Janel Gradowski's Blog, page 6

Release Day For Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes

Click on the cover to order from your favorite bookseller.

Amy Ridley’s best friend, Carla, is getting married, and Amy is delighted to be recruited as the head wedding planner—even if Carla’s demands are less than conventional. Case in point: Carla insists on a tower of doughnuts in place of a wedding cake. But navigating the world of nuptials becomes the least of Amy’s problems when the owner of a menswear shop is found dead, and Carla’s fiancé is assigned to the case. With the honeymoon in jeopardy, Amy and Carla vow to help track down the killer…but they soon discover there are even more sinister happenings affecting the businesses in downtown Kellerton, Michigan. If Amy doesn’t figure out who is behind the deadly schemes, the nearly newlywed detective may just be solving another murder—hers!

It’s June 4th…release day for Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes! If you’re keeping track, it’s book #3 in my Culinary Competition Mystery Series which happens to be the third book I’ve released so far in 2015. And there’s more to come! I hope you love reading the series as much as I love writing it.

To celebrate the release, all of the other books in the series are on sale for $.99 for a limited time. Also, if you buy a paperback of Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes from Amazon, you can get an ebook copy for free with the MatchBook option! I hope you enjoy the newest addition to the series. Make sure to stop by my Home page to check out the book’s Pop-Up Blog Tour. If you post a review on your blog or website between now and July 31, you can be a part of the tour too. Just add a link to your post on the Mister Linky widget.

Carla’s Wedding Present Giveaway

In Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes Amy is helping plan her best friend’s wedding. While the bride, Carla, is a skilled ER nurse, her cooking skills are minimal. Throughout the book Amy tries to come up with the perfect wedding gift for her BFF.

To celebrate the release of the third book in my Culinary Competition Mystery Series, I’m giving away one of the presents! It includes one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, How To Eat by Nigella Lawson. This book has plenty of recipes, but it’s conversational writing style helps put even novice cooks at ease to try their hand at cooking from it. There is also an adorable, small bamboo cutting board with matching recipe cards, a colorful whisk, and a spatula with a bite taken out of it (because that’s how Amy rolls). If you would like to win Carla’s wedding present, just use the Rafflecopter below. Sorry, U.S. only due to shipping.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Participate In The Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes Tour

Doughnuts &  Deadly Schemes, Book #3 in my Culinary Competition Mystery Series, comes out on June 4th. I love doing blog tours when I release new books. Because this one is coming out at the beginning of summer I thought I would try a different kind of blog tour. An easy, breezy, no pressure, no fuss version. So…I’m having a Pop-Up Blog Tour!

What does this mean? Basically, there is no schedule. So you won’t have to worry about posting on a certain day that has been publicized on a tour schedule. Just fit the posts in whenever you want before the end of July. The tour will be posted on the Home page of my website from June 4 until July 31, along with a Mister Linky (like the one at the bottom of this post at Beth Fish Reads). If you post about the book on your blog, go to www.janelgradowski.com and add the link to your post.

Posts can be:

Reviews
Highlight Posts (new release, book information, excerpt, etc.)
Interviews or guest posts with/by me or contests (please contact me at least 2 weeks in advance to set these up)

A tour banner along with photos and information about the book (including an excerpt) can be found here. It isn’t a requirement to use the banner, but it would be nice so readers can see what other people are posting about the book. ARCs for Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes will be available soon. If you would like to review the book, you can request a copy below.

If you have any questions, please send me an email at: janelg.author (at) gmail.com.

[contact-form]

 

Raid My Bookshelves Giveaway #2

Want a shot at winning one of these books? They’ve all lived on my bookshelves (so they are used) and now they’re up for adoption. Do you see one you would like to give a new home? The only catch, you have to subscribe to my newsletter. (I promise, I will never share your email with anybody else. Sharing is a good thing, but not in this case!) If you are a subscriber by the next time I send out a newsletter, you’re entered to win.

Subscribe To My Newsletter

One Post…Two New Books!

It has been a busy year for me so far – 2015 will forever be known in my life as the year I released a LOT of books. In fact, the next two release are less than a month apart. I have quite a few more projects in the works, so stay tuned! For now, I would like to present my two newest book “babies”.

Click on the cover to purchase from your favorite ebook seller.

Culinary Competition Mystery Series Short Story #1
Available now!

This story was included in the Cozy Christmas Capers anthology that was available over the holidays. Now available as a standalone ebook.

 

Click on the cover to purchase from your favorite ebook seller.

Book #3 in the Culinary Competition Mystery Series
Coming June 4 – Available for pre-order now!

 

Cookbook Review: Franklin Barbecue

Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto

By Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay

Published by Ten Speed Press

Barbecue is an art form and Aaron Franklin is a superstar pitmaster. He went from cooking brisket for his friends, to opening a food truck, to owning a now world-renowned restaurant that has sold out of meat every single day since it has opened. People travel from all over the world to sample his barbecue. This book is a detailed chronicle of how he produces his spectacular barbecue.

The first chapter explains how Aaron and his wife, Stacy, came to be the owners of a restaurant where people wait for hours to get a taste of the food. It’s a story of humble beginnings, chasing a dream, and dogged determination. Then, the manifesto begins. Everything about the techniques Franklin uses is detailed. If you are handy with a welder, there are instructions on how to build a smoker from scratch, just like the ones they use at the restaurant, but on a smaller scale. Diagrams explain the mechanics of the smoker while photos show the building process. From there the book goes on to what kind of wood to use, how to build fires and how to prepare meats – from the famous brisket to turkey breast.

This is not a cookbook full of recipes, although there are a few for things like beans and espresso barbecue sauce. Instead, this is a step-by-step guide on how to reproduce barbecue similar to what is served at Franklin Barbecue. There is a lot of information, from how to start a proper fire in the smoker to tips on concocting your own rubs. Glimpses of what it’s like to run what is probably the most popular barbecue joint in the world right now are offered in between the barbecue-making wisdom. I love that there is an espresso maker in the kitchen for employees, since there are workers there literally around the clock to prepare the thousands of pounds of meat every day. For anybody that is interested in making truly great barbecue, this is a wonderful resource.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

Cookbook Review: A Good Food Day

A Good Food Day

By Marco Canora

Published by Potter

The subtitle of this book is: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great. And that is exactly what the author did. He is a chef who found that he needed to make some major changes in his life. Unhealthy eating habits had left him with gout, high cholesterol and with a serious risk of developing diabetes. As a chef, working long hours in restaurants, he ate foods that would only make his conditions worse. At first he panicked about the diet changes, thinking healthy food wouldn’t taste as good and he would never enjoy eating again. But then he began doing research and found that healthy food didn’t have to be bland. This cookbook is the result of his quest to make foods that are good for you taste wonderful. A Good Food Day is a day when feeling well and eating well go hand in hand.

There are a lot of vegetarian recipes in this book, as I had expected. I can’t wait to try the Pear-Maple Oatmeal Shake for breakfast soon. There a salads, soups, side dishes and even sweets like Hazelnut Brownies. While much of Canora’s diet now is plant based he still eats healthy fish and lean meats like wild salmon and grass-fed beef. The one recipe that really caught my eye was Flavor-Pounded Chicken. He uses a meat tenderizing mallet to pound herbs and spices into boneless, skinless chicken breasts. What a great way to add a huge boost of flavor to an otherwise bland meat. Bonus that the flattened chicken is quick to cook.

Most of the recipes use readily available ingredients. I think the only ingredient I have never seen in my area is marinated anchovies.  The pantry list at the beginning is a great way to start building a healthy arsenal of foods. There are no complicated recipes with long ingredient lists, just easily made, healthy dishes that are full of flavor. I can’t wait to try more of these recipes, especially with fresh produce from the farmer’s market this summer!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Raid My Bookshelves Giveaway

Like every writer I know, I have a lot of books. A LOT of books. Book hoarding is an affliction of many writers. I hold on to books that I’ve read and I keep around books that are no longer useful to me…for no good reason. It’s time to find those under-utilized books a new home! So here’s how I’ll be doing that:

Every month I will do a blog post with a picture of a collection of books that need loving, new owners. A winner will be chosen from my newsletter subscribers. That person will get to choose the book of their choice. Easy, right? No need to leave a comment or fill out a long entry form. Just be a newsletter subscriber and you are automatically entered to win every month. Pssst…if you don’t subscribe to my newsletter you can sign up below.

I’m going to start out the inaugural contest with one of my favorite kinds of books…cookbooks! Check them out above. Some of these are like new and a few have been “loved”, but all of the recipes work fine.

Subscribe To My Newsletter

Cookbook Review: Supermarket Healthy

Supermarket Healthy: Recipes & Know-How for Eating Well Without Spending A Lot

By Melissa D’Arabian

Published by Potter

Now that the weather is finally getting warmer my thoughts are turning toward eating healthier. This cookbook is full of healthy recipes that use ingredients that can be found at most supermarkets. There are recipes that cover every meal of the day, from Cinnamon Popovers with Cream Cheese Glaze to sides for dinner like Rosemary Sweet Potatoes with Almond Butter.

While Ms. D’Arabian is known for her Food Network show about cooking inexpensive meals with this book she has shifted her focus a bit and amped up the healthiness of her budget-friendly meals. There are tips throughout the book for supermarket, kitchen and entertainment strategies to help readers stretch their budget while still eating healthy, tasty food. I love the recipe “blueprints” that are also included. These recipes are actually step-by-step directions on how to make everything from frittata to meatballs with numerous options for cooks to personalize the recipe’s formula. A great resource for cooks like me who like to tailor recipes to suit my family’s tastes.

I found the recipes to be simple to make yet very flavorful. There is a pantry list for the cookbook that, once stocked, will make many of the recipes even easier to make without an expensive trip to the supermarket to buy new ingredients for every meal. The pantry items are used in multiple recipes so money isn’t wasted on ingredients that will be partially used then left to sit in refrigerators and cupboards. This is a gem of a book for people looking to eat healthier, but don’t want to spend a fortune doing so.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

Book Release Week In Pictures

I love ebooks, but there’s nothing like getting paperback copies of your brand new book baby!

Yeehaw! #1!!

Oooh…Amazon didn’t put those nifty little banners on the “Also Bought” books when Pies & Peril was released in July.

Editing Doughnuts & Deadly Schemes so I could turn it in to my publisher on February 28.