Hi, Yall. Welcome to Cat’s Meow Reviews that Purr. I hope you enjoyed last weeks story about snow. I sure did. This week I am bringing you another fabulous romance with more snow! Our guest is Tricia Pimental with her romance Slippery Slopes, and she has brought us a few recipes to warm us up on a cold winters night.
Hi Cat,
Hope you are enjoying your holiday season.
In terms of a winter drink, Libby, my main character in Slippery Slopes, finds hot chocolate a little too sweet, although she will occasionally ask for one just for the whipped cream. She prefers hot spiced wine, opting to buy a bag of mulling spices at Whole Foods and add a couple of Clementines rather than follow a recipe.
The martini recipe below is one Craig likes to make when they are entertaining. Or not.
When Libby briefly took cooking classes, she learned to prepare pork chops in a special way.
Pork Chops and Sautéed Apples
6 large, meaty pork chops, about 1 inch thick
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2/3 cup cassis or applejack
1/2 cup apple juice or cider
2 large red cooking apples (Rome Beauty, McIntosh, Northern Spy, etc.)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts
1/4 cup chopped preserved ginger
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place chops in ovenproof skillet and sear on high heat on both sides. Sprinkle with salt to taste.
Combine sugar, liqueur and apple juice in small saucepan and place over medium-high heat. Cook, constantly stirring , about 2 minutes, or until sauce is smooth and well blended. Spoon over chops and bake uncovered about 25 to 30 minutes, or until tender.
Cut apples into thick rings. Briefly, melt the butter in small skillet over medium heat and add apples. Pour in wine and cook until apples are tender but still hold shape. Arrange chops in overlapping pattern on one end of heated platter, Pour sauce over and sprinkle with nuts. Arrange apple rings on other end of platter and fill centers with ginger. Serve immediately.
It’s a perfect winter option, especially after everyone is ham-and-turkeyed-out from the holidays.
Skiing is her all-time favorite winter activity. Once in a while, she’ll go sledding or tubing, but steers clear of snowmobiling right now.
Title: Slippery Slopes
Author: Tricia Pimental
Genre: contemporary
Length: 248 pages
Publisher: self-published August 28, 2013
Heat Level(purrs):
Meows: ♥♥♥♥♥
Blurb: “This Job is Hazardous to Your Health.” That should have been the warning on the position New Yorker Libby Landis took ten years ago. When she finally quits, she heads to Park City, Utah for the holidays. Her goal? Reclaim a sense of self-respect and find a little peace. A temporary job at Deer Valley Resort enables her to ski for free and keep her checkbook afloat. And then there’s Craig Halverson. How bad is it to have a handsome former ski champion for a boss? All goes well until Libby is injured on the slopes and mysterious dreams start to plague her. Are they insignificant? Just the result of stress or pain medication? Or are they the beginning of the revelation of a secret buried long ago?
Slippery Slopes is the story of a young woman whose life dramatically changes as she unearths the event that shaped her life, triumphs over the past, and finds not just self-respect and peace, but love.
You can buy a copy:
www.amzn.to/10HUwog (Kindle edition, $2.99)
www.amzn.to/1VrDdbP (Print edition, $9.95)
You can read for Free with Kindle Unlimited.
My Review:
4meows no purrs no sexual content)
Reviewers note: I personally didn’t see this as a romance. for my own reading tastes I would call this women’s lit(chic lit) with some romantic interests. By no means does that mean it’s not a good story. It was fantastic. I loved Libby. I felt she was very highly relatable. I adored her relationship with her brother Will and sister-in-law Annie and best friend Beth.
Libby has been stuck in an unsatisfying job for many years with a boss that treats her like a slave, not a personal assistant. After finally having enough on the personal front her friend talks her into going to spend some time with her brother in Utah for the holidays. She ends up staying a little longer, at least until she finds out a hidden secret that causes her to face the rest of her past in New york. The path to that revelation is filled with many great escapades, beautiful descriptions that makes you feel like you are there on the slopes with her, some nailbiting accidents and a couple of sexy men. Oh yeah, not to forget her cute cat Smoky and brother’s dog.
This is definitely a story to curl up in a warm spot with some hot cocoa or your favorite adult beverage and enjoy. This is my first read by Tricia Pimental and won’t be the last. I plan to check out her other book, Rabbit Trail: How a Former Playboy Bunny Found Her Way and am anxiously waiting for a sequel to Libby.
Meet Tricia:
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tricia Pimental is the author of two award-winning books: Rabbit Trail: How a Former Playboy Bunny Found Her Way, and Slippery Slopes, A Libby Landis Novel. Her second memoir, A Movable Marriage, is slated for publication on Valentine’s Day, 2016.
Her work has appeared in International Living; A Janela, the quarterly magazine of International Women in Portugal; anthologies compiled by the Florida Writers Association and the National League of American Pen Women, and elsewhere.
A member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and a former Toastmaster, Ms. Pimental resides in Portugal.
You can stalk—oops—follow Tricia:
Twitter: @Tricialafille
Facebook Page link (Bitly):
Website: Tricia is offering new subscribers, a pdf of chapter one of A Movable Marriage, available on Amazon next month. I am off to subscribe!
More books by author:
Rabbit Trail: How a Former Playboy Bunny Found Her Way
Both books were award winners in the Florida Writers Association’s Royal Palm Literary Award Competition.
* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review *
I hope you enjoyed reading about Tricia and her books and give the recipes a shot. I hope you check out Slippery Slopes its worth the read! See ya next week for more snowy reads!