Just Jennifer

Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner by Giada De Laurentiis (Clarkson Potter, March 2012)


Giada De Laurentiis is a Food Network celebrity chef and the mother of a four-year-old little girl who Giada wants to feed well for her health, but at the same time, wants her little girl to learn to love food as much as she does. In her latest cookbook, her sixth, De Laurentiis presents recipes that take a minimum amount of prep time but produce a maximum amount of flavor and variety for her family. While most recipes have a basis in De Laurentiis’s Italian cuisine (she was born and lived as a child in Rome) she often cites her husband’s favorite foods, and now her daughter’s, and offers new ways to serve some of their favorites, such as potatoes (a potato and quinoa salad using Peruvian purple potatoes is especially interesting) and breakfast for dinner, adding more substance and interest to basic egg dishes. She also ventures into non-traditional Italian territory adding some Asian flavors to salads and meats. There are recipes that can just be assembled from pantry ingredients and store-bought prepared food, including store-roasted chicken breasts, cutting down on prep time for busy families. Giada’s bright, easy going narrative, paired with colorful pictures of delicious looking food and smiling, happy families, will make for enjoyable perusing and simple recipes without much prep work or fancy ingredients will encourage cooks to vary their weeknight repertoires.

Just Jennifer

Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Biggest Bestsellers by James W. Hall (Random House)


Hall, a professor of literature and best-selling thriller author takes twelve best-selling books of the twentieth century and looks at their similarities, differences and what basic properties each has that contributed to the books success. If you could never imagine that Jaws, To Kill a Mockingbird, Petyon Place and The Da Vinci Code have things in common or that Scarlett O’Hara (Gone with the Wind) shares characteristics with Michael Corleone (The Godfather) read on. Hall takes best-sellers and breaks them down to their most basic elements and then includes little known insider stories and details about each title; The Firm, Hunt for Red October, the Dead Zone, Valley of the Dolls, The Exorcist and Bridges of Madison County round out the twelve books. Hit Lit is a quick read that will engage readers of pop fiction and peak the interest of those who generally don’t. Hall also includes a short synopsis of each title in the back of the book. Great fun for all readers, serious and not so serious.





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Just Jennifer

Gossip by Beth Gutcheon (William Morrow, March 2012)


Sometimes it is our friends that shape us as much as our families do. It is our friends that often hold our closest secrets, the secrets about us that we don’t even realize they are holding. The age old dilemma of deciding whether or not to share something that might hurt a friend with that friend and what the consequences of not sharing these secrets are is explored in Beth Gutcheon’s new book. Lovie and Dinah met in prep school and stayed close friends as the two embarked on different paths in Manhattan, Lovie an assistant to a couture designer, Dinah a gossip columnist and lifestyles writer. Both were also acquaintances of Avis, whose path crosses theirs again as adults in Manhattan. Lovie has never married and owns an exclusive women’s dress shop on the Upper East Side, dressing the rich and famous. Dinah has married well, though not happily, and has two young boys. Avis has married an older man with two daughters and has one of her own. Whether it is because she is a sympathetic listener or because Lovie often fades into the background, she hears and sees a lot of things that could hurt her friends if they knew and often makes the decision not to tell rather than hurt one of the women closes to her, but there are some secrets that if they are not revealed can have devastating consequences, leaving those who knew wondering what would have happened if they had told. At first it may seem that Lovie is a faded character, but it soon becomes clear that she is a person who has never really defined herself, content with having a relationship with a married man most of her life, selling clothes to society women rather than being one. The book moves forward at a good pace and there is sometimes a helplessness in the prose as it tells the story of three women from high school classmates in the 1960’s through the 1970’s, the excess of the eighties and nineties and the fall from grace the new millennium brought.

New This Week

Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Amy Einhorn Books)


Joining the newly formed NYPD in 1845, Timothy reluctantly assumes his duties near the notorious Five Points slum, where in the middle of the night he hears a little girl's claim that dozens of bodies have been buried in a local forest.

Gilly Salt Sisters by Tiffany Baker (Grand Central)

In the isolated Cape Cod village of Prospect, the Gilly sisters are as different as can be. Jo, a fierce and quiet loner, is devoted to the mysteries of her family's salt farm, while Claire is popular, pretty, and yearns to flee the salt at any cost. But the Gilly land hides a dark legacy that proves impossible to escape. Although the community half-suspects the Gilly sisters might be witches, it doesn't stop Whit Turner, the town's wealthiest bachelor, from forcing his way into their lives. It's Jo who first steals Whit's heart, but it is Claire--heartbroken over her high school sweetheart--who marries him. Years later, estranged from her family, Claire finds herself thrust back onto the farm with the last person she would have chosen: her husband's pregnant mistress. Suddenly, alliances change, old loves return, and new battle lines are drawn. What the Gilly sisters learn about each other, the land around them, and the power of the salt, will not only change each of their lives forever, it will also alter Gilly history for good.

When I Was Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

In this new collection of incisive essays, Robinson returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, the contradictions inherent in human nature.

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophia Kinsella (Dial Press)

After her phone is stolen during a hotel fire drill, Poppy Wyatt, discovering an abandoned phone in a trash can, crashes into the life of the phone's owner, Sam Roxton, when she uses his phone to make her wedding preparations.

Just Jennifer

How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue (William Morrow, March 2012)


Ten years after high school, Annie Quintana and Julia St. Claire’s paths are about to cross again. Annie was the daughter of the St. Claire’s maid, cook and nanny and had forged a friendship with Julia until something happened at the prep school the two attended that Annie blames as the trigger for her mother Lucia’s untimely death. Now Annie is making cupcakes for Lolly St. Claire’s fundraiser and crosses paths with Julia who has inexplicably left her high powered Wall Street job and returned home to California to prepare for her wedding. After tasting Annie’s cupcakes, and perhaps hoping to make amends for what occurred in high school and the intervening ten years, Julia proposes to be an investor in a cupcake shop that will revert to Annie once it is on its feet and making money. Annie is weary and suspicious of Julia, but ultimately agrees. Vandalism just prior to and after the grand opening make Annie think that getting involved once again with Julia was a big mistake, but little by little, the two forge tentative bonds and learn who each has become and what each has had to overcome since they last saw each other. At first, the plot seems a little trite, unhappy rich girl befriends and helps poor, talented friend, but then Annie and Julia’s personalities take over...and who can resist cupcakes? Each character is carefully written to avoid stereotyping; the chapters alternate between the two women, allowing how each felt about past events and how each reacts to current events to define each character. Their voices are distinctive and change throughout the story as each grows to learn more about the other and about herself. A bit of mystery, both past and present adds more depth to the plot as do characters such as Julia’s high school boyfriend Jake and the militant organic farmer from whom Annie gets her pears and in whom she may find true love.

Being Lara

Being Lara by Lola Jaye (William Morrow, March 2012)


Lara has always know she was adopted---chosen---by her parents, but never really felt all that different until she is five when one of her classmates dubs Lara an alien. It is this that makes Lara take notice of the physical differences between her and her parents and makes her wonder if she really belongs. As years go by, different incidents, such as someone questioning if her father is bothering her in a deli not realizing they are father and daughter, keep her uneasy about where she fits into her family, and eventually with her friends, until she turns thirty when the woman who gave birth to her arrives at the party and turns Lara’s world on end, but at the same time, offers some answers and helps Lara find herself and where she fits in, with her family and in the world. As she approaches her thirtieth birthday, Lara is an accomplished business woman with a loving family and in a relationship with a guy who adores her, but whom she keeps at a distance for reasons she herself can’t explain. The arrival of her mother from Nigeria allows Lara to learn about her roots, learn the circumstances of her birth and how she came to be chosen by her former pop singing sensation mother and where some of her innate traits come from. As Lara learns about her past and her history, she is able to focus more on her present and future and is able to become present in her life and plan her future. Touchingly told, anyone who has never felt they fit in with their family or a certain group of friends will identify with Lara’s feelings of unease and uncertainty, even as she excels in her career. Lara learns that family comes in more than the traditional style and that one person can be a part of many different families at the same time.

New This Week

The Thief by Clive Cussler (Putnam)

On the ocean liner Mauretania , two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency's intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell. Unfortunately, they are not so lucky the second time. The thugs attack again-and this time one of the scientists dies. What are they holding that is so precious? Only something that will revolutionize business and popular culture-and perhaps something more. For war clouds are looming, and a ruthless espionage agent has spotted a priceless opportunity to give the Germans an edge. It is up to Isaac Bell to figure out who he is, what he is up to, and stop him. But he may already be too late . . . and the future of the world may just hang in the balance.

Poison Flower by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press)

Poison Flower , the seventh novel in Thomas Perry's celebrated Jane Whitefield series, opens as Jane spirits James Shelby, a man unjustly convicted of his wife's murder, out of the heavily guarded criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles. But the price of Shelby's freedom is high. Within minutes, men posing as police officers kidnap Jane and, when she tries to escape, shoot her. Jane's captors are employees of the man who really killed Shelby's wife. He believes he won't be safe until Shelby is dead, and his men will do anything to force Jane to reveal Shelby's hiding place. But Jane endures their torment, and is willing to die rather than betray Shelby. Jane manages to escape but she is alone, wounded, thousands of miles from home with no money and no identification, hunted by the police as well as her captors. She must rejoin Shelby, reach his sister before the hunters do, and get them both to safety. In this unrelenting, breathtaking cross-country battle, Jane survives by relying on the traditions of her Seneca ancestors. When at last Jane turns to fight, her enemies face a cunning and ferocious warrior who has one weapon that they don't.

Just Jennifer

My Pizza by Jim Lahey (Clarkson Potter, March 2012)


In 2006 Sullivan Street Bakery’s founder and owner Jim Lahey’s no knead rustic bread recipe went viral after it was featured in New York Times food writer Mark Bittman’s minimalist column. Now Lahey takes the no fuss technique he applied to bread and transfers it to a pizza dough that, with a little bit of planning, allows you to have pizza dough, traditional or whole wheat, waiting for you when you get home after work. Lahey carefully explains his methods, including a work around for electric oven users, describes the ingredients he uses and where cooks should seek out special ingredients, such as olive oil, and where everyday ingredients (flour) already on hand will do. Lahey even includes tips on how to make these pizzas for a party so every slice is hot and the host doesn’t spend the entire evening at the oven. The toppings range from basic tomatoes to in season vegetables to favorite Italian cured meats. Chapters on white sauce and no sauce pizzas add variety; a chapter on toasts, soups and salads and one on basic desserts round out the meal. Gorgeous photos offer inspirations and though Lahey doesn’t call for many specialty ingredients, a source list would help those not familiar with the ingredients, local sources or the Manhattan shops referenced or where to get really great, freshly packed anchovies.

Just Jennifer

Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream (William Morrow, March 2012)


Clementine Pritchard is a talented artist who is about to have a show in a prestigious east coast gallery. Only problem is, she plans to kill herself before the show ends so decides to give the space to someone else. Clementine has been fighting mental illness, similar to that her mother fought and lost, for many years and has been on so many prescriptions that make her feel worse just to keep the dark days at bay that she decides the only way around the same fate as her mother is to kill herself now before she involves too many people in her personal version of hell. Clementine then sets about tidying up her affairs: she fires her assistant Jenny, her therapist Miles; she sleeps with her ex-husband Richard and her therapist Miles; she finds a home for her cat Chuckles who is as opinionated as she and crosses to Tijuana to secure some animal tranquilizers to assist her in her quest. She also has some of the best take out she has ever had as she eats her way through Los Angeles. Along the way, Clementine creates some of her best artwork ever, good stuff, she thinks, for her postmortem retrospective. Clementine also decides to look for the father who left her and her family and instead of a final good-bye, he sheds light on a secret that changes the way Clementine looks at her life and may even save it. A dark comedy, Clementine is the nonsense, practical person inside each of us, but also that person that wants to heal and forget the sadness in our lives, and even to forgive so that we are no longer afraid of just being. Clementine’s honesty is refreshing, if sometimes abrasive, toward others and especially toward herself.

New this Week

Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin’s)


Embittered by her fiancé's abandonment for her sister, Washington state glass artist Lucy is unknowingly set up by her ex with his friend Sam, a relationship that is threatened by her ex's second thoughts and Lucy's discovery of the truth.

Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham (Mulholland)

A teenage girl--Sienna, a troubled friend of his daughter--comes to Joe O'Laughlin's door one night, covered in blood. The police find Sienna's father, a celebrated former cop, murdered. Tests confirm that it's his blood on Sienna. She says she remembers nothing. Investigators take aim at Sienna. O'Laughlin senses something different is happening.

Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke (Kensington)

When the keyboard player for the Cinnamon Roll Six jazz band is murdered after a tour bus accident on the way to Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen investigates and comes up with several local suspects.

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult (Atria)

When his father and sister are injured in an accident that has rendered his father comatose, estranged son Edward decides to stop his father's life support so that his organs can be donated, a choice his sister urges him to reconsider.

Victims by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)

Unraveling the madness behind L.A.'s most baffling and brutal homicides is what sleuthing psychologist Alex Delaware does best. And putting the good doctor through his thrilling paces is what mystery fiction's bestselling master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman does with incomparable brilliance.

Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

The long awaited fifth installment in the "New York Times"-bestselling, Edgar- and Macavity-nominated series about an eccentric sleuthing family. For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, P.I., might be the most normal member of her family. Yet as a number of cases pile, Izzy won't stop hunting for the answers--even when they threaten to shatter both the business and the family.

New This Week

Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam)


Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda , a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Now she's at the center of a crime scene-and Eve is more than ready to get out of her high heels and strap on her holster and step into the role she was born to play: cop.

A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager)

When she discovers that a would-be creator is determined to make his (or her) own demons and needs her blood, former witch-turned-day-walking-demon Rachel Morgan, a bounty hunter, faces her toughest adversary yet --humanity.

Sonoma Rose by Jennifer Chiaverini (Dutton)

Struggling with a meager existence on a Prohibition-era farm in Southern California and devastated by the losses of four of her children to a wasting disease, Rosa flees with her surviving children after a shattering act of violence and is rescued by former love Lars, who helps her seek a cure and outmaneuver corrupt authorities.

The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (Doubleday)

A spirited young maid on board the Titanic captures the attentions of two men including a kindhearted sailor and an enigmatic Chicago millionaire and barely escapes with her life before witnessing media scorn targeting her famous designer mistress.

Just Jennifer

Spin by Catherin McKenzie (William Morrow, February 2012)


Sometimes the chance of a lifetime comes along and we blow it. Sometimes we get a second chance at the gold ring, sometimes we don’t. Katie Sandford lands an interview at The Line, a music magazine, her dream job, and then promptly blows the interview by showing up still drunk from the previous night; to make matters worse, it is Katie’s thirtieth birthday, though most of her friends think she is a twenty-five year old graduate student, and this was the best prospect of a job she has had in a long time. And then she gets a second chance. The magazine’s more gossip driven sister publication contacts Katie and offers her a chance for a tell-all story on Hollywood starlet Amber, The Girl Next Door, who has just entered rehab---again. The only catch? Katie also has to enter rehab and go through the process as her cover. As Katie begins the detox process she begins to recognize that maybe she did have an alcohol problem and that maybe rehab isn’t all a waste of time. What she doesn’t expect is that she and Amber will become friends and when it is time to write the tell-all it somehow doesn’t see as great an idea as when it was first proposed to Katie.

Katie undertakes a journey of self-discovery in Spin and many readers will recognize something of themselves in Katie. The journey, however, is long, maybe fifty to one hundred pages too long. There is realness in Katie’s introspective reflection and realization that she may have a problem and the willingness to deal with and attempt to overcome it and the other patients in rehab with Katie put faces to the different forms addiction can take. There is a genuineness and compassion to Katie’s story that help move the narrative along even in some of the slower passges.

New This Week

Oath of Office by Michael Palmer (St. Martin’s Press)


Blamed for the murder-suicide rampage of a respected doctor and former client who previously struggled with drug addiction, counselor Lou Welcome investigates what went wrong and uncovers a terrifying political conspiracy with ties to the White House.

House I Love by Tatiana deRosnay (St. Martin’s Press)

Determined to protect her historical family home from Emperor Napoleon's orders to renovate 1860s Paris, Rose Bazelet establishes a defense in the basement of her house on rue Childebert and records her experiences in letters to her late husband.

Wolf Gift by Anne Rice (Knopf)

A young reporter on assignment is attacked and bitten by an unknown beast in rural Northern California and begins a terrifying but seductive transformation into a being with a dual nature, both man and wolf.

Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Little Brown)

Peter Knight and the rest of the Private investigation firm try to stop a madman bent on destroying the modern Olympic Games in London.

Just Jennifer

Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts by Stacy A. Cordery (Viking, February 2012)


Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America one hundred years ago and though almost everyone has eaten a Girl Scout cookie (or a dozen) in their lifetime, many people know very little about the matriarch of this beloved organization. Born just prior to the Civil War, and unable to have children of her own, Juliette, known fondly to her family as Daisy, devoted much of her life to proclaiming that girls would benefit from, and deserved to have an active life, one that could be supported and nurtured by an organization such as the Boy Scouts after she met Robert Baden-Powell. Daisy came from a wealthy Southern family who weathered the Civil War making her self-reliant and independent. She was partially deaf after an ear infection was mistreated and married a scoundrel who brought her to the United Kingdom to live. Daisy never lost sight of her vision and preserved with a steadfastness that led to the creation of an organization that currently has over two million members and many more women who have been left with fond memories of their days in the Girl Scout, Brownie or Daisy troop. Girl Scouts past and present will enjoy the history of the organization’s founder, but readers who enjoy histories of strong, independent women will find much to admire in Daisy Low.

Just Jennifer

What Happened to Hannah by Mary Kay McComas (William Morrow, February 2012)


Who among us hasn’t wanted to escape a situation in our life at one time or another? There are even those of us who wanted to escape our life entirely. Hannah Benson left her small Virginia town as a teenager and made a new life for herself, never calling to learn what happened to her mother or sister, or handsome Grady Steadman, knowing that the only way to save herself was to completely cut herself off. Now, twenty years later, the owner of a successful insurance business in Maryland, the call that she has always feared comes, but with news she never expected. Her sister Ruth has been dead for several years, Grady informs her, and her mother has just died this past weekend and now Hannah must return to Clearfield to take custody of the fifteen-year-old niece she never knew she had. Having no interest in returning to Clearfield or raising a young woman she never knew existed, Hannah girds herself and returns to a place of terrible memories, secrets and guilt. As isolated as she has made herself over the years and as tough a shell as she has developed, once back among familiar sights and sounds, memories flood back to Hannah, some elicit pleasant memories, much to her surprise, other memories are not so pleasant. As Hannah slowly works her way in Anna’s life, she begins to create new memoires with her niece, all the while conscious of the secrets she is keeping and the consequences should they come to light, and all the while trying to keep her distance from Grady for whom her attraction never died, and the feeling seems mutual.

Mary Kay McComas explores the things we leave behind and what never leaves us; what we leave unfinished and what finally undoes us. Hannah’s memories are vivid, but not everything is how we remember it and we don’t always know the entire story behind something. Everyone who ever wondered what they have left behind and how they can make reparations will find something familiar in Hannah as she gets not a second chance, but a chance for things to be as they should be.

New This Week

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo (Random House)


A first book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother of a prospective female college student and a young scrap metal thief, in an account that illuminates how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by regional religious, caste and economic tensions.

Catch Me by Lisa Gardner (Dutton)

Approached by a young woman who claims her murder is imminent, detective D. D. Warren hears her chilling story about how all of her close childhood friends have been murdered on the anniversary of the same day and that she is the only one still alive, a case that is complicated by a vigilante shooter.

Stay Awake: Stories by Dan Chaon (Ballantine)

Presents a collection of suspenseful tales in which fragile and searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland after experiencing intense loss or displacement.

Girl Reading by Katie Ward (Scribner)

A kaleidoscopic tale follows the experiences of seven women models from different historical periods, the artists for whom they sit, the factors that shape the creations of their portraits, and the ties that connect them to each other.

Just Jennifer

Redwood Bend by Robyn Carr (Mira, March 2012)


Young widow Katie Malone has been in Vermont for the last year with her twin five year old boys, under the radar, while her brother Connor was preparing to testify in a murder trial that also included an arson charge stemming from a fire that burned Connor and Katie’s family’s hardware store to the ground. Now that the trial is over, Katie is making a cross country trip to reunite the boys with Uncle Connor who has been living in Virgin River in Northern California. Just miles from the mountainous town, Katie’s vehicle has a flat tire in the pouring rain, and although she is largely self-sufficient, machine tightened lug nuts are the slightly built young woman’s undoing. Assisted by a group of motorcyclists, Katie is immediately attracted to Dylan into whom she is sure she’ll never run again. She does, of course, in Virgin River and when she learns he is a former child star looking to get back into the movie business she swears she’s not going to get involved, a vow she quickly breaks, which sets into motion a series of life altering events for both Katie and Dylan.

Virgin River is a marvelous small town that Robyn Carr has built over the course of the series, family by family, including many veterans from the wars in Iraq. Jack’s bar with his cook Preacher remains the focal point of the community and though fewer of the now permanent residents are included in the book than usually are, Virgin River and the nearby Grace Valley remain an inviting place to visit, one readers will want to return to time and time again.

We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics by Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian (William Morrow, January 2012)


Told in alternating chapters between two partners in a political research firm and journalists, Huffman, a former farmer and aide to Mississippi elected officials, and Rejebian, a reporter in Texas and Mississippi and political advisor in Mississippi, shed light on opposition research. As many voters have long suspected, there is a trend among candidates, from local school boards to federal officials, to expose the weaknesses and faults of their opponents rather than highlight one’s strengths and accomplishments. Some of the stories are as simple as speaking to an ex-wife in an attempt to impeach an opponent’s character and morals, and some are very complicated and involve unnamed sources in dark allies. This book is a lot of fun to read for any political junky, especially if for leisure reading. If considered closely, this book offers an interesting view of how some things are not always what they appear on the surface. If this is what Huffman and Rejebian are willing to share, imagine what they’ve left out!