Jan 19, 2015

Book Review; "Midnight Crossroad" by Charlaine Harris

On Friday I finished my first book of the year and scratched "Book by a Female Author" off my 2015 Reading Challenge list.

Midnight Crossroad (A novel of Midnight, Texas)
Charlaine Harris | May 6, 2014

Amazon Synopsis: From Charlaine Harris, the bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, comes a darker locale—populated by more strangers than friends. But then, that’s how the locals prefer it…

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

My Thoughts: I read (and loved) all of the Sookie Stackhouse books and I think I was expecting "Midnight Crossroad" to be very similar. Harris is a great writer - her characters, settings, and plot are all well-developed and well-written - but I still struggled to get through this book. I blame that on the fact that I was expecting there to be more of a cross-over with Sookie's world. If I hadn't known who the author was I'm not sure I would have struggled quite so much, but I still don't think I would be inclined to pick up book 2 when it's released in May.

Have you ever been disappointed by a book from an author you usually enjoy?

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Jan 18, 2015

Breakfast of Champions

For Chistmas this year J and I were given a Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker by my friend Lauren. The store I work in sells this little gadget and I've been eyeing them for quite a while so I was pretty excited when I opened it up Christmas morning. Yesterday was the first chance we actually had to use it and I was really happy with it.

We made our breakfast sandwiches using pancakes (Compliments frozen buttermilk pancakes fit in the sandwich maker perfectly if you've got one of your own), pre-cooked bacon, and an egg. After four minutes they were cooked perfectly. We covered them in maple syrup and enjoyed them with some fresh fruit. Best breakfast I've had at home in a while. (Actually better than the last meal I had at Cora's too, now that I think about it.)

Clean up was easy too, which is important to me. If it's too big of a pain to clean it I'm just not going to use it. I'm super lazy, especially when it comes to cleaning! (I made sure my slow cooker was dishwasher safe because I knew I wouldn't use it if I couldn't just chuck it in the dishwasher.)

The only downside was that we could only make one sandwich at a time, so J had his breakfast half finished before mine was finished cooking. They do sell dual sandwich makers, so if I feel like we're getting a lot of use out of this one I make look into getting one of those.

Do you have any neat little kitchen appliances that you love?

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PS: This post wasn't sponsored or anything. I just really like our breakfast sandwich maker and I wanted to share one of my new favourite products. :-)