Books and Food

I've been on a roll with books about cooks that include recipes. Not a very good idea but the books were very good.
First up, "Trick or Treat" by Kerry Greenwood, about the bread baker, Corinna Chapman and the wonderful apartment building she lives in, Insula. The apartments sould lovely, quiet, big and the residents are pretty much OK. They have a lovely roof garden to enjoy, complete with a gardener. Into this loveliness comes a terrible ugliness. Someone has come up with a new drug that is causing people to have some incredibly awful reactions. There's a new cut-rate bread shop opened up just at the end of the street from Corinna's shop, her lovely Daniel has an old friend visiting who seems to think she has prior claims on him and at first he's too nice to notice how she's hurting Corinna. Add to this mix a Wicca gathering that seems out of control and we have an exciting mystery. With chocolate recipes at the end.
"The Christmas Cookie Club" by Ann Pearlman has lovely cookie recipes throughout the stories of each of the women who gather every year to share cookies, food and wine. I want more about these women. I was stunned when the author indicated at the end that her own cookie group of twelve has seven cancer survivors! The stories were good and I'm anxious to try at least one of the recipes.
Finally, "Plum Pudding Murder" by Joanne Fluke was fun and I'm already making a couple of the recipes. I wish she'd put out a cook book that's a compilation of the recipes in all of her books - with pictures, of course. This time someone has killed the "Christmas Elf" - not so nice Christmas tree salesman, who turned his lot into a carnival.

Then, I delved into my stash of paperbacks and found some goodies - and several that I quickly took back to the library. They look so good when I decide to bring them home but after a few pages I can't stand them!

"Matters of the Blood" by Maria Lima was very good. This is the first of a new series about a family of paranormals. Keira Kelly has decided to stay in the Texas Hill Country after the rest of her family moves "lock, stock, and grimoire" to Canada. Because she stays, she must do duty for the family by keeping an eye on her cousin Marty - the throw-back who's 100% human. Her new nightmares or visions show Marty dead - and then he is. While trying to figure out who did Marty in, Keira must put off her former lover and new sheriff, Carlton Larson. She also has to figure out what Adam Walker is doing in Texas, instead of England and why he's opened a dude ranch that's very private.