Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 107

Well, Thank God, That’s Over

2020 is done, put a fork in it.

I do not do resolutions, my family inflicts enough guilt, I don’t need to outsource it, but I’m heavily into hope and optimism, so I am CERTAIN that 2021 is going to be exciting and different and GOOD.

Nothing but good times ahead.

Just wanted to put that out there.

This is a Good Book Thursday, December 31, 2020

Welp, this is the last day of this did-you-get-the-number-of-that-truck-that-hit-us-and-then-backed-up-and-ran-over-us-again-several-times-freaking year. As Dave Barry said, I used to think some of my years were the nadir (my major-relationship collapse/abortion/diagnosis of stage 3 cancer summer springs to mind) but now I have a baseline for all eternity. Of course that’s what I thought about the summer of ’83, too, so please god, let this be the low point in years. One of the redeeming factors: books. Lots and lots of very good books.

This week it was My Girls, Todd Fisher’s memoir of his life with Debbie and Carrie, a re-read of Loretta Chase’s Last Night’s Scandal, and the fantastic Antiquarian Sticker Book. But if I look back at the whole year, I think the best book memories are the new writers I discovered, the ones I can re-read over and over and be enthralled each time: Mhairi MacFarlane (If I’d Never Met You), Casey McQuiston (Red, White, and Royal Blue), Sarina Bowen (The Year We Fell Down), Alexis Hall(Boyfriend Material), Naomi Novik (A Deadly Education), and ohmygod Martha Wells (I will buy Murderbot books as soon as they’re published forever). I know a lot of those are not new authors, but they were new to me and made me very happy.

So what good book did you read this week? What were your faves this year (this no-good, horrible, very bad year)?

Oh, and Happy New Year! (Just read until it’s 2021. And drink, but mostly read.)

Working Wednesday, December 30, 2020

It’s New Year’s Eve Eve and I’m thinking about rearranging my entire house. That’s my work for this week, reconfiguring a small cottage. At first I thought, “That’s insane,” but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a brilliant idea. Last year was such a mess that I really don’t think tidying up the place is the answer. Burn it down may be going to far, but rip it all up and look at it in new way seems like a tangible metaphor for the rest of my life. That’s my plan anyway.

What did you do this week?

Random 2020

So here we are in the last three days of the year that was so bad it killed 300,000 (and still counting) people in America alone. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to happen three days from now aside from a huge psychological sigh of relief. It’s January 20 I’m really aiming for, when the Secret Service dumps Donald Trump outside the gates of the White House and let’s the real world have at him. Fake news, my ass, here comes the Southern District of New York, Donald, and they have some questions.

So what have I learned this year?

1. Even if I am by nature a loner, happiest when in the middle of the woods with some dogs and a deeply suspicious cat, the lockdown got to me. I can’t imagine what this is doing to gregarious people. I mean I know everybody’s baking bread and exulting over their toilet tissue hoard, but it’s not the same as human contact. At this point, I’m even willing to drive to my daughter’s hellhole of a neighborhood just to see her and her family. (“Hellhole” is my take on an expensive suburban enclave backing up onto a gorgeous historic park: the houses are too close together, every lawn in manicured, and the people there never wear shoes from two different pairs because they can’t find the mates and really need to take the dogs out before they pee in the hall.). So my big plan is to get out more to see people I love as soon as this fuckery is over.

2. After ten months, it is dawning on me that just throwing stuff on the floor when I’m done with it because I’m living in the guest room bed eventually makes the guest room a landfill. I am excavating now, but note to self: do not do that again. Although I think it’s good for the dogs to have to fight their way to the door over clothes and books and yarn because it strengthens their legs and burns calories, I think seeing my floors again might be an improvement over walking on pajama pants from last spring. Just a guess.

3. While only leaving the house every two weeks for groceries had an appeal, it has faded. I would like to shop at Home Goods again, even though I don’t need anything. Home Goods is open, but the idea of risking my life for cookware stops me from going. More than that, I need fresh veggies and bread at least once a week from the grocery. While Amazon can send me anything in a bag or bottle in about two days, bok choy and shallots must be picked up (no, Amazon’s Whole Food delivery thingy won’t work here; I’m in the middle of nowhere). So from now on, I’m going out ONCE A WEEK. I was born a rebel so don’t neg me about this.

4. The thing about cooking that I have learned is, you have to keep doing it. Like cleaning but with more pressure. For awhile I just sacrificed one day and made up a bunch of freezer meals, but now I am spoiled and want fresh cooked meals all the time. I just don’t want to cook them, mostly because my kitchen is a nightmare right now (although I am not throwing food on the floor, so it’s not the bedroom situation all over again). On the upside, I can now make a stir fry from damn near anything and my pan sauces are superb, so the year hasn’t been a total loss.

5. Always have dogs. I knew this before the lockdown but, my god, what do people who don’t have dogs (or cats or whatever) to talk to and cuddle do in a pandemic. “We’re in this together,” I tell Mona and Veronica, and they look deep into my eyes, having no idea what I’m saying but secure in the knowledge that I’ll give them food at some point. It’s an elemental relationship, but a strong one. (I miss you so much, Milton. God, this year has been terrible.)

6. I was overtaken by the urge to do a Paradise Park collage, so I ordered the stuff I’d usually forage for in a craft shop from Amazon. William Morris paper and lacy cupcake holders (balconies and railings) and a ton of other stuff. Somewhere I have bags of stuff I bought years ago for this, so it’s going to be spectacular. But I feel like I have to wait until Jan. 1 to start it. Like there’s going to be a big screech of a needle ripping across a record at midnight and then the music will begin to play again, only, you know, good this time.

7. The journal came but was not as good as I’d hoped because NO STICKERS. What the hell? OTOH I got an entire thick volume of stickers that were wonderful, so I’m coping. The journal is also short, which is probably a good thing because it means I’ll have a chance of filling it up before I wander off. The no-stickers thing is a serious drawback, though.

8. The sound of dogs snoring is better than valium.

Happiness is a New Journal

Every spring, I kick myself for not starting a journal at the beginning of January, and then I remember I’ve been doing this blog for fourteen (?) years and that’s kind of like journaling, although I don’t publish the dark side of my life because who needs that? and besides I’m trying to project an air of competence and calm here, not scream into the night in despair and longing.

Where was I? Oh, right, happiness.

So I decided this week that since 2020 was such a cesspit, I’m throwing all of it out. Well, not the stuff I was writing, but the baggage that comes with it, the growing certainty that I’m a shallow mediocre writer, and the even stronger certainty that this cottage that I love is going to fall in on my head and kill me. Story of my life: Love gone wrong.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, reboot of my life through journaling.

So this year I’m going to start thinking about things in a new way, so I’ve sent for a journal and I’m going to write something every day that makes me look at things diffferently, although some of those days are probably going to be just “God, today sucked.” Of course, I’ve been trying to journal every year since I was twelve and got one of those white leatherette diaries with a lock and key, and I never follow through, but THIS YEAR I found a Christian Lacroix journal and it’s fabulous, or at least I hope it will be when it finally gets here. It was expensive, given that you can find journals for four bucks at Walmart, but this is COLLAGE, (go here to see it in all of its expensive glory), it has pop-ups in it, it comes with STICKERS.

Yes, I am four years old. What’s your point?

My point is that sometimes happiness is ridiculous and when it comes you must embrace it whole heartedly, especially the ridiculous parts. Everything in my life that has made me manic with happiness has been ridiculous, and even if it turned dark later, the rush in the beginning was worth it. The journal isn’t even HERE yet, and already I’m typing in ALL CAPS.

A ridiculous journal made me ridiculously happy this week and sparked BIG PLANS for 2021.

What made you happy this week?

Argh Author: Kay Keppler’s Skirting Danger

Kay Keppler has a new story out: Skirting Danger.

Suspended for a hunch gone wrong, CIA language analyst Phoebe Renfrew is desperate to get her job back. But when she uncovers a terrorist plot at a Las Vegas start-up owned by famed ex-quarterback Chase Bonaventure, no one will listen. Can Phoebe get Chase on her side—and thwart international disaster—before the All-Elvis Revue sings “Jailhouse Rock”?

See more about Kay’s books at her website: www.kaykeppler.com

To buy Skirting Danger, see:

‎Skirting Danger on Apple Books

Skirting Danger (Chasing the CIA Book 1) – Kindle edition by Keppler, Kay. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Argh Author: Jilly Wood’s The Seeds of Exile

Jilly Wood has a new Elan Intrigues novella, The Seeds of Exile, a sequel to her last story, The Seeds of Power:

Two princes. A desperate duel. A perilous legacy . . .

How can a man not know his brother? Prince Daire of Caldermor and his heir, Prince Warrick, were raised apart. Daire’s showy. Warrick’s stuffy. All they have in common is a shared secret duty—Daire creates elan, mysterious golden beans that assure their family wealth and power; Warrick bears witness. Then Daire discovers that elan-making ravages his body. Internally he’s hurt beyond remedy, but if he modifies the time-honored elan ritual he can save Warrick from suffering his fate.

Warrick knows transforming elan is a privilege. He doesn’t believe it’s dangerous. To prevent Daire from debasing their treasured heritage he claims the throne and battle is joined. The arena: an elan-making duel. The loser’s forfeit: exile.

Daire wants Warrick beside him, not banished, but he’ll need insight and guile to win the duel without losing his brother—or breaking the ancient Legacy that protects Caldermor.

The Seeds of Exile is the second book in the Elan Intrigues historical fantasy series, though it can be read as a standalone. Expect a pacy novella about a quick-witted prince, sibling rivalry, royal politics, elemental magic, and life-or-death stakes.

For more info, see Jilly’s website.

Buy Jill’s book at:

Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Exile-El...

Barnes & Noble : https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...

Kobo : https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-...

This is a Good Book Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020

This week I re-read a lot because I’m looking for stability and safety. Tried some samples, but they all had the hero smirking and I just cannot. Went back and read A Deadly Education because I wanted to see if it was as good as I remembered. It was, it’s brilliant. Remembered a book I’d read awhile ago that started out great–members of a small high school’s senior class are dying mysteriously–until it ended with the heroine alone left to tell the tale, sitting on her porch watching the sun go down (come up?) and waiting for her own inevitable death, never understanding WTF was happening. Or maybe she did and I just missed it. One of those books you need brain bleach for, not because it’s gross or horrifying but just because it’s so damn depressing. That’s fine, just give me a head’s up in the blurb so I don’t read it, although now that I come to think about it, “This book is confusing and depressing as hell” is probably not a good blurb.

You’re safe with A Deadly Education, though. Some people die, but it’s in a good cause, you know what’s going on, and Good Wins. Also, Good is bitchy and funny and angry as hell, my kind of protagonist.

What did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, December 23, 2020

I’m still working on convincing Emily to be an indoor cat–two failed attempts to get her locked inside–and ignoring Christmas because I am just not in the mood. I think I’ll be a Druid this year. They celebrate the solstice, right? That’s over, so I’m good.

What did you work on this week? Sanity? That’s my big project for the rest of 2020, simple sanity.

Argh Author: Gin Jones’s Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

Gin has another garlic mystery out today, Rhubarb Pie Before You Die (Garlic Farm Mystery #2):

Inheriting her late aunt’s Massachusetts farm is no gift for app developer Mabel Skinner, who is about to learn that even the best-grown garlic can’t ward off murderous intent. . .

Mabel’s hope of finding an enthusiastic farmer to buy Stinkin’ Stuff Farm is dying a little bit every day. So far, all she’s found are double-dealing developers. But after a heated dispute over grass clippings with an obsessive local rhubarb breeder, she discovers something even more distressing—the breeder in question undisputedly dead in his greenhouse.

Uncomfortably aware that she might be a prime suspect, Mabel stops digging in the dirt long enough to dig up more information about the dead man, and anyone else he might have argued with. The list is longer than she imagined, and includes a persnickety neighbor and a rival rhubarb breeder. With all the ingredients for a homegrown mystery, Mabel must unearth a killer—before the next plot to be dug is her grave. . . .

“Growing garlic might be my newest obsession thanks to Six Cloves Under!”

—Lynn Cahoon, New York Times bestselling author of the Farm-to-Fork mystery series

For more info see Gin’s website.

To buy:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08...

BN https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rhub...

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/rhub...