Recipe Reviews – Lady Book Dragon

Hauntings: A Book of Ghosts and Where to Find Them Across 25 Eerie British Locations by Neil Oliver

Blurb

For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold.Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores more than 20 sites – castles, vicarages and towers, lonely shorelines and forgotten battlefields – to unpick their stories..Oliver invokes his family’s history alongside that of kings and queens past as he probes why our emotions and senses are heightened in certain locations where the separation between dimensions seems gossamer thin. Our landscape is riven with these places, creaking from the weight of the secrets they hold, the echoes of tragedy and dark deeds . From Inverness to Devon, Co Dublin to Norfolk, Hauntings casts an enjoyably eerie glow with stories that, told generation after generation, are inextricable from place – and considers why they matter.

Review

I was quite excited about this book but wow what a surprise I had when I read it. This sadly is my most disappointing book of the year and I’m quite surprised I actually finished it because quite frankly the man is an over opinionated bottom and that is the polite version.

My first problem with this book is the fact that it has very little ghosts in it. Each chapter briefly mentions a haunting and by briefly I mean maybe a paragraph or two, the rest of the chapter is history and Oliver’s opinions or about how he is grieving for his dad. The best chapter and most informative about the hauntings was the one on Glamis castle. I really enjoyed that chapter and it made me do further research into the castle and its hauntings.

The second problem I had was Oliver’s opinions that personally he should have kept to himself. His opinions on people who use antidepressants were definitely uncalled for and the fact he didn’t mention it just once but kept bringing it up was even worse. I really didn’t feel like it was his place to judge. I can understand how he was trying to explain certain feelings and possible sightings of ghosts by environment and the individual people but it was not a balanced argument and overly critical.

My final issue was the fact that Oliver clearly has some guilt regarding his father and is not grieving well so he used the book to help. When deciding to read a book about haunted places in the British Isles I was really not expecting to have this thrown at me every chapter and really didn’t see the link. Overall, I was not happy with this book and think it is wrongly titled, I give this book 2 out of 5 Dragons.

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About the author

Neil Oliver is a Scottish archaeologist, historian, broadcaster and writer who has become widely known as the presenter of BBC television’s series A History of Scotland and Coast.

His first fiction novel, Master of Shadows, is published by Orion in September 2015.

He lives in Stirling with his wife and three children.

Etsy

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As promised I have had a go at making one of the recipes from The Book Lover’s Guide to Tea, which I reviewed here. I let my husband choose which one to make and he chose the Lemon Slices. The Lemon Slices are paired with the book The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and the tea is Earl Grey.

The plan was to eat a slice with a nice cup of Earl Grey, you will soon see the result.

Firstly, I found the recipe to be a little like The Great British Bake Off technical challenge, as there was no picture to see what they looked liked. It is also the first recipe where I have had to measure everything with cups, thankfully we have some rather cute cat cups.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 cup melted butter

4 eggs

2 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup all purpose flour

5/8 lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9x13in pan.

(Temperature was a guess for us as we have an AGA so adapting the temperature is rather tricky as we have to use a cold shelf to get the AGA to a better temperature. Also I do not have a big enough square tin so it had to be a circular pan.)

2. Stir the 2 cups of flour and confectioners’ sugar together. Blend in melted butter, and press into the bottom of the pan.

(I was guessing I was aiming for a biscuit texture like a cheesecake, hopefully that is correct.)

3. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. In another bowl, beat eggs until light. Combine the sugar, baking powder, and flour, and stir into the eggs. Add the lemon juice, and pour over the prepared crust before returning to the oven.

(The first problem was baking the base and trying to prevent it from burning in the AGA, the edges started to catch slightly so we decided it was time to add the topping and bake for 30 minutes.)

4. Bake for another 30 minutes or until bars are set. Make sure to let cool completely before cutting.

(We had to use two cold shelves to bring the temperature down so the top did not burn but we think it came out rather well.)

It reminds me of a giant custard tart!

As I said at the beginning we planned to eat a slice with a nice cup of Earl Grey, however we were impatient and attempted to cut the Lemon Slice before it was fully cooled, this ended in disaster. Yes, it fell apart, as shown below.

For the Earl Grey I got out the best china cups and side plates, these were my aunts who sadly passed away last year and I inherited her china. My aunt never drank tea out of a mug, it was a china cup and saucer or nothing. My aunt also drank more tea than anyone I have ever met, she was a true tea drinker, oh and a tea bag would never do, always loose leaf! It was really nice to use the china and enjoy our tea and think of my aunt telling me Earl Grey is not real tea, whilst drinking her tea with her little finger delicately pointing out. Sadly there is no teapot with the set so we used our little one that we use for loose leaf tea.

We ate the Lemon Slice and it was delicious. Later when it had fully cooled I cut it up and it all stayed together beautifully and worked brilliantly. A definite hit that I will happily make again and goes perfectly with Earl Grey Tea, just like the book says.