Review for An Enlightening Quiche by Eva Pasco

My Rating: 5 stars!

Genre: Contemporary Women's

Blurb:

Two headstrong women in their forties coming from different moral directions clash within the confines of a French-Canadian mill town in northern Rhode Island's Blackstone Valley. Their narratives relate how an heirloom quiche recipe and baking rivalry redress misconceptions, misdeeds, and maliciousness which wreak havoc on those caught in the crossfire of a tragedy precipitated by reckless conduct. 

Augusta Bergeron: Dysfunctional.  Deceptive.Demure.  More than meets the eye at face value and stuck in a holding pattern, the town siren engages in morally destructive behavior she attributes to maternal abandonment until she eggs-humes her mother's quiche recipe. 

Lindsay Metcalfe: Pedigreed.  Privileged. Proper. Mourning the recent death of her mother, the historian-in-residence hailing from Boston sets out to preserve the legacy of an impoverished mill, but gets more than she bargains for all around. 

My Review:

I hope you're hungry because An Enlightening Quiche is a book you will want to sink your teeth into! Eva Pasco has done a magnificent job with this novel. Her descriptions are so rich and detailed I found myself falling right through the pages and into the French-Canadian town of Beauchemins, surrounded by the amazing history, places, and people. The story centers around Augusta, long-time native of this historic mill town, and the outsider, Lindsay.

I really loved the characters. Flawed and believable, the charcters were wonderful. The women were strong, independent, and, at times, snarky. The friendships and relationships in An Enlightening Quiche were both beautiful and refreshingly realistic. 

While a quiche bake-off is a headline in the novel, the pages are filled with secrets, mysteries, and gossip under the facade of a simple and steady small-town life. The strength, bonds, and sincerity of the women will have you both laughing and crying throughout the pages. This is an excellent story and you should definitely add Eva Pasco's An Enlightening Quiche to your reading list!

I should add, there's an amazing bonus in the epilogue: the quiche recipe! How great is that? I thought this was a wonderful touch by Eva!

Hurray!

So this is just going to be a quick post but I'm so excited I just had to put this on here. Souls Discovered has made it to the shortlist for the International Drunken Druid Book Awards! In all honesty, I completely forgot I entered months ago. Yesterday, when I found out I was a finalist I was totally surprised and delighted! It's such an honor just being in the top ten. The winner will be announced on March 31st so my fingers are crossed. I'd love to be able to put 'award-winning novel' in front of my book when I advertise ;)

Best of luck to my fellow finalists! If you would like to see the books that made it to the shortlist you can find them here:

https://www.drunkendruidawards.com/blog

Meet Jason Firstsearcher!

                                 Say hello to Jason from my novel, Souls Discovered!

Jason is the unspoken leader of the group of Searchers he lives with in a large antebellum house in Georgia.  At six-foot-two with a serious demeanor he falls into the strong and silent type. Of course, his blonde hair and bright blue eyes also put him in the male hotness category (sorry ladies, he’s taken).  As a Searcher, he has spent the past seven years battling demons, both figurative and literal. He is no stranger to hardship. Born and raised in Saint Louis, Missouri he grew up running the streets with some bad influences until the age of thirteen. It was then the Dehmons came after him. Jason had been out trying to sell a bracelet of his mother’s when he encountered the ebony-eyed foes. He fled home, only to find they had reached his mother first. He still carries a lot of guilt about his her death and it is one of the reasons he has difficulty opening up.

The closest person to Jason, besides Keeper Autumn, of course, is Ronan. Ronan become a Searcher a few months after him. The pair survived alone and homeless for a year before they were taken under Petr’s wing at the age of fourteen. Opposite of personality, Jason’s seriousness and Ronan’s carefree nature, the two are as close as brothers. They grew up relying on each other, though a conflict of interest puts a strain on their relationship in Souls Discovered…

Jason is a strong fighter, whose choice of weapon is a crossbow, although he is likely to come out on top in a hand-to-hand fight, as well. Being a Searcher, he also has the ability to wield supernatural power. A Searcher’s power tends to reflect their nature and this holds true for Jason. If you can imagine capturing a violent thunderstorm and condensing it to the size of a grapefruit, you’d have Jason’s power. 

“He could feel his power pulsing in him. He released a fraction of it, the result appearing above his hand. It looked like a small black cloud, spherical in shape. Small, red streaks of lightening would lance from its depths and web briefly across the surface. It sounded like an odd combination of rumbling thunder and the spark and crackle of an electrical short.” 

Trust me, you do not want that thrown at you. His power is a perfect mirror for the chaos and turmoil he carries inside, and rarely voices to anyone. Of course, Jason also has the ability to turn into something dark and dangerous, but if you want to learn more about that side of him, you’ll have to read Souls Discovered!

If you would like to get to know Jason better, you can find him slaying Dehmons and trying to keep his Keeper out of trouble in Souls Discovered.

 Available on Amazon!

You can also learn more by liking my https://www.facebook.com/TheKeepersWaySeries/

Review for The Menagerie by J.S. Frankel

My Rating: 4 Stars

The Blurb:

Taking care of a pet is one thing, but when orphaned teenager Karen Fox is kidnapped to service an interstellar zoo, she gets more than she bargained for.

We do this for they bring us happiness.

We do this because they have no defense, nowhere else to go and no one to care for them.

We do this in order so that they may teach us what it means to be different, and for us to embrace that difference.

Karen Fox, sixteen and recovering from a terrible car crash that claimed the lives of her parents, dreams only of becoming physically able once more. Hearing a strange voice that comes from somewhere near her hospital, she investigates and is kidnapped by an automated ship transporting interstellar animals to a safe haven. Knowing nothing about how to take care of them and disliking animals to begin with, Karen learns the value of caring for interstellar life. And when a marauding band of poachers attacks the vessel, intending to seize all the animals, Karen is forced to fight for her own life as well as the animals she has come to care for.

My Review:

What would you do if you were abducted by aliens and told you were now the sole caretaker of an interstellar zoo? This is exactly what happens to the main character, Karen Fox. Not only does she have a dislike for pets, she has no experience in caring for them, much less alien animals. Caring for the critters is the only way she will get back home to earth, however, so she steps up to the task. As if taking care of the menagerie of unusual animals wasn't enough, Karen soon finds herself tangled in a web of deadly poachers, toxic planets, and a malfunctioning spacecraft.

I really enjoyed the fast pacing of this novel. It didn't take long to jump right into the action. The detailed descriptions of the world's and animals were great. Having a YA target audience is perfect for this novel as it has a very strong message of acceptance, not only of others but of yourself, as well. My only complaint would be the lack of emotion in some areas but it would not dissuade me from reading this book. If you enjoy a fast-paced story with plenty of action, twists and turns, and some cuddly (or not so cuddly) critters, then I would recommend The Menagerie. Just be careful you don't step in Malurian dragon snot and be mindful of the canarians...they bite.

Find this and many more books by J.S. Frankel on Amazon!