The Dreaded “S” Word

Summer Is NOT My Friend

Bake, Flip, Repeat

Summer, the one out of four seasons when we get a little taste of hell on Earth.  I am not a fan of the overly warm, infinitely humid, incessantly stinky season.  And can someone tell me what is up with all the lying in the sun?  I equate sunbathing to baking a cake.  I consider myself to be a luscious double decadent chocolate.  When my decadent chocolate self popped out of the oven all moist, springing back to the touch and dry to the tooth pick test, it meant I was finished baking.  What logical reason would I have for jumping back in the oven?  As far as I know the same thing applies to angel food, vanilla, yellow, spice and red velvet cake.  There are more flavors but I don’t have all day. If I missed the kind of cake you see yourself as, tell me.  You take your cake out of the oven when it’s done and that’s the end of the story.  Can someone explain why so many people stick their already done cakes back in the oven repeatedly?   Is there a recipe called 10-50 times baked?  The sad part is when the cake is all dried up, cracked and flaky; then you hear, “What happened?  How do I get rid of these cracks?  Where did my nice springy cake go?”    All I can say is, deal with your road map partner.  You drew it!    Did I happen to mention I HATE summer?

man on beach

There are however, ten things I will grudgingly confess I enjoy about that confounded “S” word.  One, the days are longer.  And two through ten, the “beach reads“.  The beach reads are probably the only reason I survive those hellish months.  Those books that make you laugh, or have you sizzling and it’s not because of the outdoor heat.  I remember one…dare I say the nasty word?…summer, after a rather torturous breakup, I had checked out just about every murder mystery book from my local library.  I couldn’t kill the slimy slug for real, so I imagined him as the soon to be deceased in all the books I read.  Between those pages so much mayhem was inflected on my ex-boyfriend, when I did run into him upon occasion in town, I could easily smile and hold a civil conversation.  If only he had known that I had just finished burying him in the foundation of a neighbor’s new house or tying a weight around his neck and dropping him far out at sea only a few hours before!  Hey, it worked!  Call it my self-help therapy.

Buried In Buttercream by G.A. McKevett

This “S” word I recently discovered a writer named G. A. McKevett.  She has written a series called the Savannah Reid Mysteries.  Me being me, of course I started reading her series backward, which is Mckevett’s latest book,  Buried in Buttercream.  I found, Buried In Buttercream to be delightful and witty.  Her characters are unique and I love that McKevett isn’t afraid to make the hero and heroine of her novels a bit more like the Jane and Joe Average you pass on the streets everyday.  While her books are entertaining, there are a couple of items which I found a bit off-putting.  Mckevett might have done well to either refer back to her notes, if she took any, or reread her earlier novels before proceeding to write the next book in her series.    In the first few books her drunken mother raised nine children then in the middle of the series the grandmother raised Savannah and her siblings.  The time span of the friendship between Savannah and her ex-partner, Det. Dirk Coulter expands faster than Pinocchio’s nose.  Despite the errors here and there,  I do recommend you throw this series into your beach bag.   All in all, I give the Savannah Reid Mysteries by G.A. McKevett a solid 8 out of 10.

Here are some of the other books I’ve read this summer:

Stolen Prey by John Sandford  –  The book is the latest installment in the Prey Series.  Excellent!  I rated the book 10 out of 10.

The Last Confession and The Gravedigger’s Ball by Solomon Jones –  I liked The Last Confession more than I did the Gravedigger’s Ball.  Jones creates heart stopping villains and knows how to build tension and suspense but I found the basis of the plot to be weak.  The Gravedigger’s Ball picks up where The Last Confession ended.  The idea is original but honestly I thought Lenore rather useless.    The plot could have moved a little better without her as a supposed focal point.  I rate The Last Confession 8 out of 10 and The Gravedigger’s Ball 7 out of 10.

What are you reading this “S” word?