Book Around the Corner

• Strawberry Shortcake Murder by Joanne Fluke (2001) French title: Meurtre et charlotte aux fraises.
• The bookseller at the Place aux Herbes by Eric de Kermel (2017/2022) Original French title: La libraire de la place aux Herbes.
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868) French title: Les quatre filles du Dr March.

I guess that I needed a bit of sugar to mitigate the sour and violent stories in books by Lehane, Cosby and Weller.

I came across Joanne Fluke’s books through my Kube subscription when I received a little book of recipes.

I checked her out on the kindle store, found out with astonishment that there were 30 volumes in the Hanna Swensen series and that the second one of the series, Strawberry Shortcake Murder was available for one dollar. I decided to give it a try.

Hannah Swensen lives in Lake Eden, a small town in Minesota, she owns a bakery and in this second episode of her adventures as an amateur sleuth, she’s a member of the jury at the Flour Dessert Bake-Off. Problem? Coach Boyd Watson, a fellow jury member is murdered the first night of the competition.

Hannah and her sister Andrea start investigating because the sheriff’s team is set on accusing the coach’s wife of the murder.

It’s like moving to an alternate universe and back in time before cell phones and Netflix. Hannah and Andrea solve crimes with Fabulous Five techniques and save their lives with granny tricks. A perfect PG13 book you can order for 11 years olds.

It’s honest fun, a book that doesn’t pretend to me more than it is, a good time and a moment away from the grim evening news.

A warning though: You know how they tell you not to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach? Well, the same warning applies to this book. DO NOT READ ON EMPTY STOMACH. The characters eat cookies ALL THE TIME. They make you hungry for a snack and defeat the objective of these books: to get a sugary load without the actual calories.

Then off to another kind of sugary stuff, La libraire de la place aux Herbes by Eric de Kermel. *sighs and rolls her eyes* If the cake murders were a cloak-and-dagger operation with a baker-sleuth, this one takes the cake with its amateur bookseller-shrink.

We have Nathalie, in her early fifties who quits her job as a literature teacher at the prestigious Lycée Montaigne in Paris to become an independent bookseller in Uzès, in the South of France. Her husband Nathan owns an architect firm in Paris, keeps it and goes back and forth between Paris and Uzès, because, no kidding, he cannot relocate his firm in Uzès. *eye-roll #2*

The setting was already irritating. Here we have another upper-class couple from Paris who moves out of the capital to live a quieter life in the countryside. Of course, they had a house in Brittany that they decided to sell to buy a house in the South because there’s not enough sun in Brittany. *eye-roll #3*

And in the blink of an eye, Nathalie is settled as the new bookseller Place aux Herbes in Uzès. (no administrative, financial, or accounting hurdle for her, she has magic fingers.) and as the new book guru of this charming small town.

Each chapter is about a character and how Nathalie helps them solve the issues of their lives with the grand healing help of books. The last chapter with its esoteric vibe was the icing on the cake. With each chapter, Nathalie grows more and more irritating as she becomes a life coach, a marriage or a school counselor and douses us with lukewarm philosophical mantras.

And let’s not forget the usual clichés about the south, farmer markets, olive oil, goat cheese and good food in general. *Eye-roll #4*

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m deeply convinced that the world would be a better place if there were more avid readers but this meddling bookseller is too much.

The best thing about this book are the books mentioned and listed at the end of the book because Nathalie has excellent reading recommendations, that’s for sure. You can check it out here it may give you new reading ideas.

The last sugary read came with my Tame the TBR project and I had picked Little Women by Louisa May Alcott for May.

In the end, it was the most disappointing read of the three because, let’s face it, I didn’t expect to read masterpieces in the previous two and I expected a lot better of Little Women.

I’d never read this classic mostly because I knew the story from watching a Japanese anime version as a kid. (Wakakusa monogatari yori Wakakusa no yonshimai, 1981) and I’ve also watched the film version with Winona Ryder. I was curious about the book, though, thinking that I missed out on details with the anime and the film.

What a disappointment! I hoped I’d read things about the Civil War or details about their everyday life. Not at all! This is a rare case of an anime being up to par with the book.

Instead of social commentary or historical details, I got childish episodes loaded with good feelings and lectures about being good, industrious, gentle, selfless, blah blah blah.

All the virtues that put women under a lid. I might have liked it when I was a kid but not anymore.

I couldn’t finish it. I stopped after Beth’s illness, I never wanted to pick up the book and read it, so it’s a sign that I’d better abandon it and read something else.

Now, if you all tell me that the second half is the most interesting part, then I’ll resume reading it.

After these wanderings on sugary paths, I’m back to my usual reading self with Impossible by Erri de Luca. And then I’m off to Montana again with The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of the Hautes Alpes in France, a mini-Montana.