September 22nd's Friday Post

As I posted Monday, I had a computer crash Sunday morning, taking my reviews for the week with it.  A friend was helping me with it, and he came over Thursday to open up the back - and that made it work again.  I've saved copies of reviews so at least next week is covered.  Hopefully, this means things are back to normal, but I haven't posted anything all week.  Next week will be all books as I catch up.

But the joy of a Friday post is that didn't need any files, so this post could still happen as planned no matter what.

As usual, I will be linking up to:

Book Beginnings
First Line Friday
Friday 56 (on hiatus)
Book Blogger Hop

This week, I'll be pulling quotes from Mrs. Claus and the Trouble with Turkeys by Liz Ireland.

This is the fourth book in the Mrs. Claus Mystery series.  It was pure delight as it always is.  If you are new to the series, yes, the main character is Mrs. Claus, and the series is set at the North Pole.  Our Mrs. Claus has only been married to Santa for a couple of years after they met in Oregon, so she has been introducing some new traditions to the North Pole, like Thanksgiving in this book.

Here's how the book begins:

Gobbles had vanished.
When I looked inside the fancy turkey cage Salty the groundskeeper had built outside Castle Kringle, the wrong bird stared back at me.

And yes, Gobbles is the turkey that was supposed to be their Thanksgiving dinner.  Nothing like jumping right into part of the mystery, right?

Meanwhile, on page 56, the Clauses are heading to a pre-Thanksgiving potluck.  April has prepared some festive deviled eggs.  Pamela is her mother-in-law, who doesn't seem to always get what April is doing:

With ingredients available in the kitchen, I was able to do a fair approximation of the recipe I'd found to fashion deviled eggs that looked like little turkeys.
Now, like a proud artist giving a preview of a painting, I pulled the foil covering back to reveal one of the eggs on the platter. Pamela's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh my goodness."
I frowned. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing - I just wasn't expecting an egg to stare back at me."

The book's official release date is Tuesday, and the plan is to have a release day review.

Time to move on to the Book Blogger Hop.  This week's question is:

Has reading helped you become a better person?

I'd like to think so.  Although, since I read so many mysteries, it's not the same as if I were reading non-fiction.  If nothing else, I have some added trivia in my mind from all the books I've read.