{"id":9387,"date":"2011-10-03T01:46:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T06:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/\/?p=9387"},"modified":"2011-10-02T21:48:35","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T02:48:35","slug":"weddings-and-wasabi-by-camy-tang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/?p=9387","title":{"rendered":"Weddings and Wasabi by Camy Tang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour<\/a><\/strong><\/span> book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today’s Wild Card author is: <\/strong><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Camy Tang<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

and the book:<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Weddings and Wasabi<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

WinePress Publishing (June 7, 2011)<\/p>\n

***Special thanks to Camy Tang for sending me a review copy.***<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Camy Tang grew up in Hawaii and now lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious mutt, Snickers. She graduated from Stanford University and was a biologist researcher for 9 years, but now she writes full-time. She is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads one of the Sunday worship teams. On her blog, she ponders knitting, spinning wool, dogs, running, the Never Ending Diet, and other frivolous things. Visit her website at http:\/\/www.camytang.com\/<\/a> to read short stories and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Visit the author’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nSHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>After finally graduating with a culinary degree, Jennifer Lim is pressured by her family to work for her control-freak aunty\u2019s restaurant. But after a family blowout, Jenn is determined to no longer be a doormat and instead starts her own catering company. Her search for a wine merchant brings John into her life\u2014a tall, dark, handsome biker, in form-fitting black leather, and Hispanic to boot. It would be wonderfully wild to snag a man like that!<\/p>\n

Shy engineer Edward tentatively tries out his birthday present from his winery-owner uncle\u2014a Harley Davidson complete with the trimmings. Jennifer seems attracted to the rough, aggressive image, but it isn\u2019t his real self. Is she latching onto him just to spite her horrified family? And if this spark between them is real, will showing her the true guy underneath put it out?<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s with the goat in the backyard?<\/p>\n

Product Details:<\/p>\n

List Price: $13.99
\nPaperback: 124 pages
\nPublisher: WinePress Publishing (June 7, 2011)
\nLanguage: English
\nISBN-10: 1414120591
\nISBN-13: 978-1414120591<\/p>\n

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:<\/span> <\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The goat in the backyard had just eaten tonight\u2019s dinner.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Lim stood on her mother\u2019s minuscule back porch and glared at the small brown and white creature polishing off her basil. She would have run shouting at it to leave off her herb garden, except it had already decimated the oregano, mint, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, and her precious basil, which had been slated for tonight\u2019s pesto.<\/p>\n

Besides, if it bit her, she was peeved enough to bite back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom!\u201d She stomped back into the house. Thank goodness the pots of her special Malaysian basil were sectioned off in the large garden on the side of the house, protected by a wooden-framed wire gate. Jenn was growing it so that she could make her cousin Trish\u2019s favorite chicken dish for her wedding, which Jenn was catering for her. But everything in her backyard garden was gone. The animal was welcome to the only thing left, the ragged juniper bushes. Were juniper bushes poison? If so, the animal was welcome to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom!\u201d Her voice had reached banshee range. \u201cThere is a goat\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to yell.\u201d Mom entered the kitchen, her lipstick bright red from a fresh application and her leather handbag over her arm, obviously ready to leave the house on some errand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince when do we own a goat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince your cousin Larry brought him over.\u201d She fished through her leather purse. \u201cHis name is Pookie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenn choked on her demand for an explanation, momentarily distracted. \u201cHe has a name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a living being. Of course he has a name.\u201d Her mother fluttered eyelashes overloaded with mascara.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t give me that. You used to love to gross me out with stories of Great-Uncle Hao Chin eating goats back in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom sniffed and found the refrigerator fascinating. \u201cThat\u2019s your father\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenn swayed as the floor tilted. You are now entering \u2026 the Twilight Zone. Her parent had evoked that feeling quite often in the past few weeks. \u201cWhere did Larry get a goat and why do we have it now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, Jenn could have answered her own question. That goat was in their backyard right now because everyone knew that her mom couldn\u2019t say no to a termite who knocked on the door and asked if it could spend the night.<\/p>\n

And outside of physically dropping the goat off at someone\u2019s house\u2014and she didn\u2019t have an animal trailer, so that was out of the question\u2014Jenn wouldn\u2019t be able to get anyone else in the family to agree to take the animal, now that it was here. That meant leaving a goat in a niece\u2019s backyard because no one else wanted to go through the hassle of doing anything about it.<\/p>\n

Mom said, \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have me turn away family, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle Percy knows, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not Percy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAunty Glenda?\u201d No way. Even if Larry were thirty-one instead of twenty-one, Aunty would still dictate to her son the color underwear he wore that day\u2014how much more his choice of pet?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d Mom blinked as rapidly as she could with mascara making her short, stiff lashes stick together, almost gluing her eyes shut.<\/p>\n

The tiger in Jenn\u2019s ribcage growled. \u201cMother.\u201d Her fist smacked onto her hip.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, all right.\u201d Mom rolled her eyes as if she were still a teenager. \u201cIt belongs to Larry\u2019s dormmate\u2019s older brother, but really, he\u2019s the nicest young man.\u201d Burgundy lips pulled into what wanted to be a smile, but instead looked hideously desperate.<\/p>\n

Jenn tried to count to ten but only got to two. \u201cI know Larry\u2019s a nice young man. If an abundance of immaturity counts as \u2018nice\u2019 points.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJenn, really, you\u2019re so intolerant. Just because you\u2019re smart and went to Stanford for grad school \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The name of her school\u2014and the one dominant memory it brought up\u2014made her neck jerk in a spasm. It had only been for two years, but that was enough. Desperately lonely after spending her undergrad years living with her cousins, Jenn had only formed a few friendships among the other grad students, none of them close. There was only one she\u2019d never forget, although she vowed she would every morning when she got up and saw the scar in the mirror.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy. Do we have. A goat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only for a few days\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know a thing about how to take care of\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re easy\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides which, this is Cupertino. I\u2019m sure there are city laws\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be gone before anyone notices\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, ho, you\u2019re right about that.\u201d Jenn strode toward the phone on the wall. \u201cI\u2019m calling the Humane Society. They\u2019ll take it.\u201d Although they wouldn\u2019t provide a trailer to transport it. How was she going to take the goat anywhere, much less to an animal shelter?<\/p>\n

Mom plopped onto a stool and sighed. \u201cThat boy was so cute. His name was Brad.\u201d<\/p>\n

There went her neck spasming again. But Brad was a common name. She grabbed the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a nice Chinese boy. Related to the Yip family\u2014you know, the ones in Mountain View?\u201d<\/p>\n

The phone slipped from her hand and bungee-jumped toward the floor, saved only by the curly cord. She bent to snatch it up, but dizziness shrouded her vision and she had to take a few breaths before straightening up.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, and he went to Stanford. You two have something in common.\u201d Mom beamed.<\/p>\n

No. He wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Yes, he would.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrad Yip?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom\u2019s eyes lighted up. \u201cDo you know him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, she knew him. Knew the next time he came for his goat she\u2019d ram her chef\u2019s knife, Michael Meyers style, right between his eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMY REVIEW:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weddings and Wasabi<\/a> is short and sweet and can probably be read by the average reader in around an hour. Actually a self-published novella intended to complete the author’s Sushi<\/strong><\/em> series, it gives cousin Jenn a story of her own.<\/p>\n

With her usual focus on Asian family dynamics, Camy has once again created a laugh out loud tale that nevertheless manages to covey a strong spiritual message. For such a short book, Weddings and Wasabi<\/a> has a lot going on in its well paced plot with several vivid and humorous action scenes. Imagine a water-gun invasion to retrieve stolen cake pans! The food descriptions (and there were many) served to make me hungry and craving Asian food. The romantic aspect of the story was sweet and Edward seemed the perfect match for Jenn but like many other reviewers I would have liked to have read more about him.<\/p>\n

I came away from this story with three strong spiritual impressions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You don’t have to be a doormat just because you are a Christian.<\/li>\n
  2. God cares about you and will come through for you if you trust in Him.<\/li>\n
  3. You never know who is watching you and the effect you might have on their life for Christ.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So to wrap it up – yes, Weddings and Wasabi<\/a> is a pretty short book but it packs a huge punch. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,39,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-chick-lit","category-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9387"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9396,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387\/revisions\/9396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}