Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 49

Spoiler Space for Lavender’s Blue

If you’ve read the book and want to talk about it without spoiling it for others, here’s your space.

If you haven’t read the book and you don’t want to be spoiled, go away (she said, with love in her voice).

Have at it.

This is a Good Book Thursday, August 3, 2023

This week I’m reading Excellent Oddities, aka Rocky Start, and rewriting as I go. One in Vermillion is up next. And I have a white board coming on Sunday! Nothing but good times . . .

What good time did you have reading this week?

Working Wednesday, August 2, 2023

I have been working on settling into a new place. Without furniture. I miss chairs. I do have a bed, so that’s good, and today I will put the bed frame together so I won’t be sleeping on the floor anymore, a major improvement. Also Bob kicked Rocky Start/Excellent Oddities back to me once I got to Pennsylvania, so my task list is full.

What’s on your task list?

Happiness Is No More Delays

So I moved last night. Yeah, I thought it would be earlier, but Emily William took a strong dislike to the cat carrier, and I finally had to give up and leave him there. He’ll be fine, he was a stray for two years before he deigned to moved in with me and I have the whole neighborhood on the lookout and a cat carrier waiting for him, plus a way back into the house and garage . . . yes, that was not happy making. But to have the move finally done after two weeks of delays? Wonderful.

How did you not delay happiness this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, July 27, 2023

If all has gone according to plan, I am now on the road to PA. (HAHAHAHAHAHA, according to plan, HA.). I did read a good book this week, great until I got to the end and it was a cliffhanger. SO ANNOYING. There’s a sequel, and normally I’d be all over it, but a cliffhanger . . . eh. Bob and I tried really hard not to do that in Lavender, but with a series, I understand wanting a bridge to the next book. But just a bridge, not a damn cliff. And the bridge should be that you want to see these characters and setting again, not that you need to find out who was in that surveillance footage they just found. Grrrr.

What did you read this week that didn’t make you Grrrr?

Working Wednesday, July 26, 2023

So I haven’t moved yet, going the final stuff today, out at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Probably closer to noon at the rate I’m going. So that’s what I’m working on.

What are you doing?

Argh Authors: Bob Mayer and Jenny Crusie’s Lavender’s Blue

FINALLY, Mayer and Crusie’s Lavender’s Blue is out in e-book for a rationally affordable price of $4.99. It’s the first in a series that was going to be a trilogy, but they got so caught up in the town and the community and Liz and Vince and all the details they’d stuffed the book with that they’ve decided to do three more, once the Rocky Start books are done. So that’ll be Lavender’s Blue, Rest in Pink, One in Vermillion, Blood Curdling Green, Yellow Brick Roadkill, and Blue Blood. (Titles subject to change since the last three books haven’t been written yet.)

So, “From the NY Times Bestselling duo that wrote Agnes and the Hitman, the first book in a new series.”

Liz Danger has come home after fifteen years to deliver a giant teddy bear for her mother’s birthday (color: Guilt Red) when a cop with a great ass picks her up for speeding, fixes the missing lug nuts in her back wheel, pulls her out of a ditch, doesn’t give her a ticket, and helps her avoid her family. This is a man with real potential. 

Vince Cooper picks up Liz for speeding and his life gets a lot more interesting.  Then he picks her up again in the local bar the next night and realizes that “interesting” doesn’t begin to describe what’s going to happen to him with Liz in his life.   

As Liz navigates her dysfunctional family, her flamboyant boss phoning in from Chicago, her still-interested ex, a dachshund with issues, a disaster of a wedding, assault, murder, and three hundred and ninety-three teddy bears, Vince shows up to get her through, even though he knows that the real peril for him in Burney is the one who came with her own warning label, Liz Danger.

 “A rare delight. Mayer’s delectably dry sense of humor perfectly complements Crusie’s brand of sharp wit . . . a sexy, sassy, and smart combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible.”—Booklist on Don’t Look Down

“A comic caper and raucous romance…laugh-out-loud funny…a fun ride.”—Kirkus Reviews on Agnes and the Hitman

“A bubbly novel with amusing banter and…moments of poignancy.”—Publishers Weekly on Agnes and the Hitman

LAVENDER’S BLUE: Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

Buy on Amazon or just about anywhere because Bob put it everywhere. For more information, see this blog until we get the website updated. Hey, I just MOVED, give me a minute here.

Happiness is Finding Old Stuff

I’m going through hell here trying to get this move done, but among all the snafus and heavy stuff, I’m finding things I’d forgotten about. Like pictures of Mollie in high school. And the pillowcase all the kids on one of my tech crews signed when I was teaching high school. And an old picture of Mollie and Josh when they were dating, standing close to each other and smiling at something out of the picture, just together. And a note from my old editor and a collage I’d started years ago and . . .

That part of the move is making me happy. What made you happy this week?

Exploiting You: German Breakfast Food

So in Rocky Start, Coral, a German expat, runs a bakery/coffee shop called Ecstasy. Yes, it’s still called Ecstasy.

At this point in the writing–you all know how things change radically after our first drafts–Coral opens at 7AM and closes at 3PM, and while people drift in all afternoon for pastry and coffee, her big draw is her take on German breakfasts.

So what I need here is feedback from people who eat or have eaten breakfast in Germany, or just want to talk about eating breakfast in Germany, or talk about breakfast in general and why they’d go to a coffee shop for it, or you know, just discuss Coral’s Ecstasy as a community center. . .

Below are the dishes I’ve found after a short (4 sites) google. Please weigh in on as to whether (a) these are actually German breakfast dishes and (b) what you think about them. Thank you.

German Apple Pancake—Dutch Baby with Fresh Apples lll

Bircher Muesli—Overnight Oats Ill

Bauernfrühstück Farmer’s Breakfast llll

Bauernomelett—Farmer’s Omelet ll

Hopple Popple — lll

Senfeier — Eggs in Mustard — lll

Schnecken — Sticky Buns — ll
Franz Buns — l

Apfelkuchen — Apple Cake —ll
Apfelkuchen —Apple Custard Cake —ll

Schwäbischer Zwiebelkuchen —Onion and Bacon Pie

Kartoffelpuffer—Potato Pancakes — ll

Apple cinnamon Kaiserschmarrn l

Zartbitter Heisse Schokolade (Dark Hot Chocolate) ll

Exploiting Update

So remember when I asked you to brainstorm names for Rocky Start businesses? Bob came up with the idea of using one of those business names in each title. I’ve spent the past weeks trying to find a spy title and you’ve spent the past couple of days doing the same, and then he hits me with this and I think, “That’s brilliant” because this is another community book. My contribution was that the signs should be old traditional ones with one extra word graffitied over them to make the store names more about story. So the first book is now . . .

That’s not the cover, of course, Alisha will do a much better concept when we get these to her, I do like the old sign on the old painted wall with the graffiti slashing through.

So now we have to come up with two more titles. I like Excellent Oddities for the rhythm and because it’s offbeat, but it can also be the second hand store where Rose works, all the weird stores in town, all the weird people in the town, all the weird stuff in the shop, all the weird information that keeps turning up. Multiple meanings.

So thank you very much for letting us exploit you twice.

EDITED TO ADD:

For those who want to play along . . .

We think the business in the second book is either Coral’s bakery, Ecstasy, or Geoffrey Nice’s funeral home, Nice Funerals. Bob wants to use Coral’s bakery and the plot is about this rush to find gold treasure lost in the huge forest around this town. I want to graffiti “Very” across the top of “Nice Funerals,” but Bob’s probably going to win this one. No idea what word to use for the graffiti on “Ecstasy.”

The business in the third book is The Honey Pot (I’m thinking the graffiti goes over the bottom and is “Plot” so it’s The Honey Pot Plot), which is a store that sells local honey and beeswax products.

Maybe I can talk Bob into Very Nice Funerals if we do more Rocky Start books. It’s about death. He should be into that.