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Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts members – February 2020 + a recipe!

At the February 27th, 2020 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, following the discussion of the assigned topic of the month – Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery – we held our monthly “round robin”, in which all 19 attendees were able to share recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading, listening to or viewing recently.

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in February 2020:

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in February 2020:

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

Added bonus: The Just Desserts book discussion group also involves sharing desserts during our discussions, and sometimes the attendees want to get recipes for some of the homemade treats. That happened with the following recipe from our February meeting:

PB Fritos: A No-Bake Treat — from Christy A.

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 bag of Fritos corn chips (Fritos Scoops will work as well) – 18-oz or smaller

Instructions:

Spread the bag of Fritos corn chips in a greased 15″ by 10″ by 1″ baking dish.

Combine the syrup and sugar in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil for one minute over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter until smooth.

Pour liquid mixture over bag of Fritos, stirring to evenly coat as much of the Fritos as you can, and let cool. Slice into individual portions or just break up into chunks for serving.

Join the discussion of Louise Penny’s “A Beautiful Mystery”

When the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group met on February 27th, 2020, 19 group members discussed the 2012 novel The Beautiful Mystery, the 8th in the “Inspector Gamache” series by Canadian author Louise Penny. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about The Beautiful Mystery and Louise Penny, in a reply comment to this blog post, below.

For additional reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings and/or other announcements of interest to mystery fans, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts – this is a great way for you to help us promote this engaging discussion group! Our selections for future meetings are usually posted there months in advance — currently through our October 2019 meeting.

So…What do you think of Louise Penny, and the Inspector Gamache series, including The Beautiful Mystery?

Join us again on March 26th, 2020 for the next meeting of Just Desserts. The discussion topic for March is the “Risk Agent” series by thriller writer Ridley Pearson. Interested participants are encouraged to read any of the four volumes in that series. For more information, including links to all four titles, visit the Just Desserts portion of the Book Groups page on BookGuide! We hope to see you there!

Just Desserts, May 30, 2019: Series Share

Participants in the Just Desserts Mystery Discussion Group share series books they have been reading.

See the list of titles discussed at this meeting on this posting in the Just Desserts Blog!

 

Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts members – January 2020

At the January 30th, 2020 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, following the discussion of the assigned topic of the month (a variety of “Mystery Anthologies and/or Short Story Collections), we held our monthly round robin in which all 13 attendees were able to share recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently.

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in January 2020:

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in January 2020:

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

Books discussed at the January 2020 Just Desserts “Anthologies” meeting

At the January 30th, 2020 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, the assigned reading topic was “Mystery Anthologies and/or Short Story Collections”. Each participating group member was to have read ANY multi-author mystery anthology or single-author mystery short story collection, and everyone was given an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions on whatever they had read.


Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense anthologies or short story collections discussed by Just Desserts members in January 2020:

  • Murder on the Run (12 stories) by the Adams Round Table
  • Manhattan Mayhem (17 stories all set in Manhattan) edited by Mary Higgins Clark
  • Strange Highways (short story collection all by Dean Koontz)
  • FaceOff (11 stories by pairs of authors, crossing over each of their best-known characters) edited by David Baldacci on behalf of the International Thriller Writers (two members of Just Desserts read this, one in the audiobook format)
  • The Big Book of Female Detectives (approximately 80 stories) edited by Otto Penzler
  • A Study in Sherlock (16 stories) – a Sherlock Holmes collection edited by Laurie King
  • Matchup (11 stories by pairs of authors – one male/one female – crossing over each of their best-known characters) edited by Lee Child on behalf of the International Thriller Writers (three members of Just Desserts all read this one)
  • Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives (17 stories strongly featuring animals as sleuths or sidekicks) edited by Carole Nelson Douglas