Sweetness (& GLITTER!) on Sunday

Something a little special for you today, readers!! And something I'm particularly proud of!  I'm sure most of you have seen this gorgeous cover. This book with it's bright bold shocks of color, it's nod to Marie Antoinette, and it's very bizarre twist on Versaille court-life---the second I saw it, I wanted nothing more than to make french macarons to match!! :D Now, I'm a fairly skilled baker, if I do say so myself, but these blasted cookies have continually eluded me. I've had three failed attempts to get them to come out looking pretty AND achieving the perfect texture balance of crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside. Well, inspired by this desire to make the cover-inspired cookies, I decided to give them yet another try. And LOOK!! :D I did it! ♥♥♥

As for the recipe, I'm actually just going to point you right to the blog that helped me finally achieve this success. The tips I learned here were invaluable and when followed to the tee, I think they will give anyone brave enough to attempt them, a beautiful batch of french macarons! Check it out here:
http://entertainingwithbeth.com/foolproof-french-macaron-recipe/

I filled these with a lemon buttercream filling:
•2 sticks of room-temperature butter
•4 cups of powdered sugar
•1 tsp vanilla
•1/4 tsp salt
•lemon extract, 1-2 tsp (add a little at a time until you get your preferred flavor!)
Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl often. Pipe or use a teaspoon to drop a mound of buttercream onto one side of each macaron shell. Sandwich two shells together.  For these, I also dusted the buttercream edges with purple edible glitter to bring in the colors of the book cover :D

That's all there is to it!! Bon appetit!

Outside the palace of Versailles, it’s modern day. Inside, the people dress, eat, and act like it’s the eighteenth century—with the added bonus of technology to make court life lavish, privileged, and frivolous. The palace has every indulgence, but for one pretty young thing, it’s about to become a very beautiful prison.

When Danica witnesses an act of murder by the young king, her mother makes a cruel power play . . . blackmailing the king into making Dani his queen. When she turns eighteen, Dani will marry the most ruthless and dangerous man of the court. She has six months to escape her terrifying destiny. Six months to raise enough money to disappear into the real world beyond the palace gates. 

Her ticket out? Glitter. A drug so powerful that a tiny pinch mixed into a pot of rouge or lip gloss can make the wearer hopelessly addicted. Addicted to a drug Dani can sell for more money than she ever dreamed.

But in Versailles, secrets are impossible to keep. And the most dangerous secret—falling for a drug dealer outside the palace walls—is one risk she has to take. 

Random House BYR  •  Hardcover, 384 pages  •  October 25th, 2017

Purchase book:  Indiebound  •  BookDepository  •  Amazon 

Until next time,

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It lets us all gush about what soon-to-be released books we are jumping-up-and-down excited for.

Glitter

by Aprilynne Pike

hitting shelves October 25, 2016

from Random House BYR

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Aprilynne Pike comes a truly original new novel—Breaking Bad meets Marie Antoinette in a near-future world where the residents of Versailles live like it’s the eighteenth century and an almost-queen turns to drug dealing to save her own life. 

Outside the palace of Versailles, it’s modern day. Inside, the people dress, eat, and act like it’s the eighteenth century—with the added bonus of technology to make court life lavish, privileged, and frivolous. The palace has every indulgence, but for one pretty young thing, it’s about to become a very beautiful prison.
When Danica witnesses an act of murder by the young king, her mother makes a cruel power play . . . blackmailing the king into making Dani his queen. When she turns eighteen, Dani will marry the most ruthless and dangerous man of the court. She has six months to escape her terrifying destiny. Six months to raise enough money to disappear into the real world beyond the palace gates.
Her ticket out? Glitter. A drug so powerful that a tiny pinch mixed into a pot of rouge or lip gloss can make the wearer hopelessly addicted. Addicted to a drug Dani can sell for more money than she ever dreamed.
But in Versailles, secrets are impossible to keep. And the most dangerous secret—falling for a drug dealer outside the palace walls—is one risk she has to take.

My thoughts:  Holy WOW look at that cover. L♥VE. Plus this story sounds so crazy bizarre. Breaking Bad meets a modernized Marie Antoinette's court---that just sounds wildly entertaining. 

Review: Wings

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

publisher: HarperTeen

release date: March 1st, 2009

hardcover, 294 pages

intended audience: Young adult

rating:





description:

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Review: This was a fun and enchanting introduction to this series! It was sweet and romantic and magical...a very fast read. What a unique twist on faerie lore!

I really liked the main character, Laurel. Her story is kind of a double-edged fish out of water story. When we first meet her she is trying to acclimate to public school after being home schooled her whole life. I liked that she was shy, but kind and willing to make friends when they approached her, but still kind of clung to her comfort zone. It's probably a lot like I would be so I related to that. One day she notices a bump on her back, and begins to really freak out when it gets bigger each day---of course going through all the worst case scenarios in her head. I never did understand her hesitance to go to her parents with that, as they were all very close. She wakes one morning to a shock: a flower has sprouted from her back...a flower!! She freaks out a bit, but mostly it inspires her to find out more about where she came from and who she really is.

I was, of course, completely sucked in to the love triangle going on in this story. David, the first person she meets at school, is my hero ;) He is sweet and funny and charmingly geek-minded. Not to mention gallant in the face of danger and totally excepting of a girl with a weird flower growing out of her back! Tamani is another faerie and the one who enlightens Laurel on the details of where she truly comes from.When we first meet him, he comes off as a little smug and cocky. He alludes to the fact that he and Laurel have a pretty strong past together, and further on you see that he's hurting from having been forced to let her go so she could grow up in the human world. I liked him, but for Laurel, I liked David more. We'll have to see where the rest of this series goes, but by the end of Wings, I was Team David all the way.

I can't wait to read the rest of this series---so many more details that this one has left me salivating for! Why did the faeries choose Laurel to send to the human world? What is her real place in the faerie world? More about Avalon!! And I must know more about Tamani and Laurel's past!

Visit Aprilynne Pike's site here.

Purchase Wings at: Amazon • BN.com • Book Depository • Indiebound

Next in the series:
Spells
Illusions (coming May 3, 2011!)