I have really been remiss in updating my book blog here.  I have been doing more reading in terms of cookbooks, online sources, news, and other blogs than formal books.  I am getting back into the swing  of things now.  I just read two cozies.  Meet Your Baker by Ella Alexander and A Dish Best Served Cold by Rosie Genova.

  This is first in a new series set in Ashland, Oregon.  The protagonist, Juliet, is a professional baker who has been working on cruise ships for her career.  Now she has returned home to the family bakery. I hesitated to pick up yet another bakery themed cozy because there are so many that they run together in my head at times.  This was charming and the addition of a “side” theme, if you will, of a theater company was engaging and lent some local color to the setting (and also set up for the murder).  Juliet has a love interest in the form of an old boyfriend, but I get the sense that the not yet ex-husband may reappear in the series.  Fun read with an interesting cast of characters, I look forward to seeing how this develops.

This is the third book in Rosie Genova’s An Italian Kitchen Mystery series.  I picked this one up because  it involves food and it is set in New Jersey.  However, in the spirit of complete honesty, I confused it with another series and thought that I had read the first two.   This led to me not really understnading the beginning until I realized it wasn’t the series I thought it was.  The mystery was intriguing with reference to past murders and investigations, but not so much that I couldn’t follow this book.  I enjoyed the mystery, it was fast paced, but I would recommend reading the series in order.

As far as cookbooks go, I either received as gifts, bought or picked up second hand a bunch of great books and have also been going through ones in my collection.  I might review a few here and there but hopefully I am back on the mystery train.