The Secret Life of Bees--Sue Monk Kidd

When Genevieve loaned me this book, she prefaced it with a warning. "I really liked it, but it is an Oprah book. " Oh, indeedy--spirituality instead of religion, wise n' mystical black folks, an abused child, terrible secrets you guess in the first chapter, the search for a true home. All set in the Civil Rights era South. Spin the wheel, pick a theme, write it in, boys and girls. But it was a good read. Just captivating enough, but not life changing. An excellent vacation read. Kind of how I feel about O, the magazine.

Sue Monk Kidd (gotta love the ring of that) also features amputation as a plot point of her new book, so we'll be staying far away from that even with the warning of the poor reviews.

In return I am loaning Genevieve Beat Until Stiff by Claire M. Johnson. It's a mystery that Anthony Bourdain would have written if he were a female pastry chef whose drug of choice was Clomid. Mary Ryan's been drowning her depression over her infertility and the end of her marriage by developing a tremendous hate-on of everything and working too much for idiots. The plan works great until she finds one of the cooks dead in a laundry bag and feels the need to take the situation more seriously than anyone at the restaurant or the police wants. It's a rarity to find a mystery with such a flat out bitchy but likeable heroine. And involving food (typical crappy cozy subject) to boot!