Welcome to Litsy!

#HumbleHarvest

One of my favorite vegan cookbooks for #AllSoulsDay

This is a first in a series and it shows. Some of the actions of the main characters were questionable to say the least, but overall I enjoyed it. I will read the second book to see if there is some character development.

#SeriesLove2023 #diversecozy

Also, this cutesy thing happened at least twice. Emojis don‘t belong here! It was very distracting.

Oh boy. All right, first, I saw almost all the twists coming, so that was frustrating. The story was middling. Here‘s the BIG problem, though: A.L. Herbert is a pseudonym for a writer who is neither Black nor female, yet presents as such. I don‘t believe that every writer writing from a different perspective is guilty of cultural appropriation (it depends on how they do so and how they present themselves in the attempt) BUT 👇🏻

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#SeriesLove2023 #BookspinBingo

I found out something about the author that doesn‘t sit well with me and while I finished reading this installment I‘m not sure if I‘ll continue the series.

Trying to pick my next reads in a less chaotic way than letting the library rule my TBR. The #BookspinBingo spinner chose a book from from Scribd so I picked the tagged book so I could also make some progress in #SeriesLove2023

Halia Watkins, chef/owner of soul food restaurant Sweet Tea, finds some trouble when her silent partner is murdered, & her cousin is the main suspect. What‘s a lady to do but investigate?

I wanted to like this more. The setting of a soul food restaurant was such a draw for me, but the characters felt like stereotypes, the plot was flat, & the narrator kept making really frustrating decisions. I did like the multiple red herrings. 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑

Read for #DiverseCozy This was a so-so for me. I liked the main character Halia, the restaurant setting & of course, all the southern food mentions/recipes. I didn‘t like the way some of the characters were written—like Halia‘s cousin; more caricatures than feeling real & the dialogue felt awkward. In that regard, I wasn‘t shocked but still disappointed to learn from GoodReads that the author is not a black woman, but rather a white/Latin male. ⬇️

‘#bookreport
Murder at the Serpentine Bridge is the only book I finished this week. Kept up with buddy reads: Murder with Fried Chicken & waffles #diversecozy,Whose Body? #goldenagecrimeclub ,Dearest Josephine, #sundaybuddyread. Just started A Deadly Affair #historicalmystery #kindleunlimited An Accidental Death, #audible

#diversecozy
I enjoyed this one.Halia & Wavonne make some.. appallingly questionable decisions, &there were SOME leaps in logic that had me rolling my eyes. but it was funny, the motivations were less superficial than some other cozies I‘ve read(which is not a lot of cozies admittedly)it didn‘t get lost in subplots-other than lengthy Soul Food descriptions, which didn‘t detract for me & I definitely saved a screen shot of the corn casserole recipe