Have you ever wanted to make your own Pumpkin Juice? How about a Treacle Tart like Harry Potter eats in the Great Hall? With The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, you can do just that!

This cookbook goes through all the times in the Harry Potter books when food is involved, and includes many of the recipes involved in each event. Some of the chapters are titles things like: Treats from the Train, Recipes from a Giant and an Elf, and Holiday Fare. Before each recipe, a description is given of where the recipe was mentioned in the books. Many of the recipes from the books are authentic English dishes. We Americans might wonder what Mince Pies or Bath Buns are, but in England they are just another dish.

I am really looking forward to trying the Shepherd’s Pie recipe. I had Shepherd’s Pie at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, and it was delicious. I hope this recipe lives up to that. There are recipes for all different levels of cooking abilities in this book. Some of the candy looks pretty complicated. There is a section at the beginning of the book telling you what to substitute for some of the English ingredients, and some directions that might be different. The measurements are in cups and teaspoons though.

There was only one thing that disappointed me a little. When I went to Honeydukes at The Wizarding World, I had a Chocolate Cauldron that was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. It was a little chocolate cake in the shape of a cauldron. It had some sort of chocolate filling, and was just yummy. In this book they have Cauldron Cakes, which is probably more accurate, and are a sort of pancake.

The author, Dinah Bucholz, is a pie baker known for her fine desserts, so I’m sure the desserts in this book are fabulous.

Any Harry Potter fan would enjoy this book. Who doesn’t want to have a Harry Potter themed party and actually eat food from the books? You can purchase this book on Amazon or other major book stores. I’ve seen them at Barnes and Noble. I also came across a Kindle ebook called The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook Presents: 10 Summertime Treats, and it’s only around $1.

Buy The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook on Amazon.

Buy Interview with the Vampire on Amazon.com

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice is the story of Louis in the series, The Vampire Chronicles. Louis is a wealthy aristocrat in New Orleans. He is bitten by the vampire, Lestat. Lestat makes him into his only companion. Louis struggles with being a vampire. He questions things like good and evil. He only feeds on animals for many years. Lestat will not answer any of Louis’ questions about being a vampire or if there are others. Lestat does not want to lose his companion.

Lestat finally convinces Louis that he must feed on humans. Louis does this, but only on the worst of them, until one night. Louis finds a young girl next to her dead mother one night during his hunt. The girl is close to death. He feeds on the girl, and then Lestat turns her into a vampire. By doing this, he is able to keep Louis from leaving him. Louis has become increasingly repulsed by Lestat, but is now tied to him by their new “vampire daughter.” They name her Claudia.

Claudia’s body remains that of a young girl, but her brain matures. She takes to killing very easily. Louis dotes on her and is happy for a time. After many years of living as a “family,” Claudia decides they should kill Lestat. She’s no fonder of him than Louis has been. She also wants to seek out the “old world” vampires in Europe, and Lestat is dead set against that.

I won’t go any further, so as not to spoil the main plot of the book. The story is told by Louis to a reporter, so sometimes it jumps out of the narrative. It’s a very effective story telling technique. It’s nice to have the reporter there to react or ask questions.

I’ve only seen the movie version of Interview with the Vampire once, but from what I remember, the movie did a great job of depicting the book. One thing that can’t come across in the movie as well is Louis’ inner struggle. He is very torn by his vampire nature against his morality. He still thinks as a human, as the vampire Armand puts it late in the book.

I definitely recommend this book, especially if you like vampires. I plan to continue on with the whole Vampire Chronicles series.

Buy Summer Knight: A Novel of the Dresden Files on Amazon || Buy Summer Knight Audio Book on Amazon || Watch the Dresden Files on Hulu

The fantastic thing about the summertime is that there is ample opportunity to read. Whether you are sitting around by the pool on a sunny day or snuggled at home watching the rainstorms, it’s a great time to catch up on all those books you’ve been meaning to read but just didn’t get around to. For anyone who is actually looking for something to read, I’d like to recommend an amazing and interesting series called the Dresden Files.

The Dresden Files

Harry Dresden is a Private Investigator in Chicago who finds himself in a series of adventures. Yet Harry is not just a common PI who looks for lost items and catches adulterers, he’s the only guy in the phone book listed under the category “Wizard.” Yep Harry Dresden is a wizard, and the only guy around who can help you with that pesky werewolf problem. Got vampires? He’ll be there to immolate each and every one of them. Harry is the guy you want at your back when you are visited by those snobby Fairy Queens, and he’s the only guy around who is willing to face off creatures from the underworld and dark wizards if you only pay him enough. Assisted by a mishmash of characters who alternately help and hinder him, Mr. Dresden embarks on assignment after assignment all in an epic quest to right wrongs and save the underdog. Alongside Harry you will often find Murphy, a tough as nails cop who looks like your favorite aunt, Michael, a sword bearing savior who dabbles in carpentry, Bob, an air elemental with a devious side, and Mister, Harry’s 30 pound feline. Along with a growing cast of allies and enemies throughout the series, Harry Dresden strives to right wrongs, save damsels, and most of all, not get killed.

Summer Knight

Summer Knight is the fourth book in the Dresden Files series. In this story, Harry is recovering from his disastrous adventures with the Red Court vampires when even nature seems to be conspiring against him. Set in midsummer, Dresden is investigating a rain of toads (really) in the middle of Chicago and the trail just leads downhill from there for our poor hero. His meeting with an important prospective client winds up aligning him to the side of Air and Darkness, a place no one in their right mind wants to be. His girlfriend is still MIA and avoiding his calls, the White Council (the official governing body for all wizards) is working hard to convict him, and he just can’t seem to shake those devious fairies. Things are not going well for Harry and with this new engagement; they are bound to just get worse. Spend a little time with Harry in Summer Knight and you will get an adventure so intricate and enjoyable, you won’t want to put the book down, not even at sword point.

Buy The Demon’s Lexicon on Amazon or for Kindle

This is a review of The Demon’s Lexicon, the first book in a trilogy of urban fantasy novels from debut author Sarah Rees Brennan.

I first encountered Sarah Rees Brennan on her blog, which is located on LiveJournal under username “sarahtales” (one word, no underscore). This blog is an absolute must-read. It’s a collection of hilarious stories from Sarah’s day-to-day life, as well as book reviews and movie parodies. Back when Sarah was better known as Maya, a prolific Harry Potter fan fiction writer, this was where all of her stories were posted. Sadly, in an unusually cruel cyberattack, all of Sarah’s blog was deleted one week prior to the release of The Demon’s Lexicon on June 2, along with all of her personal and business emails. It is a testament to the respect and love Sarah has earned as a blogger that within a day of the attack, several of her loyal readers had managed to recover seven years’ worth of posts from Google’s cache, and Sarah’s blog has mostly been restored to its former glory.

But back to the main topic of this review – The Demon’s Lexicon. This young adult urban fantasy novel centers on two teenage brothers, Nick and Alan, who live in modern-day London. In Nick and Alan’s world, there is no such thing as good magic. Magicians crave power, and they’ll do anything and hurt anyone to get more of it. The two brothers, along with their mother, a former magician who has gone mad, have been on the run from magicians their whole lives. And as if they don’t have enough on their plates trying to avoid being captured and thrown to the demons, siblings Mae and Jamie show up at Alan and Nick’s house, knowing nothing of the magical world and in desperate need of their help. Meanwhile, Nick discovers that Alan has been keeping secrets, and he wants to find out why his brother is lying to him. The book is a roller coaster to the finish, with magicians, demons, plot twists galore, and an ending that will quite possibly literally blow your mind.

I think it might rankle fantasy enthusiasts if I were to compare this book to the Harry Potter series, but I’m pretty sure that such comparisons are inevitable: both books are about magic, both are set in England, and both are intended for younger readers but have universal appeal. However, the Demon’s Lexicon is a much darker novel, especially since sixteen-year-old Nick, from whose viewpoint the first book is told, is kind of a scary character: he rarely speaks, he doesn’t seem to have any empathy or even any emotion whatsoever (well, besides anger), and he could care less about the well-being of anyone besides himself and his brother. Alan, a geeky, sweet, and extremely intelligent nineteen-year-old, is a nice counterpoint to Nick’s gloom and doom, but then both brothers are hardened killers who as a rule have at least three weapons on them at all times – so on the whole, I’d say the novel is pretty dark. The author has a fantastic sense of humor, though, and she manages to make you laugh even as the characters’ situation becomes progressively more dire.

Mae and Jamie, the sister and brother who come to Nick and Alan for help when Jamie is marked by a demon, are sort of the Harry and Hermione of this book. They’ve never heard of magicians and demons before and have to figure things out quickly when they’re thrust into this new world. Jamie is a wonderful character, a quirky sixteen-year-old who continually spouts hilarious one-liners, despite (or perhaps due to) being in mortal danger. Sample Jamie dialogue: “Do demons have disco fever?” We don’t get too much insight into Jamie’s seventeen-year-old sister Mae, beyond learning she has pink hair, she will do anything to help her little brother, and both Nick and Alan have a thing for her. I’m hopeful we’ll learn much more about both of these siblings in the next book, The Demon’s Covenant, coming June 2010.

I’ve left a lot of the details out of this review, because the fun of this book is in the journey. See if you can guess any of the tricks Sarah Rees Brennan has up her sleeve, but trust me when I say she will surprise you. You can buy The Demon’s Lexicon in stores today or online. If you’d like to read the first chapter before buying, you can go to Sarah’s website at www.sarahreesbrennan.com. For fans of The Demon’s Lexicon make sure to check out the fan community on LiveJournal (warning: there are spoilers).