Shelley Workinger's Blog, page 28

5-Year Blogiversary!

NO FOOLIN' ;) I'm thrilled to celebrate another year of delicious reads!

This year I dug into:

Become Your Own Matchmaker – Patti Stanger
Lailah – Nikki Kelly
I Am Number Four – Pittacus Lore
The Royal Diaries - Elizabeth I – Kathryn Lasky
Queen Sugar – Natalie Baszile
Dakota – Gwen Florio
ZOO – James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge
Going Over – Beth Kephart

These fabulous authors also stopped by to share their food for thought:

Leyla Kader Dahm – Annabeth Neverending
Carmen DeSousa – Creatus
John Dolan – A Poison Tree
Gary Dolman – The Eighth Circle of Hell
Lorna Dounaeva – May Queen Killers
Dorothy Dreyer – My Sister's Reaper
E.J. Fechenda – The Beautiful People
Karl Fields – Steths: Cognition
Christoph Fischer – In Search of a Revolution
Ashley Fontainne – Growl
Fayette Fox – The Deception Artist
Rhiannon Frater – Fighting to Survive
Chris Galford – As Feathers Fall
Mark David Gerson – The MoonQuest
Katherine Gilraine – Revival IV (The Index Series)
Mark Gilroy – Cold as Ice
Kim Golden – Snowbound
Peter Golden – Wherever There is Light
Alisse Goldenberg – Bath Salts
Amelia Gormley – Strain
Staci Greason – The Last Great American Housewife
R.S. Guthrie – Honor Land
Jessica Haight & Stephanie Robinson – The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow
Dianne Harman – Murder at the Cooking School
Milda Harris – Adventures in Funeral Crashing
Kelly Hashway – The Monster Within
Tamar Hela – The Wrong Fairy Tale
Guido Henkel – Hunted
Laura Hile – Mercy's Embrace
Kim Hornsby – The Dream Jumper's Secret
Axel Howerton – Hot Sinatra
Lynn Hubbard – Return to Love
Sandra Hunter – Elanraigh
Mona Ingram – Forever Changed
Elizabeth Isaacs – The Light of Asteria
Vickie Johnstone – The Sea Inside
Richard Rhys Jones – Sisterhood of the Serpent
Sanela Jurich – Remember Me
Luke Murphy – Kiss & Tell
Michelle Zaffino – The Love Quad

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/04/...

FOODFIC Look at Going Over

Love proves itself.

Ada didn’t think up this saying, but she believes it as fiercely as if she did. And the love she wants to do the proving is that of Stefan, the boy she’s loved for the 3 years since she turned 12.

Unfortunately Ada’s story doesn’t take place in 21st century in America, and the hill she wants Stefan to surmount to be with her isn’t some sort of metaphorical social obstacle. Ada and Stefan live in 1983 Germany on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall. He’s East, she’s West, and they’re separated not only by the imposing cement, but by its accompanying fences, mines, dogs, and twenty-two-centimeter-high asparagus grass as well.


More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/03/...

Please Welcome Sanela Jurich, Author of Remember Me

At the innocent age of fifteen, Selma was just beginning to experience the power of her first love.

Unfortunately, living in Bosnia in 1992, Selma and her parents soon found themselves targets of the Bosnian War. Being in a war, they didn’t have a lot of choices when it came to food. They ate whatever they could find.

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/03/...

Please Welcome Vickie Johnstone, Author of The Sea Inside

When Shelley asked me to contribute a post about the food my characters eat in The Sea Inside, my first thought was it’s a good job she didn’t ask about I Dream of Zombies – not from the perspective of the zombies anyway.

The Sea Inside is set in three different places – our own reality, that of Entyre lost beneath the waves and another fantasy world – between which the heroine, sixteen-year-old Jayne discovers a bridge, thanks to a strange gift from an older character, Sophia. Waking in a forest, confused as to whether it is real or a product of her imaginings, Jayne wanders into danger, from which she is rescued by a stranger from the sea, called Skyen.

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/03/...

Please Welcome Richard Rhys Jones, Author of Sisterhood of the Serpent

"A food blog", she said. "Write about food."
So here I am, writing about food… Well, actually what the characters in my book, The Sisterhood of the Serpent would eat.

To be fair, it's pretty safe to say that this is new land for me. New land on a scale of the Mayflower Pilgrims crashing into Plymouth Rock, or Neil Armstrong and his "One small step" shenanigans!

Well, whatever, here goes…


More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/03/...

FOODFIC Look at ZOO

When will we know if the TV version of Zoo is coming back for a 2nd summer?

I so hope it is because they haven’t yet brought my favorite scene from the book to the screen!

You know the one I’m talking about – when people are attacked by wild, savage, ferocious…dolphins.

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/02/...

Please Welcome Gary Dolman, Author of The Eighth Circle of Hell

A Little More than Gruel
Food in the Victorian Workhouse.

Please, sir, I want some more.

Those words, the words of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, are amongst the most infamous in literature. They were spoken to the master of a fictional workhouse, where the poor young boy Oliver, and his fellows, were being slowly starved on a diet consisting of 'three small bowlfuls of oatmeal gruel per day, with an onion twice a week and a roll on Sunday.'

As a writer of dark, Victorian fiction, workhouses feature prominently in my work. It would be surprising if they did not, since, even as the most prosperous nation on earth at the time, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the population of Britain passed through the workhouse system at some point in their lives. So what was the reality of the workhouse in terms of diet? Was it really as bad as Dickens portrayed?

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/02/...

Please Welcome S.A. Hunter, Author of Elanraigh

Elanraigh: The Vow is a YA/Adult High Fantasy set in medieval times, on an alternate Earth. It’s fitting that my Heroine, Thera of Allenholme, should meet Chamakin, son of a Ttamarini Chief, at a celebratory feast in honor of their new alliance struck in a time of an impending war.

Feasts were important celebrations in medieval life, whether to welcome a new alliance, the arrival of a dignitary or to celebrate commemoration days and agricultural festivals.

Being of noble families, Thera and Chamakin are seated at the High Table. Their meat course tonight is tender roast chicken served in a stew of wine, sugar, and expensive spices such as saffron and ginger. These spices, including the sugar loaf, Thera’s mother keeps under strict lock and key.

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/02/...

Please Welcome Lynn Hubbard, Author of Return to Love

Food is an essential part of books. Living breathing characters have to eat! And I want you to indulge with them.

In Return to Love, 16-year-old Joanie and her friends visit a carnival. Your senses are on overload with the bright colored lights, the sound of screams and music and chatter, and, of course, the scents.

The aroma of carnival fodder. The sweet, sweet smell of cotton candy; you can almost imagine the feathery pink ribbons of stickiness wrapped around a paper tube. And the taste! Pure sugar with a hint of raspberry. There is no wrong way to eat cotton candy - you can dig in with your face or pull delicate tendrils off with your fingers and pop them into your mouth. Either way, you end up covered in the sticky remnants and licking your fingers clean. Especially since napkins and bathrooms are quite scarce back in 1959.

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/02/...

Please Welcome Mona Ingram, Author of Forever Changed

When Shelley asked me to contribute a short piece to her But What Are They Eating?blog, my first reaction was that there were no memorable food scenes in Forever Changed. It’s a story about a woman who’s just been given a breast cancer diagnosis. Why would she care about food?

And then I started to think about how food plays such an important role in every facet of our lives, large or small, happy or sad. What was I thinking?

More:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2016/01/...