The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

Cook the Books blog this time is Ellery Adams’ The Secret, Book & Scone Society.  Simona (from briciole) is hosting.  Go  here for the announcement 

I am in no sense of the word a picky eater. But I am a picky reader. Too picky perhaps. Like a toddler surveying a new food placed before her by an anxious mother, I approach each new book with a skeptical eye. Turning to the first page of the story I hear my toddler voice saying, “I’m not going to like this.” Or I hear echoes of the teenager “This is going to be boring.” Even the mature reader-me makes her voice known “Educate me,” she says, “Or, at least entertain me,” and watch out for plot holes, and too many coincidences, and threads that don’t make sense, and parts of the book that make me yell out loud “Didn’t you have an editor?” Or, “How did this book ever get published.” And so it was with this book right from the get go. 

To be honest, though, I did approach the book with an open mind. I’d been an inconsistent lurker on Cook the Books blog for a couple of years. Bought and read several of the suggested books, even concocted a few recipes per CTB instructions. Checked out the posts and blogs by CTB participants, But never got around to posting. Oh, I had all the very good excuses. My blog Is dormant. Should I revive it? Or start a new blog? (I have a food specific name all set to go.) I’m awfully busy writing an organization’s newsletter, chairing a Woman’s Suffrage 100-year celebration, writing a cookbook memoir, researching, writing … Oh, you know, all those things that take a writer away from the page—and for a food writer, away from the food. 

Finally, though, a window of opportunity. And this book looked like an easy read. A cozy mystery wouldn’t be my choice but I could get through it. So, as soon as the book was announced I sent for it and decided that ] I could finish, test a few recipes, check out all the what-to and how-to requirements, and post my offering by deadline.

The book had an interesting premise. Scarred and somewhat reclusive Nora, the protagonist, owns a bookstore. Not only that but she has an interesting intuitive gift that allows her to pick the exactly right book for her customers or even to suggest/give/sell a book to those who aren’t her customers. And she has a supporting character friend who owns a bakery and that friend can make “comfort scones” that reach down into the inner psyche of the scone-eater. Two other characters,  June and Estella,  join Nora and Hester to try to solve a homicide and the now amateur detectives form The Secret, Book, & Scone Society. Now, that all sounds like it would make for a good read, but here’s the rub. It doesn’t.

A sampling of some of the things that took me out of the book

Just too many problems with the writing. For example. 

Violating the writer’s rule: Show don’t tell. (At 38). “[Nora] held her hands in a defensive gesture.” What was that? How did an editor let that go by? Or does it not matter? Is it just “get the book to market, someone will buy it”?

Lack of continuity. (At 36) “If you want lemonade or water, help yourself to a coffee mug from the back.” Then (At 39) in the same scene, “Hester poured three glasses of lemonade and offered one to Estella. Estella stared at her glass ….” This might not even have caught my attention except that the hanging rack of coffee mugs had its own descriptive scene and the mugs seem as though they will be relevant. Something like this says to me as a reader: “don’t expect a story where details matter.” Another example is (At 170) where “A plastic grocery bag hung from [ Jed’s] wrist and (At 171) in the same scene that plastic bag seems to have disappeared because “[ Jed] pulled a plastic grocery bag from his pocket and approached the berry bushes.”

Dropping names of books and authors randomly. The mention of books and authors seemed a cute concept, but it soon became clear that the names were often just thrown in just because the names would be familiar to the reader. Take this scene (At 145) where June ,Nora, and Hester are describing the kind of men women want  

June: “We want a man who’s a mixed up mess of Othello, Heathcliff, Atticus Finch, Chief Inspector John Luther, and a Greek god or two.”

Hester: “Don’t forget Sherlock Holmes, Edward Rochester, and Horatio Hornblower….I like my Brits.”

Nora: “What? No James Bond?” …

“Hester shook her head. ‘He doesn’t treat women like a gentleman should.’”

 “What?” I literally, oops, I mean figuratively, jumped into the pages of the book to confront the characters and the author. Hester may be right about her opinion of Bond, but not including Bond because he doesn’t treat women well while it’s ok to include Othello who murdered his wife and Edward Rochester who locked his first wife in the attic and pretty much spends the rest of his appearances in the book lying—at least by omission— to Jane and attempting to commit bigamy shows the problem of dropping names. And if you are a picky reader, you’ll get to that conversation and from that point just keep pushing the scenes around your plate until the book is over.

…

So, to put it mildly, I thought the book was mostly a waste of time—not that it bothers me that much, wasting time during Covid-19, I’ve watched my share of Brit make-over-your-house tv and too much news and too many hours on the NYT Sunday crossword. But I expect more from books. Or do I? Is what I really mean to say this: How does so much get past an agent, past the publisher, on the market with bad writing, bad editing. I know the answer. And It’s perhaps not fair for me to give this book such a complete going over. It’s only a cozy for Pete’s sake and shouldn’t be subject to such criticism, and enough people like it to make it salable. Heck, I even bought it. But after—way too much—poring over every word, every comma, it does make me wonder how a writer gets work published.  Or is this Just a reaction from a green-eyed monster?.

As for that ending and denouement

As for the ending, well, I won’t give it away so no need for Spoiler alerts—oh, maybe a little caution. Who done it? —Who done it comes more or less out of the blue. The reader can likely figure it out but only because by the time the villain is about to be unmasked there are only a few, likely suspects, and one, considering the genre, is unlikely. The stated motivation of the villain doesn’t really rise from the story, and there is little indication within the story that his motivation has any validity. That’s as far as I’ll go here..

And the denouement. Ok, I’ll give the author that, it’s all designed to get the reader to buy the next book, but, really, reader, you know exactly what’s going to happen. 

One thing in the book that reached me

To end the review part of this post on a positive note, one thread in the book had promise. Every one of the members of the Secret, Book, & Scone Society had a secret. Could they trust each other enough to tell their secrets? What would finally be each character’s motivation and when would they feel confident enough to trust? And what would happen when they did trust? I’ll leave that for readers to discover. 

A deep dive for scones

The book did send me off on a deep dive for Scones. I’ll write more in future posts and include recipes. I like scones but had never made them. So, since I am partly of Scots-Irish heritage I first asked my sister if we had any authentic scone recipe passed down from generations ago in the highlands or over there in Antrim. We didn’t. So, I went to my next best resource, the Internet & then, books.

I soon found that “The definitive Scone,” well, that’s as much a myth as the definitive pasta e fagioli. Even the pronunciation varies. Is it scone that rhymes with stone? Or scone that rhymes with gone? “What is the authentic scone recipe?” raises the same questions as I found on the Italian-heritage side of my family while searching for the real pasta e fagioli or pasta Fasole or pasta fazool.

I decided not to make a choice but to make three different scones. More to come. 

•  * Plain scone in the—lol, authentic—round shape; shown here with jam and whipped cream

  

    * Lemon cream scone from The Village Baker’s Wife: this was before I realized scones should be separated before baking. According to the authors, “This goes even better with Lemon Curd.” I’m saving that for another day. 

• * Jocelyn’s Orange-current scone from Morning Food which author Margaret Fox says “never left the menu” when Margaret had her former restaurant, Cafe Beaujolais