Review: Obedience by Will Lavender

From the back of the book: When the students in Winchester University's Logic and Reasoning 204 arrive for their first day of class, they are greeted not with a syllabus or texts, but with a startling assignment from Professor Williams: Find a hypothetical missing girl named Polly. If after being given a series of clues and details the class has not found her before the end of the term in six weeks, she will be murdered.

At first the students are as intrigued by the premise of their puzzle as they are wary of the strange and slightly creepy Professor Williams. But as they delve deeper into the mystery, the boundary between the classroom and the real world is blurred and the students wonder if it is their own lives they are being asked to save.

Thank you to whichever book blogger(s) posted about this book. It is from one of the genres I enjoy most - psychological thrillers. Things are not what they seem, there are twists in the plot throughout the book, and the ending is a surprise that I hadn't predicted. There are some loose ends and details that are less than believable, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a quick reading, suspenseful story.

In other reading news...I finished The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield last weekend. I will refrain from creating the possibly 250,000th book blogger post about it, and simply say that I really liked it. It truly speaks to the heart of a book lover through Margaret and ends in a perfect but not totally predictable way.

I'm hoping to make a dent in my non-fiction TBR pile soon. However, the knowledge that I will begin graduate classes again in September is motivation to suck up all the fiction I can in the next couple months.

Buried in Dishes

I have been doing so much cooking lately that our sink is never empty. This is likely also due to my extreme aversion to doing dishes by hand. I'd rather leave the sink full while the dishwasher finishes another batch than do those that didn't fit in the dishwasher by hand.

Despite an epically failed recipe tonight, I did have great success with my adaptation of Patriotic Frozen Delight from Taste of Home. Here's my version:

Ingredients:
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk (non-fat)
2 cups (16 ounces) lemon yogurt
2 cups miniature marshmallows...or a little more :-)
1+ cup sliced fresh strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions: In a bowl, combine milk, lemon juice and peel. Stir in yogurt, marshmallows and pecans. Spread half into an ungreased 11-in. x 7-in. dish. Sprinkle with half of the strawberries and blueberries. Cover with the remaining yogurt mixture; top with remaining berries. Cover and freeze. Remove from the freezer 15-20 minutes before serving. Yield: 12 servings.

The originally recipe called for pecans, which are not a desireable ingredient in Mr. Taste Tester's world. So, I left them out. Next time I would experiment by replacing them with crunched up pretzels.

Either way, this one will make it to the recipe box as a keeper.