J. C. Diem: Death Beckons

OK, while I was about to forsake all the free e-book reads when I saw the cheesy amateurish cover of the book I'm reviewing today I actually stumbled upon something worth reading! Yaaassss!

I have no idea what's going on in Australia which naturally lacks vampire myths in their folklore but somehow they are becoming a strong voice in vampire literature. Now that I think of it - it actually makes sense that a sunny country without vampires would come up with something refreshing. No bias there. 

See, the story is quite uncomplicated and not so unpredictable since we've already read things like this - I mean, a boring girl who is insignificant in every way gets turned into a creature of the night and somehow gains abilities beyond even the strongest vampire's dreams. But before you get bored here since you've read numerous works like this one you'll basically realise that you can't peel your eyes off the screen of your e-book reader because it's frickin' hilarious. And I know, we have many smart-ass heroines with clever remarks and funny comments out there but how can one get ever tired of it? I mean, you can't get bored by fun, can you? Funny characters will always get one big plus from me. They even make me overlook the mistakes - like surprisingly long international flights in Europe and other not possible stuff like that.

So while I was thinking of shooting my brains out after reading other free books to forget I believe it was a wise step from Diem to allow the readers to access the first book in a series for free because I have no doubt many will continue reading.

GENRE: action despite the cover

FANGS OUT: it's fresh
FANGS RETRACTING: Six hours from Romania to France by plane? Really? Did you fly with snail airlines?
TOTAL SCORE:

Avocado Pudding

I tried to make a super healthy version of pudding as an excuse to devour more avocados :-)= I just love them and want to eat them every day so judge me all you want I don't care.

You'll need:

• 2 ripe avocados
• 4 table spoons cocoa powder
• 4 table spoons chia seeds
• about 12 table spoons milk of choice
• as much of maple syrup as you want (in my case it was about 3 table spoons)

1) Start with pouring the milk over chia seeds and letting them soak it - it will take about 30 minutes - after that decide if the texture is OK - it should not be too liquid-y nor too hard, it should be slimy :-)=

2) Peel the avocados, pit them and put the green flesh into a bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend till smooth. You can add the chia seeds after blending the avocados with the syrup and powder if you want some texture to it. 

3) Refrigerate or serve right away. 

Note: as you can see in the picture, if you refrigerate it, the exposed top of the pudding will darken. So bear that in mind if you find it optically disturbing.

Alexandra Ivy: When Darkness Ends

I needed a break from that e-book gibberish I've been reading so I grabbed something that has been sitting on my shelf for a while and which I've been waiting and dreading to read ever since its publication last year. 
Well, since the fail with Sookie Stackhouse series ending without me knowing about it, I've been following all the authors I read on social media so that I know of the new releases and stuff. Which means I was prepared for the end. Ivy decided to finish her Guardians of Eternity series with this book.

This book took me longer to read than usual because I was enjoying it - knowing this would be my goodbye to yet another series I read (and no, I will probably not re-read the series, I'm not a fan of reading something I know the ending of). Honestly, it seems like all the authors of those never-ending series are quitting and starting new series which I won't read since there are no vampires in them, duh! 

Anyway, as usual, there were some hot scenes, some action scenes, some twists and unexpected appearances but to my disappointment there wasn't enough of Levet. I bet it's everyone's favourite character because he really is the best and knowing this was a farewell book I hoped to see more of him and his funny phrases. The granite creature has made its way into my heart and will forever top my list of fictional characters I adore. So bye bye, Levet, you'll be missed!

GENRE: paranormal romance with a gargoyle

FANGS OUT: gargoyle
FANGS RETRACTING: it is schematic
TOTAL SCORE:

A School Trip to England

Wow, I've totally forgotten to write about last year's trip to England. See, it was one of those memorable events in which I wasn't to have fun and fool around. Because I was responsible for a bunch of teenagers.
Yeah, being a teacher gives you a totally different perspective on travelling. You no longer see the center of Oxford as charming and full of picturesque small streets where you can get lost because now you have kids who CAN GET LOST for goodness' sake! And you no longer feel OK when a handsome dude is hitting on you because you have to tell him you have 20 children waiting for you (jaw drops, wishes you a nice day and tries not to look suspicious when he hurries as far away from you as possible). Yeah, being language teacher would be fun they said. You will travel a lot they said.

Anyway, to somehow take it as it was, I must mention our terrible journey to England. See, if you have so many kids with you, it's impossible or terribly expensive to fly. Instead, you gotta go by coach which is cheaper and about 14 hours longer than the flight.

I found a glitch in the matrix ;-)=

Unfortunately, when you have ONLY twenty kids with you, it means the bus will be filled with another group. Aaaaaand you start thinking of the age of your students (the most dangerous, of course) and of the age group of the potential bus mates of yours. You are prepared to watch over the kids like a vulture over a carcass because the prospect of someone falling in love and sneaking somewhere to be in privacy is on the list of potential dangers. Fortunately the kids who hopped on our bus were much younger.
But what are the young kids good at? Not sleeping! Just as soon as they embarked they started to gorge on sweets and cola. Apart from the fact that I had to get up numerous times to shout at the little bastards because their teachers seemed too numb to care they also had to go to the toilet almost every five minutes (yeah, cola, you little freaks) which used up all our space in the toilet-only-for-emergencies. Not that we cared since we kept stopping at gas stations in predictable intervals. But it was annoying hearing them ask all the time if they could go.

Waiting in a line to see that frickin' Harry Potter inspiration for a cafeteria.

So after not getting a wink of sleep we arrived in London and had to walk in there for an entire day. We were all so ready to throttle the little kids because they kept dragging behind, stuffing their mouths with sweets (which resulted in many a belly ache during the week - good for you, suckers!), bumping into strangers (yeah, because when the whole group enters a narrow passage and everyone creates a line on the right, they feel they must go left) and so on.
Honestly, you don't want me to tell you what they did in the Natural History Museum. I love it in there. There is so much educational and amazing stuff around, to say nothing of the building itself. How will I ever erase the memory of a boy who wanted to take a selfie with the T-Rex from the "enclosure" I don't know. But I will try.

I decided this would be in my "top buildings" list.

I had some satisfaction in the evening when the kids were distributed among families from Oxford to stay with them. Nothing compares to the view of the fear in their eyes when they saw somebody in a white plush bear overall thinking they would have to stay with this person.
Unfortunately all the families were approved by an agency and no crazy people were around. Our adoptive mother from Seychelles was the best. She was a great cook (fortunately for me she let us pick as much food from the pots as possible so I didn't have to pick up meat), talked with us and was really nice. She had a son who was scared of me and my colleague and unfortunately for the poor boy she forced him to tell us "hello" everyday when we arrived and "bye" every time we went away in the mornings. :-)=

Greenwich - I had to do it.

We saw Oxford, Windsor, Eton, Stratford upon Avon (oh yeah, Shakespeare rocks even couple of centuries after his death - how badass is that?!) and London again upon our departure.
It pained me when I saw those smaller kids just running around looking for the nearest fast food chain instead of enjoying the sights and the prepared programme but heck, their loss not mine. By the way, the little bastards thought it OK to throw their rubbish into any water body we came across. I was really furious when I saw this. And their teachers? Oblivious. I mean what kind of bastards must have they been to turn the teachers into this?
To regain energy the kids had language lessons in the mornings so that we were kinda free to wander around (we lived in suburbs and the school was put into a community center where it reeked of cigarettes and booze - because the bar is there, duh! it's not a building made for teaching but for having fun) so we found a supermarket, one little shop and a lot of houses which looked way too similar to one another. But we didn't get lost which was surprising.

This creature scares the visitors of Shakespeare's home.

Anyway, as our stay was getting shorter and shorter we were getting more and more bitchy when it came to that other group. Our students were an example of well-behaved children who were always on time, who were attentive, and who knew what the heck was going on.
It all culminated on our last day when we went to the London Eye. We had to persuade a couple of acrophobics to try it but otherwise it was fun. Until the moment when we finished our lunches and went to the meeting point to count everybody. Two boys from the other group were missing. No joke, they were late all week long so we waited. And waited. And called their turned-off phones. And started to get a little hysterical since those dumbasses couldn't speak English much and we doubted they'd ask someone to get them to the police station.

Windsor was a feast for my gargoyle addiction :-)=

So their teacher decided to stay at the meeting point and call their parents. It was the sign of resignation - you never call the parents until it's serious. As we went ahead with our programme, we were passing a fast-food chain with slot machines in it. Our guide said she would take a look and who did she see?! So we called the teacher that we had the suckers and waited for her. She was so happy that she didn't lose them that she didn't even shout. I would. I would probably kill them on sight but some people are better than me. That's why I will probably refrain from having children of my own.

"A dead philosopher is a good philosopher"

After this we were quite wary of them and continued with our tour but everyone was already thinking of going home and never seeing those little suckers again. The journey home was surprisingly silent and we got to our schools with the same number of kids as when we set off. Great. Just great.
This ruined me for future school trips and I hope I will always gather as many kids from our school as possible so that we don't have to share the bus. 
But on the other hand now I'm prepared for a lot of things and I'll never think that my job might be fun. No, I'm always on the road to hell with these unpredictable small people.

Jennifer Lee Scott: Bloodhound

My tragic Tour de Free eBooks goes on and on and on. This week's "delight" is a story about a hateful witch who wants eternal love from the wrong people and when they back out she makes sure their life will be miserable. 

There are no naked scenes to give the author some credit. I mean, sure there is some adult stuff but it is not explicit, it is only mentioned that it happened so if your prude eyes won't let you read stuff like that you may consider opening this book. Or maybe not. I'm not sure. 

The story seemed rushed to me. On the whole the idea seemed good and the twist at the end was really needed and put the whole story into a different light but it wasn't enough to make the story great. The characters' mental level can be compared to immature children who just discovered puberty was a big deal and if there was enough detail and background maybe I'd buy the story but with everyone acting so weird I just didn't develop any feelings toward the characters and couldn't care less about what would happen to them.

GENRE: See the title?! ;-)=

FANGS OUT: if you can bear it, there is action at the end
FANGS RETRACTING: not good enough to make you buy the next one
TOTAL SCORE:

Upside Down Pear Cake with Beer

This one has such a funny texture. It's so heavy and moist. And then there is the beer. Nothing can go wrong when you add beer into any kind of batter, trust me. I used our typical dark beer Kozel but even sweeter Guiness would do. 

You'll need:

• 4 big pears peeled and chopped or sliced to whatever shapes you prefer
• 100g sugar
• 50g butter
• juice from 1 lemon

• 250ml dark beer (or stout or whatever you call it)
• 4 table spoons honey
• 2 tea spoons baking soda
• 3 eggs
• 150g sugar
•  160ml sunflower oil
• 270g flour (I used 1/2 all-purpose and 1/2 rye)
• 1 tea spoon cinnamon powder
• 1/4 tea spon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tea spoon ground cloves
• 1/4 tea spoon cardamom
• 2cm peeled and finely grated ginger

1) Squeeze the lemon onto the sliced pears so that they don't get brown while you are preaparing your caramel -> the butter with sugar will make bubbles at first when on the burner and then the caramel will start to appear, that's when you add in the pears which will cool the mixture a little and the caramel may get hard but don't worry, as you keep it on the burner, it will become the right temperature again and then you can boil it all for about 15 minutes. You won't need the excess caramel once you take the pears out and line the bottom of your baking pan with them.

2) Boil the beer with honey till incorporated well. Then set aside to cool. 

3) Mix all the dry ingredients.

4) Beat the eggs with sugar and start adding the beer mixture. Then add the rest of the ingredients and pour onto your pears.

5) Bake for about 50 minutes at 170°C.

Maggie Chatterley: Seduction

So our wild ride through the forests of the lowest parts of already low genre continues...

You know pretty well that at this point I hardly expect anything apart from a mild amusement or partial revulsion. So, what's in this book (again, take this term loosely, it was only 35 pages long)?

Hey, I've good news! If you like classical vampires you are in for a treat. Basically this is Dracula in our very explicit era! This dude can actually transform into a bat and fly in a lady's bedroom! Feeling some flashbacks? I hope so! Oh and the mesmerizing his prey! Wooohooo! We are up to something here. Basically, if Stoker could write about certain matters I bet he would let Dracula suck on something more than necks and this is what it would look like I guess. Fascination by the tyrant mixed with the lack of consent and some weird imagery. Yay!

Anyway, don't be fooled I wouldn't buy the sequel because our tragic heroine gets (SPOILER ALERT) turned into a kind of succubus by an "evil" vampire (obviously our sneaky vampire is just a lovesick puppy compared to the other one) and is given to a hungry pack of werewolves so we know what's in store for her. So I guess the next book is just another thirty pages of naked creatures and that's not what I'd like to read about. But I appreciate the sentiment of doing the story the stokerish way.

GENRE: porn just like back in 1899 :-)=

FANGS OUT: it is very traditional in a way
FANGS RETRACTING: you should know by now that it's still too weird to consider reading
TOTAL SCORE:

Sweet Potato Cake

Who would have guessed that this can work, huh? I am tired of always having savory dishes with sweet potatoes in them because this kind of sweet/savory contrast rarely works for me. 

So when given sweet potatoes, all I could do was to make some kind of dessert. Because SWEET potato, duh!

Ingredients:

crust

(FYI, this crust is a typical Christmas cookie dough - the Linzer Cookies, so if you make more of the dough than needed, just make some cookies)

• 350g flour
• 250g butter
• 120g powdered sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (about 8g)
• zest from 1 lemon (can add 1 or 2 tea spoons of the juice as well)

filling

• 1 big sweet potato (about 400g)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tea spoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tea spoon cinnamon powder

topping:

• prickly pear conserve

1) Combine everything for the crust till it's not sticky, wrap in foil and put into your fridge for at least two hours. Then take it out, roll it out so that you have about 3mm thick layer of it and line your baking pan with it. Get rid of the excess - you can use it for cookies.

2) Boil the sweet potato for about 40 minutes. Let it cool a little and peel it. Either use a fork and mash it or use a blender to process it. Then add the rest of the ingredients, pour it into the prepared pan and bake for about 60 minutes at 180°C. 

3) The filling will rise and fall during the baking process so if some cracks appear and you can't bear to look at them, just spread a thin layer of some conserve all over it ;-)=