Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 87

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 25, 2021

Since this is the US Thanksgiving Day, it behooves me to give a shout-out to one of my favorite cookbooks, Rick Rodgers’ Thanksgiving 101, which has the best gravy recipe, and let’s face it, Thanksgiving is all about the gravy. Plus it’s only two bucks which is always something to be thankful for.

So, what books sparked gratitude in you this holiday? (It doesn’t matter if this isn’t your Thanksgiving, we should be grateful for books all year round.)

Working Wednesday, November 24, 2021

If you’re in the US, you’re probably staring down a frozen turkey and not being thankful for it. If you’re not in the US, be thankful for that: half of our government is evil whack jobs and we’re going to be dealing with leftover bird for at least a week. (Favorite turkey moment still: WKRP’s “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”)

So what have you been up to lately?

Random Tuesday

I just deleted over 600 unread e-mails. Part of this is because I was the victim of an e-mail cluster bomb, and part because I just got behind and gave up. They’re all gone now, but if you e-mailed me in that 600+ cluster, I did not read your e-mail. Please resend.

In other news . . .

Alisa Kwitney and I are trying a kind of buddy writing system starting in December, and to begin I just tried to synopsize Nita into one doc. I started with the blurb, then did short bios of the four main characters–Nita, Nick, Button, and Max–followed up with a one paragraph plot synopsis divided into acts, and then broke down the supporting/minor characters and the major and minor settings. I need to go over it again, but that’s pretty much a story, right? Characters, plot, setting? There are a lot of characters in that sucker. And not much focus. IT’S THE ROMANCE, STUPID.

I’m re-reading Making Money now, having just finished Going Postal. The thing about Going Postal is that it’s pretty much a perfect book, if you ignore those two prologues at the beginning, so the sequel was always going to be a heavy lift. Also finance is not as much fun as the internet vs. the post office. Plus Reacher Gilt was a great smart antagonist and Cosmo Lavish is just nuts. Still it’s Moist Von Lipwig and Adora Bell Dearheart, so it’s a good book.

I’m putting together storage units like crazy. Bamboo for the bathroom, wood for the office, metal for the desk for the bedroom. I am determined to be efficient. And either get this extraneous crap out of here or at least get it put away. I am the Mistress of the Allen wrench and my Phillips screw driver is practically glowing at this point.

I’m trying to decide if I want to buy a new printer. At this point, printers are like gerbils, not really worth fixing, and the one I have probably still works if I futz with it, but there’s a good deal on an Epson I want. So far, I am not buying, but it’s a non-cartridge ink printer and that’s ecologically better. Also cheaper. It’s a dilemma.

Next Day: I woke up to eighteen e-mails at 11AM, after deleting the last of late incoming at 4AM. I spammed some, unsubscribed from some, answered some, paid a bill, e-mailed Krissie about something on BookBub and still have the NYT The Morning, Washington Post Voraciously (food), and Atlas Obscura, all of which can be deleted if necessary. Now all I have to deal with is Bob who took the deletions of his possible e-mails badly, so he’s spamming me. I answer every e-mail he sends, even the ones about eating my own arm, and now he’s complaining that they’re all snark. Has he met me? Look, I’m cranky about e-mail right now, okay? And I just got a Breaking News from the NYT. Fortunately those are read and delete. I’m down to one now–Voraaciously was stir fry and I skimmed AO–as long as Bob is doing something else.

Big plans for today. Finish the Nita doc. Clear up the mess in front of my front door and start to get the Christmas stuff up (no lights until after Thanksgiving, I have some class). Clean the microwave after my popcorn disaster. Fix the damn a on this laptop because it’s still sticking. Get my tax info together. Make a hat and scarf for Krissie. Throw out half my bedroom. Delete e-mails as they come in.

Oh, and I got a box of yarn yesterday that is already put away because efficiency is now my new byword, but now I have to make something with it. I’m thinking either a Frida blanket or Diego squares.

The days are just packed.

Have a bright and beautiful day, Argh People.

ETA: Oh, and this is Faking It in Hebrew. I love it.

Argh Author: Deborah Blake’s Doggone Deadly

Our own Deb Blake has a new book out, Doggone Deadly, and it sounds doggone good. (Pause for moan from Argh People over lame opening line.). It’s the latest in the Kari Stuart Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery series. If you’ve missed Deb on here (it’s possible, her anti-spam software had a spat with the blog and she was tragically exiled for awhile), Deborah Blake is the author of the Baba Yaga Series from Berkley (Wickedly Dangerous, Wickedly Wonderful, Wickedly Powerful), as well as the Broken Rider Series, and the Veiled Magic series. She has also published eleven books on modern witchcraft with Llewellyn Worldwide, along with a tarot and an oracle deck. When not writing, Deborah runs The Artisans’ Guild, a cooperative shop she founded with a friend in 1999, and also works as a jewelry maker, tarot reader, and energy healer. She lives in a 130-year-old farmhouse in rural upstate New York with various cats who supervise all her activities, both magical and mundane.

But enough about Deb. What Doggone Deadly about?

When the woman who is supposed to run the local dog show calls out sick, dog groomer Suz is asked to take over. But it’s too much for her to handle by herself–especially with the president of the kennel club, Olivia Weiner, criticizing her at every turn–so she calls in her best friend, Kari Stuart, with the promise that Kari can set up a fund-raising and kitten-adoption station at the show.

A long and stressful day goes from bad to worse when a local breeder’s body is found in the supply tent, with Suz’s signature purple-handled shears embedded in her chest. Kari doesn’t think for a second that her friend is capable of murder; the police aren’t so sure. But trying to run a dog show and investigate a murder at the same time is like herding cats, and Kari will have to rely on the rest of the Serenity Sanctuary staff to keep things running smoothly while she–and her beloved and clever kitten, Queenie–sniff out the truth.

To buy, go here:
Amazon
Penguin
Nook
Kobo
Apple

To learn more about Deb and her books, go here.
Website: http://deborahblakeauthor.com/
Blog: http://deborahblake.blogspot.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Newsletter: http://dld.bz/dWEQs
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/deborahblake
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deborah.blake
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahblak...
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deborahblake

Happiness is the Comic Wildlife Photography Awards

Really. Go look and see if you don’t smile.

What in your wild life made you smile this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, November 18, 2021

I finished up the last of my Ngaio Marsh read–there are 33 of them, so it’s taken awhile–and I think my favorite is A Surfeit of Lampreys (#10 about an eccentric family named Lamprey), but Artists in Crime (#6, Alleyn falls in love) is good, too, and Swing, Brother, Swing (#15, another insane family) is so much fun, and all of the books set in the theatre, and the ones set in New Zealand and . . . basically, they’re all good.

But I still needed to read something so I went back to Pratchett and read Vetinari’s lecture to Moist: “No practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.” Then Moist signed the contract as “Ethel Snake,” and I realized that if I ever do take a pseudonym, it’s gonna be “Ethel Snake.” “For the best in romcom, read Ethel Snake!” “That Ethel Snake sure does know how to write dialogue.” “Whatever happened to Ethel Snake?”

Enough about me, what did you read this week?

Working Wednesday, November 16, 2021

This is week is Make Stuff In Worsted Yarn because scarves and hats for Christmas are always good, and worsted makes it fast. Then I can go back to my regularly scheduled fingering weight projects and be leisurely again. This year it’s Chroma Twist in Wedneday (blacks and grays) and Cousteau (blues) so easy and fun.

What did you work on this week?

Argh Author: Bob Mayer’s Shane and the Hit Woman

Bob’s follow up to Agnes and the Hitman, Shane and the Hitwoman, is out today, with a kickass heroine named Phoebe and more wedding snafus. It’s back to Two Rivers with another wedding debacle in progress and Rhett drooling on everything, but the danger is new and international and worse than that, Shane’s going to have to deal with his relationship with Agnes as their careers collide.

No one warned Shane or Agnes that it was going to be a red wedding. It’s eight months after the first, bloody, wedding at Two Rivers and things have calmed down and seven weddings have been hosted without a problem. But no longer.

Bring on an eclectic hitwoman, an amiable Duke, an icy Duchess, a lot of sharp swords, a crazed ex-Duchess, a computer hacker and a dog named Rhett, and you’ve got a recipe for an action-packed, hilarious novel about the perils and promises of commitment.

Shane has no idea when he’s hidden on a snowy hillside with his sniper rifle on a job for the Organization, how the mission connects to a pending wedding. The operation goes to hell and he’s rescued by his back-up; a younger, diminutive operative named Phoebe, who is armed with a short, but very sharp sword and an even sharper tongue.

A ‘small, intimate wedding’ is what was promised. But too late he learns that it involves the fate of a small, but powerful European kingdom. At stake for Shane? Not just his life and Two Rivers, but his future with Agnes and the Organization. For Phoebe, an up and comer in the Organization, it’s her chance to show what’s she capable of. But standing in the way is the crazed ex-wife of the Duke, a mountain of a man armed with a very big sword, and a traitor within the ranks of the Organization itself.

Who will be left standing and what will their future look like?

You can buy Shane and the Hitwoman at any of these sites or just go straight to Amazon here.

Happiness is Non-Essential Conversation

My daughter called this week and we talked for over an hour about non-emergency things; happiness is your kid growing up to be an kind, thoughtful, imaginative, interesting adult who wants to talk to you. Also this week, Krissie and I discussed at great length bed tables–you know, those rolling things that fit under and over your bed so you can work while you recline–swapping links and focusing on essential aspects; happiness is analyzing things that aren’t important just because you and your best friend are obsessed with the same stuff. Basically, happiness is non-angsty conversation with good people.

So, good people, what made you happy this week?

Argh Author: Brenda Margriet’s “The Promise of Frost”

Our own Brenda Margriet has a new feel-good, steamy contemporary holiday romance novella out today at a special price for the next week (99 cents for the week after release): The Promise of Frost.

An adventurous kitten, a curious dog, and a matchmaking eight-year-old guarantee this will be a holiday to remember.

Luca Tannon’s new neighbour is a sexy but surly single dad, which is all for the best since she’s focussed on reclaiming her life after a toxic long-term relationship.

Caleb Frost won’t let anything distract him from ensuring his son’s first Christmas as the child of divorced parents is perfect. And that includes the irritatingly intriguing woman living next door.

Everything is going as planned . . . until it’s not.

Find The Promise of Frost at Amazon.
(Single Dad, Neighbours to Lovers, Steamy. Heroine is 32, Hero is 41)

And find out a lot more about Brenda at BrendaMargriet.com.