Wood Demon for Halloween 2016

You know what? I have a list of creatures I want to be for Halloween and each year I draw one out and try to make it. So this year it was quite easy because I chose the Tree Demon. I was looking at all those sugar skulls and thinking how to make it a bit different and voilá! The Tree Demon or Wood Demon was born. 

All the stuff needed for it was either already in my make-up bag or outside in the garden. The only item I actually had to buy was the contact lenses. Duh! So in case you are wondering, they are ColorVue's Black Titan and they are a bit bigger in diameter than normal lenses, which was terrible for me to get them on. And I also expected they'd cover more of my eye in the center. I don't care how terrible the tunnel vision is, I need more coverage because as you can see here, a ton of my color is showing and I don't like that. 

Anyway, makeup-wise this costume is easy because all you need is a couple of colors. First I put on a white base (a generic costume shop one) which I spread to my hair to create cool texture. 

Then I contoured my face with the light brownish color in NYX's I dream of St. John. Taking black Astor gel liner, I created that nose, eye and mouth action. Since the liner is quite shiny, I set it with the blackest black I own - the one in W7's In the Buff. Then I went back to the NYX's palette and used the dark brown to create vertical lines. I set it all with Rimmel's translucent powder.  

I used the same technique on my arms (minus the gel liner since there was nothing to highlight), there I only added the knar-looking places to really resemble a tree. 

The last thing to really do was chopping some branches and putting them in my hair and tying them on strings to go around my chest chewbacca-style ;-)

The rest was just black clothes I have no shortage of in my closet.

It looks as if I was covered in white spots but my black outfit was spotless - someone should just clean the mirror at my workplace :-)=

Christopher Buehlman: The Suicide Motor Club

If you were a driver in the US back in the 60's, consider yourself lucky for being here. There were undead things roaming all over the place, hiding in abandoned mines or houses near the highway, stealing the fastest cars and feeding on innocent passers-by. Or maybe you have encountered them but don't remember. If there is a night on Route 66 you remember in a haze, then you've been spared. They let you go.

But the thing is that someone noticed. Not all the people are susceptible to being brain-washed by them so when a woman survives a car wreck, she remembers her son being snatched away by them. And despite her attempts to tell herself it was all just a bad dream and trying her career in a cloister to forget her awful past, the destiny chose different path for her. She isn't the only one to know about them. So when a secret club of vampire slayers asks her to come along and avenge her little son, she agrees.

I loved the story and its twists. It was terrifying and gruesome. The characters kept slowly uravelling their secrets so that I was constantly saying "aha! wow! what the.." and so on ;-)= I'm happy that the idea of the evil undead is still alive and hasn't disappeared from literature just yet. And even though a charming character appears, the protagonist can see through him and doesn't get swept away.

GENRE: horror on the road

FANGS OUT: scary, full of sharp twists and turns
FANGS RETRACTING: keep them out, the blood will be spilt
TOTAL SCORE:

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Oh my God, this one is so difficult (and by difficult I mean you can't put everything in one bowl and mix it like I normally do)! But my mom loves it and requested it for her Name Day (yup, we celebrate it -as good excuse to drink as any, right?). So I slaved in the kitchen to come up with a teeny tiny cake which sends everyone into a state of bliss. Well, not everyone, it serves about six people but what the heck, let's do it.

You'll need:

• 4 egg yolks
• 2 eggs
• 65g granulated sugar
• 32g cocoa powder
• 16g potato starch

• 65g sugar
• 60ml water
• 25ml amaretto

•  160g bitter chocolate
• 50g butter
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 250ml heavy cream

 1) Take the eggs and yolks with sugar from the first part and whisk them above boiling water. It must remain luke warm - you don't want an omelette here! It should become light and full of bubbles. Gently fold in the dry ingredients (as you can see, the bubbles are the only thing giving this light texture so fold really carefully, you don't want to burst them and have very flat and dense cake). Bake for about 15mins at 180°C. Then let cool down and later cut in half.

2) Boil the ingredients from the 2nd part for about 2 minutes and set aside.

3) Mix the butter and chocolate by melting them above boiling water. And set aside.

4) Whisk the eggs and yolks with sugar till you have a foamy mixture.

5) Add 1/2 of the boiled sugar/amaretto SLOWLY to the foamy mixture you've just created.

6) Pour this egg mixture in the melted chocolate and put in the fridge to cool.

7) Pour the second half of the sugary "syrup" over the two halves of the cake.

8) Beat the heavy cream till soft peaks appear and beat it in the choco mixture you take out from the fridge. 

9) Assembly the cake, let it cool in the fridge for a couple of more hours and celebrate that you've achieved level one in French cake making. Yeah, this is what kids make in France ;-)=

Now I see I've also sprinkled it with cacao powder. Do whatever you fancy...

James Fahy: Hell's Teeth

I ever thought I wasn't influenceable when it comes to social media. I know the ads around are customised to compel me to buy the kind of stuff I search for on the net and that nothing is as it seems but somehow ever since I joined bookstagram, there are people I can easily talk to about books and what more - there are authors who talk to us lowly humans :-)= And that's how I've got this book. I had to buy it because a) vampires and b) the author actually interacts with his followers. Big thumbs up just for that alone. 

So, this is a first book in a series BUT it doesn't end on a cliffhanger. That's sweet. You already know I like the series where I can decide whether I'll keep on reading or not. Cliffhangers are too pushy. 

Somehow people created these human devouring pale creatures (originally to be supersoldiers) who turned on them and when they thought everything would be lost, supernatural creatures stepped out of the shadows and helped them keep the pale ones at bay. But somehow they still aren't treated equally with humans despite their abilities. 

The story takes place in what was saved of Oxford and follows a doctor working in a lab (to find the cure or basically anything to help the battle against the pale creatures). Somehow while working on a cure which doesn't really work (as in exploding rats) she gets to work for Cabal (a weird version of the ruling body which wants to make everything visible for its citizens) to solve some unusual situation. Just because she once talked to a vampire who was standing across a whole room from her. That made her an expert on supernatural beings - and this absurd world and turn of the events is spiced up by her sarcastic side which shows up during deadly situations.

It was entertaining, adventurous and I appreciated the lack of romantic element - yeah, there was mild flirtation with the hot vampire but it wasn't distracting from the main story so that doesn't count. Yeah, I liked it a lot. It was fast-paced and there were many twists.

GENRE: postapocalyptical dystopian adventure

FANGS OUT: awesome leading character, nice twists
FANGS RETRACTING: I'd like to know more about the society since it's quite important
TOTAL SCORE:

Orange Black Tea Cupcakes

These are so good! So moist and soft and citrusy and... well, just make them and you'll see. This batch makes about 20 muffins so bear that in mind.

You'll need: 

batter

• 400g flour
• 3 tea spoons baking powder
• 250g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 125ml oil
• 125g butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 table spoons poppy seeds
• 3 table spoons orange curd
• 2 table spoons juice from orange (I'm not saying orange juice because I don't want you to buy that thing, squeeze it out yourself!)
• zest from 1/2 orange
• 360ml milk
• 4 tea spoons black tea leaves

topping

• 1/2 orange zest
• 1 tea spoon orange juice
• 1 tea spoon milk/tea concoction from above
• 250g cream cheese
• a bit of black food color
• poppy seeds for decoration

1) Bring the milk to a boil and then set aside. Put the tea in and let it do it's business for about 15 minutes. Then take the tea out.

2) Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add the wet ones and combine.

3) Bake at 180° for about 20 minutes.

4) Mix everything for the topping.

5) Smear a little of the cheese mixture onto your muffins and sprinkle with poppy seeds. You can double the mixture if you feel adventurous - I was afraid everyone would be wary around that dark color so I created just small blobs.

Morgan Rice: Turned

Yeah, I downloaded another free e-book because I'm incorrigible. And because this one had some nice reviews over the years I've been avoiding it and everyone seemed to have read it, I naturally had to read it too.

So, it's a romance. No wait, it's an action book. No, horror? Romance again? I honestly don't know because the story kept changing it's tone. Which is good, you never know how it's going to turn out. 

Basically there is this girl whose father is unknown (yay, haven't we seen this before) and she starts to get these cravings for more than food. You probably guessed what she is then. Except she doesn't know and when she gets into her vampire mode she rarely remembers what she's done the first days. 

At first I was repelled by the potential love story (she comes to a new school, meets a new guy kinda scenario) but I liked that she got abusive mother and her high school she moved into was literally hell where the policemen had to roam all day long. That's a good thing - no boring small towns but harsh urban reality. 

I even started to like the story more as the vampire clan whose territory this new girl threatened appeared. Their lair and the sheer mass of them sounded spectacular and the story picked up the horror/action vibe.

But then my dreams were crushed by a knight in shining armour. It turned toward romance again but really cheasily so. Nothing can crush a good story as premature I-love-you's.

I was tempted to take a look at the rest of the books but then I learned there were 12 of them (as of now when I'm writing this, maybe there already is next one by the time you are reading this). Too much commitment. No no no. So I have to judge by just one story which had really good twists in the horror area but lacked reason in the romance department.

GENRE: romance? horror? action? who knows?!

FANGS OUT: good pacing, great settings
FANGS RETRACTING: premature i-love-you-ing, the romance part is bad
TOTAL SCORE: