My Reading (or rather Baking) Week

Phew!  Golly, I’m so glad it’s done and over with!  Over the weekend, my son had his 4th birthday party and as always, every year for the past 4 years, I’ve started baking at least 2 weeks before.  There is a theme and therefore, themed cookies and cake.  Hence, the intense pressure of it all.  I have to confess that the pressure comes from myself -The Perfectionist Queen :p

The theme this year was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and theme-related food includes:

1. Shuriken Cookies (thanks to Lizzie’s Cake Log for the tips though I used my own sugar cookies recipe)

2. Raphael (Ninja Turtle) Cake (thanks to homespooled for the instruction though I tried to make it look as if he was peeking out of a manhole but… well, it was an interesting result!)

3. Turtle Cupcakes (it was green tea cupcakes with chocolate icing which was meant to look like the shells but I didn’t have time to draw the lines)

4.  Swamp Jelly with sour worms (hubby says no one will get this reference so I’ll spell it out… Michaelangelo loves to cook and he comes up with weird & wonderful recipes with disastrous results)

The main meal itself were bought: Sushi and Pizzas (of course!).  I got some garlic bread too though as my son told me, “turtles never eat garlic bread.”  Hhhmmm, why didn’t I think of that?!

 

Now that it’s over, it’s time to knuckle down and write tons more of reviews (I’m so behind that my NG stats have fallen, boo!) so you can look forward to more chatter from me the next couple of weeks while it’s quiet before the Christmas festivities come blowing in.  PLUS, I’ve committed to read Game of Thrones with a couple of GR friends starting 1 December.  We’re aiming to read about 30% per week and then finish it off as we can fit it in between Christmas parties 😉  If you’d like to join in, you can find the GR discussion thread, here.

And now for the newly arrived:

Thank you, Harlequin Australia, for these beauties:

• Right as Rain by Tricia Singer (I’m late getting into these Aussie farm lits)
• Pawn by Aimee Carter
• Captivate by Vanessa Garden

Thanks The Reading Room for these review copies:

• Canton Elegy: A Father’s Letter of Sacrifice, Survival, and Enduring Love by Stephen Lee & Howard Webster
• The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1) by Jonathan Stroud (courtesy of Random House Australia via Netgalley)

Plus a number of Unexpected Approvals (!!!) on Netgalley:

• The Lost Sisterhood: A Novel by Anne Fortier (courtesy of Random House)
• Shadowplay (Pantomime #2) by Laura Lam (courtesy of Strange Chemistry)
• The Descent (The Taker #3) by Alma Katsu (courtesy of Gallery)
• The Power of a Praying Woman by Stormie Omartian (courtesy of Harvest House Publishers)

Let’s not forget the WINS that arrived too:

• Dark Heart by Tony Park (thanks, Get Reading!)
• Empower (The Violet Eden Chapters #5) by Jessica Shirvington (thanks, Date a Book)
• Almost Mine by Lea Darragh (thanks, ARRA & Harlequin Australia) 

This week, I’d be reading some looked-forward-to Romances (*sighs* be still, my heart!):

• Awakening (The Twins of Saranthium #1) by Lara Morgan (I’ve started it this morning and this, I think, will turn out to be a comfort read -that mix between fantasy & romance, love it!)
• Nobody but Him (Boys of Summer #1) by Victoria Purman

And to fit in between:

• The Deliverance of Evil by Roberto Constantini
• Infamy by Lenny Bartulin