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Join me!


I'm starting something new for 2019, and I hope you'll join me on upcoming Tuesdays when I stop and take some time to brew a pot of tea, take out one of my little treasures -- a lovely fine bone china teacup and saucer -- and share my thoughts with you about what I'm currently reading.  

BTW, the image of the teacup and saucer is mine --  the imprint is Limoges with a hand-painted set of initials and date -- NB '94.  Each Tuesday, I'll share my tea cup collection with you and the tea I'm drinking, too.  I have a growing collection of loose teas that I'm enjoying this winter -- another break from the daily coffee habit.  Today's tea?  Winter Chai by Tea Forte -- perfect for a cold January day! 


As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm changing my reading diet a bit this year.  For the past four or five years, I've predominantly read romance, both historical and contemporary, because it was a new uncharted territory for me.  And I truly loved it, so much so that I started writing and publishing romance.

 But romance can be somewhat of a rich diet, like existing on chocolate truffles and champagne -- quite wonderful but a bit rich.  So in an attempt to strike some balance in my readings, I'm adding in memoirs -- mostly those that have to do with cooking and travel -- and historical fiction that explores the Colonial and American Revolutionary periods, which I find sadly lacking in today's market. Of course, I'm still hooked on romance -- after all, there's always time for romance in our lives, but I want to expand my reading horizons, and I hope you'll join me in the coming weeks.

 Now that was a long introduction and thanks for sticking with me -- here's my comments on what I'm currently reading this week:

Ann Mah has led an intriguing life as a diplomat's wife and moving about the globe at a dizzying pace.  But Paris and France are what draw her and her husband time and time again, until one day he's assigned to Paris.  Amidst their delight, he's shifted to Baghdad for a year and she cannot go with him.  Desolate, she turns to food and recipes and finding out about the various regional cooking of France to fill her time and loneliness. 

 Mah has a dry sense of humor and a perceptive eye, bringing her visits around France to the reader, as well as the often delicious, mouthwatering recipes and the people who create them, always with grace and her sense of honoring the French way of cooking and eating.

 She also has two novels -- "Kitchen Chinese: a Novel about Food, Family and Finding Yourself," and a more recent publication, "The Lost Vintage" -- both of which I plan to order soon.




Happy Reading and see you
next Tuesday!   Claire H.

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