was not random, as he gathers more information about the man and his relationship to the horse racing business.

A bonus: Three sub plots provide some relief to the main story: the sometimes amusing love life of Ned's bookmaker assistant Luca, the story of Ned's wife Sophia, and Ned's family history involving his long dead father.

Comments: Easy reading, spare prose, excellent dialogue and character development, a solid plot and good subplots worked easily into the overall book - I enjoyed this mystery and also learned quite a bit about modern day horse racing in Britain.

Review copy provided by the Penguin Group.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Book Bloggers

Hot topic: Twitter, Book Blogs, and many book review sites are discussing new FTC guidelines re disclosure of free products, books, etc. given by publishers, authors, publicists and others, in exchange for an "endorsement" of said products.

It seems a bit complicated to me, but here's something from the FTC.

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials
Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements

"The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

( from FTC Guides)

I'm already trying to comply by saying that an ARC or review book was provided by the publisher/author/publicist and hope that will satisfy the requirements. By the way, the guidelines won't take effect till Dec. 1 and probably only where the FTC has jurisdiction - the U.S.

Teaser Tuesday: Nibble and Kuhn, a novel by David Schmahmann

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Should Be Reading Choose two sentences from your current read, and add the author and title for readers.

"Success at law, it seems, makes men prissy, feebly narcissistic, women as alluring as barbed wire. And failure is worse."

(from an uncorrected proof of Nibble & Kuhn. Final copy may differ.)

An inside look at the workings of a large corporate law firm.

"Two likeable newcomers learn the ropes of corporate law at Nibble & Kuhn - and fall in love - just as that most proper of Boston's venerable firms comically tries to 'rebrand' itself for the Google era." - from the publisher's description.

Advance review copy of the novel provided by the publisher.

Review: How I Write, Secrets of a Bestselling Author, by Janet Evanovich

Honest, down to earth, gutsy and humorous: some great advice for writers by mystery author Janet Evanovich, in How I Write, published in 2006.

I picked up this book on one of my hunts through discount stores for older but brand new books, and I'm glad I found it. The 2006 book is a series of interviews on creating characters, structure, revising and editing, getting published, and also on "The Writing Life."

Here's one section I liked: on making yourself sit down to write every day - a really difficult thing to do. (from Part 7, "The Writing Life"):

Janet: Look. Nobody finds it easy to sit at a desk all day. It's lonesome, and it's hard, and it's scary. Being a professional is learning to be at your desk even when you don't feel like it. It's facing that blank screen and making yourself put some words where there are none. It's writing something every day, even if it's a single line....

I find it also helps to tell everybody you're a writer. Eventually it gets so embarrassing you actually have to write something."

Fans of her Stephanie Plum mystery series will like reading about how Evanovich creates and develops her characters and her plots, and about her writing techniques and habits. Nice thing about the series of interviews, you can pick the book up at different times and start reading on any page, which is how I'm reading it. A little handbook and motivator for would-be-writers.

There are other books on writing by bestselling authors as well. One of them is Stephen King's On Writing, which has had rave reviews.

Cuban-American Mysteries by Carolina Garcia-Aguilera

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, just passed, I'm reprinting this post on a Latina writer who writes mysteries set in Miami and Havana.

A Miracle in Paradise (1999)
The main character in the mystery series, Lupe Solano, is a private investigator in the Cuban-American community of Miami. She drinks mojitos the way other people drink coffee, wears Manolo Blahnik heels, and hangs with the community of elite Cuban exiles living in and around South Beach, Miami.

The novels are written by Cuban-born, Florida-bred author Carolina Garcia-Aguilera.

In the novels, the avidly anti-Castro father of the P.I. keeps a boat ready to return to Cuba at a moment's notice, at the first sign of "Cuba Libre," something he spends his life waiting for. On at least two occasions, Lupe uses his boat to sneak into Cuba, investigating lost or confiscated property, finding people, or recovering valuable artwork for her clients. Needless to say, her secret nighttime forays into Cuba provide some good suspense.

I found out about mojitos (a drink made with mint leaves, sugar, soda water, and rum) and the Cuban American community in Florida while reading these lively mysteries. They include Bloody Waters (1996), A Miracle in Paradise (1999), Havana Heat(2000), and Bitter Sugar(2001).

Book Review: The Texicans by Nina Vida

(p. 17)

"I've been thinking and thinking about Aurelia," Willie said to Oscar after Luz picked the baby up and took it inside. "I don't want to marry her, you see, but I'd like to buy her."

It's April 1844 in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas on the outskirts of San Antonio. Willie has heard about Aurelia's gift as a curer, a healer, and came to her because of a stomach disorder. Her family is poor and a marriage to Willie would be beneficial.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Should Be Reading Choose two sentences from your current read, and add the author and title for readers.


From the publisher's description:

"Joseph, a Polish-Jewish school teacher has become a rancher by chance. He marries Katrin, an orphaned immigrant from Alsace, to save her from an Indian chief, but he becomes obsessed with Aurelia, a Mexican girl who may be a witch. Together with two runaway slaves, and assorted Comanches, Tonkaways, and vaqueros, they struggle to settle in Texas. This is a gripping story of their trials and tribulations."

When I started the book, I didn't know what a "Texican" was, so looked it up in the Urban Dictionary online, which gave several meanings:

1. A person living in Texas during the time of the Republic of Texas. A person modern who advocates that Texas secede from the United States.

2. A native Texan of Mexican descent. 3. A Texan of Mexican ancestry. 4. A Mexican born in Texas.

5. A Texican is person of European descent in Texas. A Tejano is a person of Hispanic descent in Texas. 6. A Mexican living in Texas.

The novel includes all the above, the various people that make up the residents of Texas in the 1840s. This would also include the Comanches and other native Indian tribes.

The novel's main character is Joseph, a Polish-Jewish former school teacher who heads from Missouri to Texas after his brother's death there. Joseph meets a European girl in Texas who becomes his wife, and later meets a Mexican woman Aurelia, with whom he becomes obsessed.

Comments: The author is a skilled storyteller with excellent descriptions that evoke the time, the surroundings, and the people.

"The braves came home from the hunt with forty bison. They crossed the Colorado and rode into camp. Ten Elk riding ahead, the women laden down with supplies and dragging the butchered bison along behind them until the ground turned bloody and the bison meat was studded with gravel and dirt." (ch. 6)

I think of this as an historical novel telling the story of the variety of Texicans who lived in, settled in, and made up the new Republic of Texas.


Thanks to Nina Vida for a copy of the book for review.

Book Review: Julie and Julia

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I should have listened to worldwide bookish wisdom and not seen the movie before I read Julie and Julia. Seeing the film first absolutely ruined the book for me. I keep envisioning Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie as scenes from the film kept intruding during my reading.

I liked the film. Unfortunately, I didn't think the book had much more to offer once I knew the story. I keep admiring Julie's determination to finish cooking all the recipes in Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I admire her tenacity and blogging successfully about it. I wish there had been her actual blog posts, printed chronologically with the dates for each one, instead of a continuous narrative based on her blog. Then there would have been something interesting to read after the movie!

I like that Julie added questions at the end of the book to help the reader on, and also her list of favorite related books. One entry that did not help me with the book. however, and stood out as a complete non sequitur to her previous list of recommended books on cooking:

"And a couple of random good reads to round things out...

"The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead" by Max Brooks. Words cannot describe how I adore this book.... I couldn't think of a way to justify putting the complete DVD set of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on a reading list, but this is the next best thing."

Now if there is one set of books/DVD I would not read or watch, it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just not my genre.

It goes without saying though that those who haven't seen the movie should really enjoy reading this interesting and unusual story about the love of cooking, Julie and Julia.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book for review.