Another Rec From My Reading Weekend

I am not a coffee drinker. I think I had my fill when I was a kid. Seriously, I'm from the South. We don't do the whole, coffee stunts your growth thing. We wean children onto coffee with that magical concoction called coffee milk. By the age of 10, I was done.

I think part of my anti-coffee thing is actually an anti-coffee shop thing thanks to the heat. I can't drink hot things. I seem to have less of a tolerance than the rest of the world and don't enjoy burning my tongue on hot beverages that I've just paid for. And without milk or cream (or ice) there's no way to cool it down to a tolerable temperature. Coffee shops rarely leave enough room in the cup for me to do this, powdered creamer is useless, and the little creamer containers are too time consuming to be worth it.

And then Mike told me about kid's temp. You can order any drink at a kid-friendly temperature. Finally, I can drink coffee shop prepared drinks. But I now don't want to.

Nah, I became a tea girl ages ago and don't plan on giving it up. My coffee shop experience with tea has not be fantastic either. No one can make iced tea! Giving me hot tea and a cup of ice is only going to result in lukewarm, watered down tea.

So I make my own. I have a whole cabinet that's almost entirely devoted to tea. Green tea, white tea, red tea, black tea, herbal tea -- I drink it all. And it's my morning drink of choice. It warms me up, but doesn't so much wake me up, unfortunately. I can drink pitchers of iced tea. And when I was in South Carolina, sweet tea! So good. Even better, sweet mint tea! Makes me think of warm weather, sunny afternoons, and hammocks. Nice things to think about as cars crunch by over the ice outside.

Let's face it, for me, a glass of tea -- hot or cold -- is kind of the best pick me up, warm me up, book accompaniment I can think of. I think this means my family's English roots and my Southern roots are strongest of them all : )

To the book!

Next week, a brand new to us (that's the States) UK author's debut book is hitting shelves and I had the pleasure of spending my Saturday curled up reading it. The book is Claire Seeber's Lullaby, a thriller drawing comparison to other UK suspense authors the likes of Nicci French, Minette Walters, and Ruth Rendell.

In Lullaby, Jess and her family are spending a nice day together at an art showing when Jess turns around and realizes that she's lost her husband and baby. No big deal. She checks all around the gallery, the coffee shop, and anywhere else she can think of and can find no sign of them. With her purse strapped to the stroller, she has no way of even calling until a stranger offers up his phone. And her husband is not answering. Jess goes home and begins calling around, searching for her husband, hoping he had some appointment that he forgot about. Nothing. The police aren't worried just yet because its only been a matter of hours, but Jess is absolutely frantic. And then her worst nightmares come true. Jess's husband has been found, beaten in an alley. And still, no sign of their baby.

I read this book in one afternoon! Edge of your seat and, in my humble opinion, a book that just can't be put down. Secrets and lies unfold with each new chapter! A chilling and spectacular read.

Lullaby hits shelves on Jan 19 here in the US, but debuted in the UK in 2007. Seeber has one other book on shelves overseas, Bad Friends (which I've just ordered from Cynthia at High Crimes) and a third book, Never Tell, due out overseas in April.