Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 21

Dispatches from behind enemy lines

We used to leave our doors unlocked. Morning, night, whether we were at home or not. I’ve never felt unsafe in my town. There have certainly been times that I’ve felt unsafe from threats made on the internet, but those threats were coming from other places. Not here. Not in our little rural village.

I open Facebook. I see mugshots of people who share my DNA; two second-cousins I’ve not seen in years. I remember them from childhood: chubby, with bowl cuts, totally indistinguishable from any of the other kids at our middle school. Bill was behind me on the slide ladder at Uncle Junie’s pool when I got stung by a wasp. I didn’t know what to do, so I went down the slide in silent shock. I’ve never trusted hollow, duct-taped aluminum railings again. Both those former kids were arrested as part of a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

I check Twitter. There’s the sheriff of my county, giving an interview defending white supremacist terrorists, specifically the white supremacist terrorists I attended family reunions with. The sheriff and I go to the same dentist. Once, during a routine cleaning, I heard Sheriff Leaf two chairs over, complaining that he wished someone would run against him for the job, which he no longer wanted. When someone did oppose him in the next election, he fought back. My white supremacist second cousin sent threats to people who campaigned for Leaf’s challenger. Less than twelve hours after his disastrous defense of my cousins, Dar Leaf changed his mind again, scrambling desperately to distance himself from the “militia members” he proudly stood with to protest Governor Whitmer’s restrictions.

Over a dozen arrests, spanning several counties. A plot to abduct the Governor, transport her across state lines, and execute her for “treason.” All because bars and gyms were closed to slow the spread of a dangerous pandemic ravaging the country. All because a stubborn barber decided to keep his shop open and was stunned to learn there would be consequences.

My cousins’ sister, whom I’ve remained in contact with via social media, posts an ultimatum: if you believe that they’re involved, unfriend her. They did nothing wrong. If you’re not willing to rally to support them, to raise money for their combined $500,000 bail, if you won’t put a sticker on your car expressing your support, you can unfriend her. I fulfill her request with a click of my trackpad. The last I see of her anger is a vow that she stands with the Michigan Liberty Militia.

The founder of that group hails from our village, where everyone  tempers their gossip with insistence upon the boys’ innocence and pleas that we not trust the media. Wait until you see the evidence, they warn. Things aren’t what they seem.

The Detroit Free Press runs an article about the people involved in the plot. Above the section about my blood relations, they’ve used the heading, “‘redneckery’.” They describe rural white conservatives as some kind of wronged people, whether they intend to, or not. Testimonials from neighbors and descriptions of bleak rural yards strewn with beer cans seem sensational or horrific, I assume, to anyone who’s never lived among the rural working poor. But we all live like this, I think, looking out at the remnants of our weekend campfire in the driveway. There are cans here. And a car that hasn’t moved in years. And we haven’t joined a militia.

“I have hard time wrapping my head around the fact that these guys have dropped everything to help [my step grandparents] and your grandma when they had trouble with their houses,” my mom says in a Facebook comment. But militias? Anybody in Michigan understands those.

I was twelve years old when I learned that the government is out to get us. Not from anyone in my immediate family. At the local pizza place one night, my uncle got into a tense conversation with my grandparents about a family in Idaho who were murdered for exercising their second amendment rights. To him and every other single-issue voter in town, Democrats lurked around every corner, just waiting to take our guns. The FBI, the ATF, Federal Marshals were the enemy.

Yesterday, “President” Trump boasted about U.S. Marshals carrying out an extrajudicial execution in his name. The “president” of this supposed “land of the free” bragged about his death squad killing a civilian while his supporters cheered him on. The same family members who felt the government overstepped in Waco, at Ruby Ridge, now they admire the intelligence of a leader who views not just the U.S. Marshals as his own killing force, but who courts those very militias that are supposed to oppose the extreme fascist actions he’s taken.

Many of the men charged in the terrorist plot against Governor Whitmer are hardcore Trump supporters, but since the ringleader once referred to Trump as a tyrant and owns the same generic anarchy flag found in every metalhead’s basement lair or suburban garage hang-out space, the plot was carried out by Leftists. By Antifa. By BLM. By Democrats and liberals, all howling for the fetal body parts of aborted white, Christian babies. Don’t believe the evidence before your eyes. Believe that the right is right, the left is evil, and it’s perfectly normal to storm the state capitol brandishing two semi-automatic rifles with high capacity magazines because face masks are itchy and you can cure a virus by screaming “freedom” at it.

On October 9th, my mother shared a conservative meme about Covid-19. The text warned that living like you’re afraid of dying means you’re dead already.

Last night, she called to tell me that my seventeen-year-old brother tested positive and has had a fever for days. My eighteen-year-old sister is symptomatic. Not my mother, who voted for Trump and still intends to vote for him. Not my stepfather, who also supports Trump. My siblings, who didn’t have a say in whether or not this man was elected, have been condemned to wait and see if they’ll recover fully, partially, or at all. And on November 3rd, their parents will walk into their polling place and cast their votes for the man who did this to their children. The man who, according to another Facebook post shared by my mother, is fighting a war on behalf of Christians by killing so many of them.

Last week, my friends and I made a lot of uneasy jabs about the cottage across the road from the Airbnb we stayed at. The ramshackle little house needed new gutters. A broken down truck half-covered with blue tarp sat in the driveway. An American flag hung in faded tatters beside a crisp, new “Trump 2020” banner. We joked that the occupants might be responsible for that kidnapping thing we’d heard about in passing.

Not long after that, I stood on the porch of our rental and watched that “Trump 2020” flag hang stiff and cheap in the breeze as my grandmother told me over the phone what the “little shits” had done. When we drove away from our trip, my friends joked that at least we were going to be away from that Trump house.

But that same, cheap nylon “Trump 2020” hangs in pride of place over my neighbor’s porch, as well.

We lock our doors now.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Crave chapter 3 “Vampire Queens Aren’t the Only Ones with a Nasty Bite”

Um.

Hmm.

Uh.

Okay.

Where last we left our heroine, she’s just met the guy who’s definitely going to be her love interest. And that’s…

That’s all that happens in this chapter.

I don’t know what happened.

This author is a good writer. This book has been interesting so far.

And then chapter three happened and my worldview has been shattered.

I’m going to start this off with a disclaimer: I’m going to talk about the publisher, editor, and another series published by this publishing house. I would very much appreciate that none of these parties contact me. Especially not on my home phone. Again.

So, Grace had picked up a chess piece that looks like a vampire and the love interest says it has a nasty bite.

“Who’s got a nasty bite?”

He reaches past me and picks up the piece I dropped, holds the queen for me to see. “She’s really not very nice.”

I stare at him. “She’s a chess piece.”

His obsidian eyes gleam back. “Your point?”

“My point is, she’s a chess piece. She’s made of marble. She can’t bite anyone.”

That is going to be an unfortunate eye description choice by the end of this recap. But we can’t let this passage go because it’s the first in a veritable avalanche of hints that this is a school for vampires that ends up making Grace an official Too Stupid To Live heroine.

Alphole Smartass Jr., which is what I’m calling him now (middle-aged writers, you get it), misquotes Hamlet to Grace, saying “there are more things in heaven and hell,” rather than “there are more things in heaven and earth” and he mocks her.

“I think I like my version better.”

“Even though it’s wrong?”

“Especially because it’s wrong.”

So, we’ve got dark hair, amazing cheekbones, and enough arrogance to power a Ferris Wheel if we could somehow convert needlessly inflated male self-esteem to electricity. Bad news! It’s a renewable energy source!

Grace thinks about how much she wants to get away from Alphole Smartass Jr., the number one quality one wants in a meet-cute.

Because the longer I stand here, the more I realize this guy is as terrifying as he is intriguing.

I’m not sure which is worse. And I’m growing less sure by the second that I want to find out.

“Terrifying” is always how one should describe a love interest. Especially in a book touted as “feminist.”

“I need to go.” I force the words past a jaw I didn’t even know I’d been clenching.

“Yeah, you do.” He takes a small step back, nods toward the common room Macy and I just walked through. “The door’s that way.”

It’s not the response I’m expecting, and it throws me off guard. “So what, I shouldn’t let it hit me on the way out?”

He shrugs. “As long as you leave this school, it doesn’t matter to me if it hits you or not. I warned your uncle you wouldn’t be safe here, but he obviously doesn’t like you much.”

He clearly knows why Grace is there…so he tells her that one of her two last surviving family members doesn’t care about her enough to keep her safe?

Now, I know we’re treading across very, very familiar ground here when I point out that “safety” is a red flag. What does it matter? He doesn’t know her. He clearly doesn’t care about her feelings. But he feels possessive enough after some aggressive banter to verbally abuse her to keep her “safe”.

From a foreshadowing perspective:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school

It took Bella Swann like one inciting incident to go, “Maybe I should google vampires.”

“Who exactly are you supposed to be anyway? Katmere’s very own unwelcome wagon?”

“Unwelcome wagon?” His tone is as obnoxious as his face. “Believe me, this is the nicest greeting you’re going to get here.”

“This is it, huh?” I raise my brows, spread my arms out wide. “The big welcome to Alaska?”

“More like, welcome to hell. Now get the fuck out.”

Everything we’ve seen so far has indicated that Tracy Wolff is a much better writer than this. Let me propose a theory that I have. Again, just a theory, I’m not saying this is exactly what happened. This is not an accusation. This is pure speculation. But I have suspicions that Wolff either didn’t write this or it was heavily tinkered with by the editor, Liz Pelletier.

Entangled’s other big hit series, Roswell Lux featured a tall, dark, obnoxious hero who insulted the heroine and acted like a dickhead to her for what he decided was her own good. Now, Crave is much, much, much better written than that series. However, this is also incredibly similar to the meeting between the hero and heroine of that series. I should know; before the author was revealed to be a succubus, I stanned those books so hard (though in hindsight, having just compared these scenes to make sure I wasn’t misremembering, I couldn’t stand the hero anymore). I felt like I was having flashbacks.

Now, am I accusing Tracy Wolff of ripping off the rip-off queen? Absolutely not. But here are three things I know for sure:

Liz Pelletier edited both books; she actually came up with Lux and asked the succubus to write it.
Liz Pelletier has been trying her ass off to get an Entangled book made into a movie.
The movie deal for Lux fell through.

Here is what I, again, merely theorize happened: When Crave slid onto her desk, Liz, seeking to recapture the magic of the early 10s YA scene, saw an opportunity to resurrect the characters that Melinda Metz she dreamed up for Roswell Lux and rekindle the relationship spark that made Roswell Lux so popular.

I think Pelletier either wrote this scene herself or heavily influenced the writing of it, not realizing that YA has moved past the “I hate you/I love you/let me fix you” plotlines that dominated it in the early ’10s.

And while I am so, so fucking furious to have to do this, I have principles, okay. Principles do not bend or alter just because a lying succubus is the author whose work is in need of defending. I feel like this scene skirts way, way too close to Katy and Daemon from the succubus’s books. All we need is one insulting and unwanted pet name for the heroine that the hero keeps using for no apparent reason (how did that not drive me up a frickin’ wall when I first read it?!).

And the banter. THE BANTER. This entire chapter is only this particular conversation. That means it’s extra short. Gotcha! It’s not short at all! It’s eight god damn pages of Grace being sassy yet irresistibly drawn to this guy who she thinks is an asshole but can’t help herself from being attracted to and who wants to keep her far away for her own good.

Eight god damn pages.

Wanna know what everyone loved about Katy and Daemon in Lux?

It was the super clever banter. That in hindsight wasn’t terribly clever but it’s what people loved, okay? Stop judging me, it was a long time ago. Everybody makes mistakes.

But I just can’t believe in my heart of hearts that the believable teen heroine we’ve spent a prologue and two chapters with would suddenly come out with:

“Is it that stick up your ass that makes you such a jerk?” I demand. “Or is this just your regular, charming personality?”

In your mind, imagine literally any character on The Big Bang Theory delivering that insult. Put the laugh track in. You can see it, right? You can see how grindingly dull and unimaginative this eight page conversation is gonna be.

Just so I don’t have to paste the whole damn chapter in here, I’m going to just confirm without direct quote that yes, he absolutely has been smirking and the word smug has for sure been used to describe him. He tells Grace point-blank that someone is going to eat her.

“Seriously? That’s what you decided to go with?” I roll my eyes. “Bite me, dude.”

Get it? Because he’s a vampire? And also because teenagers totally say, “bite me, dude,” all the time these days.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He looks me up and down. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even make an appetizer.”

But then he’s stepping closer, leaning down until he’s all but whispering in my ear. “Maybe a quick snack, though.” His teeth close with a loud, sharp snap that makes me jump and shiver all at the same time.

Which I hate…so, so much.

Awesome because me, too. I also hate this. I hate that he’s violating her personal space to intimidate and threaten her and I hate that it’s being used to show how apparently sexy this dude is.

But let’s go back to Grace being Too Stupid To Live:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out

MISS I AM SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT VAMPIRES.

As this conflict is going on, people walking by are conspicuously ignoring both Grace and Alphole Smartass Jr.

[…] “What is wrong with you?” I mean, seriously. He’s got the manners of a rabid polar bear.

“Got a century or three?” His smirk is back—he’s obviously proud of getting to me—and for a moment, just a moment, I think about how satisfying it would be to punch him right in the center of that annoying mouth of his.

Get it? Centuries? Because he’s a vampire?

Look, Grace. This guy isn’t just a vampire. He is the Hannibal Lecter of vampires, in terms of the shitty obvious puns he keeps dropping for you to pick up on. How are you not getting any of this?

“You know what? You really don’t have to be such a—”

“Don’t tell me what I have to be. Not when you don’t have a clue what you’ve wandered into here.”

Then tell her.

“Oh no!” I do a mock-afraid face. “Is this the part of the story where you tell me about the big, bad monsters out here in the big, bad Alaskan wilderness?”

“No, this is the part of the story where I show you the big, bad monsters right here in this castle.”

GRACE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION:

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out
Warning that there are actual monsters in the school

Even though Grace has stepped back to put distance between them, he gets super close to her again because of course, he does. And she gets all fluttery because he’s so close to her because of course, she does.

I hate that he’s bested me, and I hate that being this close to him makes me feel a bunch of things I shouldn’t for a guy who has been a total jerk to me. I hate even more that the look in his eyes says he knows exactly how I’m feeling.

Maybe I’m just seeing things that aren’t there but I’m pretty sure other people who’ve read the Lux series (may God have mercy on your souls) have to see how similar-but-not-identical this is to the first few interactions with Katy Daemon.

There’s more of Alphole Smartass Jr. being a disgusting, predatory creep:

The fact that I’m reacting so strongly to him when all he seems to feel for me is contempt is humiliating, so I take one trembling step back. Then I take another. And another.

But he follows suit, moving one step forward for every step I take backward, until I’m caught between him and the chess table pressing into the back of my thighs. And even though there’s nowhere to go, even though I’m stuck right here in front of him, he leans closer still, gets closer still, until I can feel his warm breath on my cheek and the brush of his silky black hair against my skin.

This exact interaction happened with Katy and Daemon, except he backed her into a tree while he acted tough and scary.

It’s okay, though! Alphole Smartass Jr. was just reaching for a chess piece.

This one is fierce, eyes narrowed, talons raised, mouth open to show off sharp, jagged teeth. But it’s still just a chess piece. “I’m not afraid of a three-inch dragon.”

“Yeah, well, you should be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.”

It’s just going on and on with the back and forth to the point that I wouldn’t be surprised to turn the page and see “Nuh-uh!” “Nuh-huh!” This just doesn’t track with what we’ve read so far; it was so much better up until this point. The story went places. Things were interesting. Now, it’s just a creepy dude getting too touchy with a grieving orphan who apparently found her new and very specific kink.

There’s a big chunk of breathless explanation about just how thrilling and sexy-but-infuriating his closeness is, to the point that she ends up actually leaning back over the table to get away from him because he’s got her basically trapped. Then, because it’s not a threatening question to ask someone when you’ve been blocking their escape and staring silently into their eyes for, quote, “twenty-five seconds,” he wants to know what she’s afraid of.

Images of my parents’ mangled car flash through my brain, followed by pictures of their battered bodies. I was the only family they had in San Diego—or anywhere, really, except for Finn and Macy—so I’m the one who had to go to the morgue. I’m the one who had to identify their bodies. Who had to see them all bruised and bloody and broken before the funeral home had a chance to put them back together again.

Because this is such a good, evocative, actually insightful look into Grace’s characterization and backstory, I hate to nitpick this. But I’m going to because I care a lot about death and all the death industries, and as a result, I’ve reached out to people with experience in these areas, as well as casual death fans, to find out how likely this scenario is.

Not very.

Now, why am I not going, “Okay, creative license,” in this case? Because it’s actually based on super harmful misconceptions around post-death investigations. While procedures vary from state to state, here’s what my research has yielded:

In many places, a minor child cannot legally identify a body.
In most cases, identification of a body is done with photographs, not at the morgue drawer as we see in movies.
In cases of extreme disfiguration, families are asked to identify intact parts and spared the sight of the deceased’s gruesome injuries.
In cases where they can’t get around the family seeing the injury or disfigurement, morgue staff does everything they can to make sure the body is as clean and presentable as possible or does the photo thing mentioned above.

We tend to see morgues in movies as dark, cold, sometimes dirty, definitely unfeeling places where everyone is callous and gruff and doesn’t give a shit about the grief that families experience or the trauma these types of viewings can create. That’s why I’m mentioning it. It would have been more logical and honestly, would probably pack more of a punch if she’d been in the car with them, survived, but remembered the gruesome details that way.

Now, back to Alphole Smartass Jr. and his question about what she’s afraid of.

“Not much,” I tell him as flippantly as I can manage. “There’s not much to be afraid of when you’ve already lost everything that matters.”

Bam. You’re not going to scare her because the worst-case scenario has already happened. Which, by the way, is a journey I love for Grace.

Until this happens in the next paragraph:

He freezes at my words, his whole body tensing up so much that it feels like he might shatter. Even his eyes change, the wildness disappearing between one blink and the next until only stillness remains.

Stillness and an agony so deep I can barely see it behind the layers and layers of defenses he’s erected.

But I can see it. More, I can feel it calling to my own pain.

This is where Grace starts to rationalize why it’s okay for this kid to behave this way. It’s his pain. She understands him. They’re connected.

Instead, we stand there, frozen. Devasted. Connected in a way I can feel but can’t comprehend by our very separate horrors.

I don’t know how long we stay like that, staring into each other’s eyes. Acknowledging each other’s pain because we can’t acknowledge our own.

Long enough for the animosity to drain right out of me.

And just like, she’s no longer got a problem with a guy who has invaded her personal space, snarled at her to get the fuck out, told her that her only remaining family doesn’t care about her, and threatened to bite her. Because she can see the pain that totally justifies his behavior.

That picture is honestly the best stock photo purchase I’ve ever made. I get so much use out of it.

Now that we know it’s okay for this guy to be super confrontational, aggressive, and threatening to women, it’s time to know how dreamy this whole interaction is:

Long enough for me to see the silver flecks in the midnight of his eyes—distant stars shining through the darkness he makes no attempt to hide.

She sees past his hardened outer surface to the cosmic wonder of his soul or whatever?

Five minutes ago, this guy was being a total douche to me. And now…now I don’t know anything. Except that I need space. And to sleep. And a chance to just breathe for a few minutes.

Grace tries to push him away and even asks him, “Please,” but he waits a little bit, toying with her hair before he takes a step back.

THE FEMINIST TWILIGHT Y’ALL

Just in case we didn’t already get that it’s totally okay for him to treat our heroine this way, we gotta throw in physical tragedy. He has a scar that runs from his eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. She didn’t notice it at first because his hair was in the way and also he’s so, so pale.

Scary gothic school in the middle of nowhere
Brooding, intense, black-eyed guy
Warning about a vampire chess piece biting
Warning about not being safe in the school
Warning that someone will eat her
Possibly brooding guy, who hasn’t ruled it out
Warning that there are actual monsters in the school
WOW THIS GUY IS SUPER PALE WEIRD HUH

It should make him less attractive, should do something—anything—to negate the incredible power of his looks. But somehow the scar only emphasizes the danger, turning him from just another pretty boy with angelic looks into someone a million times more compelling. A fallen angel with a bad-boy vibe for miles…and a million stories to back that vibe up.

Yeah, I feel like this is exactly what Liz Pelletier ordered. To make sure, I’m going to read another of Tracy Wolff’s books because she’s a good writer and I just don’t want to believe that someone who could deliver those first two chapters was solely responsible for whatever the shit this is. I have purchased Royal Treatment for two reasons: I like royal romances and this wasn’t published by Entangled. While browsing her titles, I was reminded that she’s done a lot of books for Entangled. I want to read something Entangled didn’t put their hands on so I can judge fairly. Because at this point, based on the titles I’ve read from Entangled Teen, bully heroes seem to be house style.

I’ll report back.

A scar like this only comes from an unimaginable injury. Hundreds of stitches, multiple operations, months—maybe even years—of recovery. I hate that he suffered like that, wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone this boy who frustrates and terrifies and excites me all at the same time.

Leaving aside the part where she’s just met this dude and all he’s done is bully her but she’s got all these deep feelings for him within something like five minutes of lukewarm banter that feels grossly out of character, it did make me laugh when I read, “A scar like this only comes from an unimaginable injury,” because I was like…well, duh. You don’t get it as a prize for winning the spelling bee. Unless the spelling bee in your town is super competitive.

Of course, now that she’s noticed the scar, he hides it with his shaggy hair.

I hate that, hate that he thinks he has to hide something that he should wear as a badge of honor. It takes a lot of strength to get through something like this, a lot of strength to come out the other side of it, and he should be proud of that strength. Not ashamed of the mark it’s left.

What if he got it because he was breaking into somebody’s house to steal their prescription medication but the owners were home and he had to kill one of them and glass from the window cut his face as he escaped? Should he be proud of that?

That isn’t a nitpick or criticism, by the way. I just went on a mind journey and took you all along with me.

He just stands there and lets me stroke my thumb back and forth across his cheek—across his scar—for several long moments.

This is another bandera roja, my pals. This is incredibly intimate, and though at this point she’s doing the invading of space, he initiated the inappropriate intimacy by backing her over the table.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he closes his eyes, sinks into my palm, takes one long, shuddering breath.

Then he’s pulling back, stepping away, putting real distance between us for the first time since he snuck up behind me, which suddenly feels like a lifetime ago.

Advance, retreat. Advance, retreat. The battle strategy of an abuser.

He tells her that he doesn’t understand her, and she repeats his misquoted Shakespeare at him. He once again tries to tell her to leave, and she points out that she can’t do that because her parents died. Alphole Smart Jr. admits to already knowing, confirming that he made the crack about her family not caring with the full knowledge that she’s just gone through this trauma.

Since he hasn’t driven her away from the school by all but ripping his shirt off and sparkling at her to get his point across, he leaves her with an ominous warning.

“Keep your head down. Don’t look too closely at anyone or anything.” He leans forward, his voice dropping to a low rumble as he finishes. “And always, always watch your back.”

Grace. The only way it could be more obvious that this is a vampire school would be if he ended that sentence by pulling a cord to release a bunch of confetti and Halloween balloons and a huge banner that said “Hi, we’re vampires!”

I’m honestly stunned at the turn this chapter took. It just doesn’t feel like it belongs at all.

And I want to make it clear: I like bad boy characters. They can be a lot of fun. But there’s a line between “bad boy” and “bully” and I just really felt like this crossed it. I’m a total sucker for the scary monster hero who’s down to attack the heroine until he realizes that fishes are friends, not food. But this just totally missed the mark for me.

What. Just. Happened?

Surprise! NIGHTMARE BORN is on sale October 27th!

Remember my Young Adult serial, Nightmare Born, which was a Radish exclusive? Well, good news! It’s no longer exclusive (although, Radish readers, fear not. The chapters you unlocked will still be there!). On October 27th, Nightmare Born will be available in ebook and paperback. I’m so proud of this story and so happy to be reclaiming my roots in Urban Fantasy with a new series! And check out this amazing new cover from Covers By Kris!

 

pre-order as an e-book on Amazon; paperback buy links and other platform pre-order and purchase links will be added as they become available.

 

The Funniest Things I’ve Ever Seen/Heard

Everything is ruined! Enjoy this list of the funniest spontaneous things I’ve ever seen and heard and come back to mentally when I need a chuckle (and remembered while writing this post).

Spoonman

Mr. Jen and I were stuck behind a car taking forever in the McDonald’s drive-thru. Soundgarden’s “Spoonman” was on the radio. Finally fed up, Mr. Jen, in a near-perfect Chris Cornell impression, yells, “DECIIIIIIIDE MAAAAA’AM” along with the music.

The Liberty Bell

My BFF Jill and I went to see the Liberty Bell together. In the gift shop, the famous picture of Thomas Jefferson handing Benjamin Franklin the Declaration of Independence was hanging on the wall. Jill looked up and said quietly, “Hey, can I get your John Hancock on this?”

Balancing Act

Out raising teenaged hell with some friends, we decided to go to a local church’s playground to smoke weed at around two in the morning. My friend Sean launched himself from the car shouting, “SWIIIIIIIIINGS!” as he ran at full speed across the church’s lawn. We heard an enormous, ringing clang, and Sean was suddenly flying through the air, arms and legs flailing. At the edge of the playground were a series of iron balance beams that were exactly knee-high to Sean and totally invisible from the particular angle that Sean had been running.

Balancing Act #2

Auditions for the Celery Flats Shakespeare Festival in Portage, MI were always held in the big barn behind the theater. The Celery Flats is an area where people go jogging and biking and skating on the trails and there’s an old-timey village. It was very hot, so the barn doors were open on both sides. I just happened to be seated directly across from the doors that looked out onto a busy section of the skating paths. A man on rollerblades skated into view and stumbled, somehow ending up with both legs off the ground, but in a sitting position. The frame of the barn door cut off my view of the impact of his fall, so for a few seconds, he flew past in the air as if he were seated on an invisible bus driving by.

My Best Behavior

A friend is the granddaughter of the much-beloved former mayor of a humble Michigan town. He was being honored during their town’s annual parade and my friend invited me to come along, provided I didn’t “do anything weird.” We viewed the parade from risers reserved for special guests and their families. Before the parade started, there were some kids riding their bikes along the route. One of them fell and without a second thought, I pointed with my arm fully extended and shouted, “HA! That kid just fell off his bike.”

Gramps Burn

Years ago, I jokingly said I would have sex with Bill Clinton. My Grandpa Pat shot back, “Jenny, that man’s had a heart attack. He can’t do that kind of heavy lifting.”

Gramps Burn #2

As a child, I had a huge gap between my two front teeth. I was around ten when, at the dinner table, I stuck a toothpick into the gap and said, “Look, it fits in there!” Grandpa Pat said, “Jenny, you can fit the log that toothpick come from in there.”

Gran Burn

While preparing for my Uncle John and Aunt Wendy’s 25th-anniversary party, my cousin asked my Grandma Z, “What time does the party start?” In my best Ke$ha voice I sang, “Well the party don’t start ’til I walk in!” To which my Grandma Z replied, dryly, “The party starts at four, Jenny.”

Devastating Dad Joke

My stepdad tells my sister and I that we’re “pretty in two ways. Pretty ugly, and pretty apt to stay that way.”

Hay Fever

Mr. Jen and I were driving down the road with all of our windows up, yet somehow the mere sight of a field of flowers gripped Mr. Jen with a sneeze so powerful, his head went around and around three times to wind up for it.

Food Fight

My BFF Holly and I were terrible kids. Just terrible. One day, while her sister, Nikki, was in charge of the house, I put salt in Holly’s glass of Coke while her back was turned. This escalated into a food fight that doused the kitchen in water, condiments, flour, eggs, and anything else remotely wet. The fight then moved into the guest bathroom, where toothpaste and shampoo became involved and, I regret to say, one tube of chapstick, which Holly rolled all the way up and smashed into my ear. By the time Nikki noticed that we were wrecking the house, the damage was done. The cupboards, floor, walls, even the ceiling in some spots, not to mention the furniture in both rooms and the adjoining hallway were covered with the nastiest mixtures imaginable. Nikki turned to us, pure, totally justified murder in her eyes, and shouts, “GET. OUT!” She pushed us out of the sliding glass door before we could grab our shoes, so there we were, walking down the road barefoot in Michigan in April when Holly’s dad pulls up. He leans out the window and says, “Hey there, Lil’ Pups. Where are your shoes? It’s cold out.” And Holly, with the most pitiable, Dickensian orphan expression I’ve ever seen, replied somberly, “Nikki kicked us out of the house without our shoes.” Their dad drove back to the house angry with Nikki, who was left to clean up the mess because as the adult at home, she let things get out of hand. That’s right. I said “As the adult.” Nikki wasn’t way older than Holly and I; we were fourteen and far, far old enough to know better.

Pest Control

After complaining about a wasp nest in a tree outside our house, I came home to find my cousin D-Rock standing on our roof with a can of homemade napalm and a bow and arrows. Her brilliant plan? To shoot flaming arrows into the nest. While drunk. And on a roof.

It occurs to me that I may have told all of these stories before. But I’m just trying to get back into the swing of writing something every day. At the very worst, you chuckled at the same thing twice.

Dear Anonymous Exes

Dear Anonymous Exes:

I don’t know why I’m writing this letter. Maybe being surrounded by the plague and therefore constantly reminded of my own mortality has enticed me to look back on my life and start listening to Tori Amos albums again. Maybe watching my oldest child race toward that arbitrary mark of adulthood, the eighteenth birthday, has forced me to see my life through a wiser, more nostalgic lens. Certainly, my recent mental health struggles, rooted in ABA therapy in childhood, have made me scour my past for “aha!” moments to reflect on from my new perspective.

This new perspective is rooted not just in the arduous process of undoing or at least, learning to live with the way my personality was grafted onto me for the convenience of the adults in my life, but also from the stability of a relationship in which my partner and I have grown together and weathered personal changes and life’s traumas. As a romance writer, I constantly get asked if I draw on things from real life. I do, but not in the raised-eyebrows-wink-wink-research way people assume. It doesn’t take a ton of research to know whether or not you’d like to write about specific sex acts; emotional conflict has to be mined from personal experience to ring true. It’s all well and good to describe hurt or new love or anger with those words. It’s another thing to go back and in time and remember a specific moment when you felt a specific brand of one of those things.

As I struggle through this point in my career, wondering if there’s still room for me to write romance or if I still care about and enjoy the genre as much as I did when I started, where I’m going from here, I’ve been thinking about you, exes. Here are some messages to you, in no specific order, with no identifying markers and the continuity on shuffle:

You are in your forties. Please, do not buy a skateboard.

I will always consider you one of the loves of my life. I don’t know why I left you for a guy who’s considering buying a skateboard in his forties but after seeing the way you treated your partners after me, I’m so glad I did.

I shouldn’t have dated you. I was in love with your ex-girlfriend, not you. I just fundamentally did not understand my own sexuality and it caused me to misdirect my affection. Sorry I hurt you.

Okay, now that I think about it, I’m not 100% sure you’re actually going to buy that skateboard. Please, please tell me you’ve given up your shoplifting habit.

I know you had sex with the upstairs neighbor.

Dude, that was my first breakup. I’m sorry I cried so hard. I bet you felt terrible and you were really a nice kid.

The moment I met your parents, I knew we weren’t going anywhere.

After you broke up with me, I saw you from the window of my bus on the way home from work and I cried.

It was weird that you chose to dump me while I was asking you a question about Froot Loops.

You were too old to be dating a seventeen-year-old.

I should have lost my virginity to you.

Turns out, I’m not a terrible mother after all. I mean, I’m definitely not the mother you would have wanted for your children, so everything turned out for the best.

You smelled like a wet dog.

Hey, was that you in Red Lobster in 2008 waiting to go on a date, looking like you just got done painting houses? Pull it together, yo.

She’s out of your league, bro.

Your opening line was hilarious but I shouldn’t have gone home with you.

I can’t believe I let you break my heart.

I didn’t leave my watch at your place because I wanted an excuse to see you again. I left that watch at your place because I didn’t want to have to see you again. I just bought a new watch, bro.

In the future, don’t brag to the person you’re dating about how badly you treated all the people you dated before.

Your IG is ridiculous. We get it. You’re rich. Just like your parents.

Your IG is ridiculous. We get it. You have abs.

Your IG isn’t too bad. But your kids are ugly as hell.

You’re wrong about blowjobs being unhygienic but honestly, my neck has never been so relaxed in the early stages of a relationship.

I’ll admit it, I checked up on you out of curiosity. I’m so proud of the you that I knew years ago. I’m not gonna go digging but please don’t be a fucking Trump supporter.

I shouldn’t have lost my virginity to you.

Remember that time we were going to get groceries and you said, “Do you have the keys?” and I said, “Yeah,” and then we immediately started having tear-our-clothes-off sex on the floor right in front of the door? That was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever been able to pull off, in terms of smoothness and sexiness.

Why the fuck do you keep running into me right when we’ve both just noticed someone else’s fart? It isn’t my fart!

Sincerely,

Your Crazy Ex You Probably Still Tell Horror Stories About

PS. If I see you on a skateboard I’m gonna circle the block to make various demoralizing remarks, loudly.

 

August, 2020

I’m frozen.

Trapped in a solid block of dread so cold that the tips of my toes are constantly numb.

That can’t be a coincidence.

It’s generally accepted that stress can cause or exacerbate health problems. Is stress what I’m feeling when I see mailboxes and sorting machines hauled away on trucks just days after President Trump openly admitted to intentionally sabotaging mail-in voting? I’m sure there’s some stress there.

I sleep a lot.

Way more than I should, in strange patterns, waking early in the morning only to go back to bed four hours later. Sleeping until evening, moving to a new location to nap.

On September 11, 2001, I watched the news until mid-afternoon. Then I slept, too overwhelmed to be conscious. Like most people, the rest of that week doesn’t register. Was it like this, back then? The constant exhaustion from fear? Or is this worse? Is it longer-lasting? Or did that dread just roll over into dread about the Forever War, into dread about Trump, into dread about…all of it. Everything.

I wake up to consciously relax my muscles.

Even in a deep sleep, I’ll rouse to find my body tensed for flight. I breathe deeply and work through the progressive relaxation tricks I learned in therapy for C-PTSD.

It’s almost a relief to be terrified of something tangible. I have a reason to be afraid, now. A legitimate reason to dread the months to come. As the optimistic left counts down the days to the election, I know that November isn’t the end of all of this unrest but the official beginning. Americans are now living in a time period that won’t be covered as thoroughly by future textbooks as will the events to come.

I’m surrounded.

“Recall Whitmer!” demands a row of signs along the road. Recall the governor, for trying to save you from yourselves. Kill your family by gathering in large groups to own the libs.

There is a bar at the end of my street, constantly surrounded by motorcycles. The Confederate flag graces nearly every one of them. There are “Bikers for Trump” among them. They are armed. My husband tells me not to put up political yard signs. He goes to work every night worried about his employees being shot for enforcing the mask mandate.

The Proud Boys are coming.

Kalamazoo, the city that is my second home, will be host to a pro-fascist invasion on Saturday. “I guess I’m getting pepper-sprayed this weekend.”

But I’m broken. The stress, the fear has left me fragile. When am I going to die? From the virus? From violence? When violence erupts, be it a revolution, civil war, or outside nations fighting against our tyranny, being in the wrong place at the wrong time will be a more common cause of death. Does it matter if a rubber bullet ends my life or a real one?

I’m not sure what’s real.

I dissociate more often, doubting if I should be afraid or if I’ve finally lost my mind completely.

Driving to my once-weekly grocery trip, I wonder if this will be the time that the snotty-looking Shipt shopper who’s always there, always maskless, infects me by standing too close in the check-out. On the way, I see church parking lots packed all the way out to the road, “Pray for our country” on their signs. Yards are covered with cars for big family gatherings on the lake. Kids are laughing, splashing, chasing each other. Facebook sports vacation photos of maskless families beaming at popular attractions. Did I make the virus up? Is this all in my head?

I take walks in my yard.

The wellness books say it’s good for you. So do all of the herbal apothecary books I’ve purchased.

I’m making medicine from the plants I’ve foraged. I’ve learned how to identify wild, edible foods. It’s no longer about wellness. I think toward the future, to what my husband, a retail grocery manager, said when I asked him to tell me, truthfully, if we’ll run out of food in our area. He looked at me and said, uncomfortably avoiding my eyes, “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn how to grow food indoors.” I tell him he’ll need to get a deer license this year. I promise I’ll dress his kills.

I was right.

On election night, when I was being “hysterical.” At every turn of the knife thrust into the backs of people in this country, I was “hysterical.” Because “He can’t do that.” And “They won’t let him.”

They let him. He did that. Already vulnerable people have been made more vulnerable, dehumanized for the next step in what “hysterical” people have seen coming all along. The rise of fascism, because it’s preferred to communism or socialism. Because the people voting against their own interests in order to win a childish game have brought us to this point.

I wish I wasn’t right.

About the past, about the present, about what will come in the future.

But I think I am. I know I am. I try to tell myself to qualify my statements. “Remember when they called you hysterical? You don’t want that to happen again.” Was I hysterical? Is it rational to give up hope in a hopeless state? Is it easier than accepting that things are going to get worse? What if some of us can’t simply ignore politics and agree to disagree when our neighbors will be dragged from their homes in the night. Is it hysterical to plan for what is rapidly becoming an eventuality? Or is it foresight?

So many horror stories revolve around entities that thrive on fear. The moral of those stories seems to be that denying one’s fear is appropriate; that fear is worth punishment.  That if you are afraid right now, you’re doing it to yourself. And as I watch these punishments play out in popular culture, I think about what our aversion to fear is doing to us. We equate fear with death, so if we don’t fear, we won’t die. Immortality gained by hubris. And yet all around us, we see evidence that it doesn’t work that way.

Being afraid keeps you alive. It also keeps you tense in your sleep.

It’s too exhausting to consider what a new world will look like after the dust settles. It’s too painful to consider a world many of us will never see.

So I stay frozen.

I stay numb to everything around me. I withdraw further into myself. I put my dreams and goals aside for the moment; I don’t know how to accomplish them in this liminal space. I don’t know if they’ll ever be feasible ever again. I make new dreams of simple things, but they’re formless. There isn’t really a “future” I can see clearly anymore.

Right now, there’s just survival.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Crave chapter 2, “Just Because You Live In A Tower Doesn’t Make You A Prince”

All right! Back at it again with the actually good book we’re reading. Now, some have reminded me that I also thought The Mister was a good book when we started it but I was really forcing myself to be generous with that one. From what we’ve seen so far with Crave, the author can actually write sentences that don’t make you want to hurl yourself from a helicopter into the caldera of an erupting volcano.

Since it’s been a minute between recaps, previously, on Crave, we met Grace, an orphan who’s moved to Alaska to live with her only remaining relatives, who run a boarding school at the edge of Denali National Park. Right now, she’s on a snowmobile with her cousin, Macy.

The school is Katmere Academy and I don’t know where that name comes from but I know there’s a kind of fried dough called katmer and now I’m hungry.

The first paragraphs of the chapter are a little repetitious; we already knew it was cold and snowy and freezing when they left the airport. Stuff like this:

And if that place also happens to be warm and devoid of the local wildlife I can hear howling in the distance, then I’m all about it. Especially since everything south of my waist seems to have fallen asleep…

is kinda cool because it’s giving us a sense that they’re in the woods and it’s kind of spooky and foreboding, but it doesn’t hold up as a good enough reason to once again reiterate the coldness of Alaska. Especially when it’s unlikely you’d hear the local wildlife over the snowmobile and wind with a helmet on. This is a minor quibble, but it drew me out of the story enough to note it. Remember, when you’re writing deep POV or first-person POV, you can’t include information that the character wouldn’t be able to access. This is true for sensory stuff, too; if your character has a helmet on and is riding a noisy machine in windy weather, including detail about distant sounds breaks the fourth wall unless those are some really, really loud distant sounds.

As for the repetition, Grace even says:

I mean, everyone knows Alaska is cold, but can I just say—it’s freaking cold, and I was not prepared.

Which wouldn’t seem like overstatement if we hadn’t just read a scene in which she is literally unprepared, having very little cold-weather gear.

As they approach the school…

Or should I say the huge castle looming in front of us, because the dwelling I’m looking at is nothing like a modern building. And absolutely nothing like any school I have ever seen. I tried to Google it before I got here, but apparently Katmere Academy is so elite even Google hasn’t heard of it.

First of all, it’s big. Like, really big…and sprawling. From here it looks like the brick wall in front of the castle stretches halfway around the mountain.

This is another nit I’m going to have to pick. It seems incredibly unlikely to me that a sprawling castle of a school built into the side of a mountain that gets like 600,000 visitors a year wouldn’t have shown up in pictures on the internet, let alone various nature documentaries about the park. This is something I could have bought back in the ’00s, but it’s impossible that no one has accidentally stumbled across it or gotten a drone shot of it in the ’10s. I hope we learn that this is actually a Brakebills situation where people without permission can’t see it.

The structure itself is described as a Gothic cathedral-style building, which brings to mind St. Vladimir’s from Vampire Academy. I can’t find my copy of Vampire Academy, but I do remember that the school was Gothic-style, hidden near the mountains of Montana. I’m not liking the way we’re leaning into a pastiche of genre classics as we roll along but this book is nothing if not exactly as advertised. We were promised nostalgia for Twilight and that will naturally lead to other staples of ’00s YA getting a nod here and there.

When they get off the snowmobile, we get a look at Macy:

It’s the first time I’ve seen her without all the cold-weather gear, and I can’t help smiling at her rainbow-colored hair. It’s cut in a short, choppy style that should be smooshed and plastered to her head after three hours in a helmet, but instead it looks like she just walked out of a salon. Which matches the rest of her, now that I think about it, considering her whole coordinating jacket, boots, and snow pants look kind of shouts cover model for some Alaskan wilderness fashion magazine.

I think we can safely assume that in the Twilight of it all, this is going to be our quirky, Alice-type character. But if Alice and Claudia from The Babysitters’ Club got fused together in some kind of particle accelerator mishap.

Now, after that description, we get this:

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure my look says I’ve gone a couple of rounds with a pissed-off caribou. And lost. Badly. Which seems fair, since that’s about how I feel.

When you’re writing in first-person, especially if you’re writing in first-person, present-tense, it’s so difficult to find the right way to describe the narrator’s physical appearance from scene to scene. But this is done really well. Let’s break it down:

description of another character
comparison of the protagonist to that character
description provides internal detail about the protagonist

I love this formula for adding detail and if you’ve read my books you know I rely on it. Hopefully, you didn’t pick up on it. But it’s being pulled off A+ here. Not only are we learning what Macy is looking like, but we’re also getting a visual of Grace’s current appearance in a way that believably flows. 

Not only does Grace have the cold to contend with, but she’s also got to get used to the higher altitude and thinner oxygen.

Just the idea of not being able to breathe sets off the beginnings of the panic attack I’ve barely kept at bay all day. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath—or as deep as I can out here—and try to fight it back.

In, hold for five seconds, out. In, hold for ten seconds, out. In, hold for five seconds, out. Just like Heather’s mom taught me. Dr. Blake is a therapist, and she’s been giving me tips on how to deal with the anxiety I’ve been having since my parents died. But I’m not sure her tips are up to combatting all this any more than I am.

Our heroine has panic attacks! Fantastic! I mean, not fantastic for her, but far more realistic than some books I’ve read. Losing her parents didn’t make her a possibly immortal goth ninja. She didn’t just rock up to Camp Half-Blood like, yo, my mom exploded, let’s go on adventures (sorry, I just didn’t feel that Percy’s reaction to the death of his mother was…enough). She has lasting, realistic trauma, which I find lacking in a lot of YA and middle-grade books when a parent dies.

Something else fantastic? When Grace feels like she should pretend to be okay in order to put Macy at ease (a very real thing mentally ill people do so as not to burden others), Macy says:

“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me, her own eyes wide with sympathy. “Just stand there and catch your breath. I’ll carry your suitcases up to the door.”

“I can do it.”

“Seriously, it’s okay. Just chill for a minute.” She holds up her hand in the universal stop gesture. “We’re not in any hurry.”

Whenever a female character shows up in a genre YA, especially a paranormal YA, I get this weird tension in my shoulders, waiting for the other shoe to drop when the author sets her up as some kind of monster so the reader can enjoy triumphant girl hate. But here we’ve got a female side character being pretty and not a bitch. This gives me hope.

Now, before you go, “Yes, Jenny, this is, after all, the feminist Twilight,” remember that you’re in Trout Nation and ’round these parts we don’t have a feminism bar so low that simply “one female character is not a tired caricature of a conniving bitch” clears it. Still, it’s nice to see it here!

As she tries to recover from her panic attack, Grace sees “a flash of red” in the window of “the tallest tower”.

I have a nit I’m about to pick.

I don’t know who it is or why they even matter, but I stop where I am. Watching. Waiting. Wondering if whoever it is will make another appearance.

It isn’t long before they do.

I can’t see clearly—distance, darkness, and the distorted glass of the windows cover up a lot—but I get the impression of a strong jaw, shaggy dark hair, a red jacket against a background of light.

So, remember how big and imposing this castle is? But standing at its base, she’s able to discern someone’s “strong jaw” through the top-most windows.

It’s not much, and there’s no reason for it to have caught my attention—certainly no reason for it to have held my attention—and yet I find myself staring up at the window so long that Macy has all three of my suitcases at the top of the stairs before I even realize it.

Gosh, I wonder if that’s the love interest.

Suffering from altitude sickness, Grace finally makes it inside the castle, which is, you know. Castle-y. When Macy asks Grace if she wants to see the rest of the place, Grace responds exactly as one would in this scenario:

I’m still far from sold on the Alaskan boarding school thing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to check out the castle. I mean, it’s a castle, […]

Right? That’s what I’m saying.

As they move through the castle, they start to run into students who are lounging around. Now, not having read ahead in the book, my assumption is an automatic, “all these kids are vampires,” because a) it’s a creepy castle boarding school in one of those places in the world that conveniently doesn’t have sun for half the year and b) because we know the love interest is a vampire. In any case, they’re obviously interested in the new girl, and given the circumstances, Grace is obviously not interested in people being interested in her.

“Well, all the single rooms have been assigned for this term. Dad told me we could move some people around to get you one, but I really hoped you might want to room with me instead.” She smiles hopefully for a second, but it quickly fades as she continues. “I mean, I totally get that you might need some space to yourself right now after…”

And there’s that fade-out again. It gets to me, just like it does every time. Usually, I ignore it, but this time I can’t stop myself from asking, “After what?”

Just this once, I want someone else to say it. Maybe then it will feel more real and less like a nightmare.

Except as Macy gasps and turns the color of the snow outside, I realize it’s not going to be her. And that it’s unfair of me to expect it to be.

Look! A heroine who realizes that while her emotions are valid, she is responsible for the way she treats people! And in such an extreme situation, too!

By the way, this is something I did not like about Bella Swann. Her aloofness when she first arrived in Forks made sense to me, as did her feeling that she didn’t fit in with the kids in her school. But I could never figure out why she’d keep hanging out with them while thinking about how shitty it was to hang out with them. Stay home. Read your books, nerd.

Anyway, Grace doesn’t want to make Macy feel bad because it’ll make Grace fall apart, too, and people are already staring at her.

So instead of melting into Macy for the hug I so desperately need, instead of letting myself think about how much I miss home and my parents and my life, I pull back and give her the best smile I can manage. “Why don’t you show me to our room?”

Look! A heroine who doesn’t immediately demand sympathy from the reader because oh my gosh, other girls are so mean and she feels bullied into agreeing with stuff! That was another thing I’ve never quite understood about a lot of YA in the late ’00s and early ’10s. The heroines always kind of had things just happen to them, or they were coerced into answering their call to adventure.

 

Macy goes off to find her dad and leaves Grace in a hallway alcove with a chessboard, which sounds pretty cool and very much like something from The Pyramid Collection catalog.

When I put down this dragon piece, I go to the other side of the board and pick up the vampire queen. She’s beautiful, with long, flowing hair and an elaborately decorated cape.

“I’d be careful with that one if I were you. She’s got a nasty bite.” The words are low and rumbly and so close that I nearly fall out of my chair.

A vampire queen chess piece? Sign me up for this set. I’m about ready to email Tracy Wolff and ask her if she made it up or if it’s a set I can buy somewhere.

But please notice, dear readers, that someone very important has shown up. Someone I have weirdly been imagining as Antonio Banderas in Interview with the Vampire.

Instead, I jump up, plopping the chess piece down with a clatter, then whirl around—heart pounding—only to find myself face-to-face with the most intimidating guy I’ve ever seen. And not just because he’s hot…although he’s definitely that.

Still, there’s something more to him, something different and powerful and overwhelming, though I don’t have a clue what it is.

I know this one. It’s that he’s the love interest in a YA novel.

Look, I’m not bashing YA novels here, I’m really not. But there are certain tropes that get used a lot. Again, without having read ahead, here’s my guess for what’s going to happen:

He’s going to bully her for a while
She’s going to hate him
But think about how sexy he is all the time
He’s going to be aggressively “flirtatious”
She’s going to hate it
Until she doesn’t
Because he’s got a lot of pain
And her love can fix him

I hope that isn’t the case but I’ll tell you right now: the select paranormal YA titles I’ve read from this publisher have all followed exactly this formula. Come on, Tracy. Prove me wrong. I want to love this book.

So, this guy has “skyscraper cheekbones” and “alabaster skin” and “obsidian” eyes.

And even worse, those all-knowing eyes are laser-focused on me right now, and I’m suddenly terrified that he can see all the things I’ve worked so hard and so long to hide. I try to duck my head, try to yank my gaze from his, but I can’t. I’m trapped by his stare, hypnotized by the sheer magnetism rolling off him in waves.

Grace, my little Caribooberry, he’s hypnotizing you, he’s white as a statue, and his eyes are black. Also, he made a vampire bite joke. Don’t be this girl. Don’t be this girl who doesn’t understand she’s in a vampire story.

And now he’s grinning, one corner of his mouth turning up in a crooked little smile that I feel in every single cell. Which only makes it worse, because that smirk says he knows exactly what kind of effect he’s having on me. And worse, that he’s enjoying it.

Is he truly a paranormal YA love interest if he doesn’t smirk? File under “aggressively ‘flirtatious'”.

The thing is, getting pissed off at the way he’s acting toward her makes her finally snap about how unfair everything in her life is at the moment. Like, the weird school, the scary plane ride, the cold, the dead parents, all of that had just built up and built up and this dude acting skeezy toward her is the final god damn straw.

It’s that anger that finally gives me the strength to break free of his gaze. I rip my eyes away, then search desperately for something else–anything else–to focus on.

You know. Like:

And land instead on his long, lean body. Then really wish I hadn’t, because the black jeans and T-shirt he’s wearing only emphasize his flat stomach and hard, well-defined biceps. Not to mention the double-wide shoulders that are absoluely responsible for blocking my view in the first place.

I feel like a lot of YA authors have never seen a real, live teenage boy in the wild.

And long, dark hair that’s worn a little too long, so that it falls forward into his face and skims low across his insane cheekbones, and there’s nothing to do but give in. Nothing to do but admit that–obnoxious smirk or not–this boy is sexy as hell.

A little wicked, a lot wild, and all dangerous.

How do we know that, though? We’re just gonna take it on the word of his cheekbones? I had a high school boyfriend with longish, dark hair and great cheekbones and the wildest we ever got was fully clothed grinding. For all Grace knows, this guy is just hot and awkward and doesn’t understand personal space.

When exactly did I become the heroine in some YA romance?

I have some news that may shock you.

The new girl swooning over the hottest, most unattainable boy in school?

Grace has no idea if he’s the hottest or most attainable boy in the school. And based on his description, for all she knows, he could be a teacher. Because his body doesn’t sound all that teen. That body sounds Hollywood teen, i.e., twenty-seven years old.

Finally, Grace decides you know what, screw the hypnotic intensity of his gorgeousness, I can tell by looking at him that he’s not looking at me the same way.

One glance and I know that this dark boy with the closed-off eyes and the fuck-you attitude isn’t the hero of anyone’s story. Least of all mine.

So, there’s a lot of telling v. showing here. Again, how do we know he has a fuck-you attitude? He told her a chess piece can bite and then stood too close to her. There’s no other verbal interaction. She’s just looking at him and deciding that based on his facial expression and hot body, he must be a total dick. I think this scene would have worked better if she’d been genuinely uneasy around him, rather than sexy-hot flustered. There is some focus on her emotional response to him in a negative fashion, but the last page of the chapter is almost all descriptions of his physical attractiveness. It really does skew toward the cliché Wolff seems to have tried to avoid. There just needed to be some balance here and I really, really hope this hero doesn’t follow down the established path of Entangled paranormal YA Alpholery because I very much want this to be my next Twilight.

The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp, Chapter Six

Need to catch up?

What is The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp? 
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Prologue
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Chapter One
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Chapter Two
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Chapter Three
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Chapter Four
The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp: Chapter Five

Some people have noticed that this story has veered wildly off the course set by the blurb my friends wrote for the fictional book cover. That’s because this nonsense is flowing through me. I am a conduit for the whims of the universe. And that universe is full of Greek mythology because that and ragging on Nathaniel Hawthorne were the only parts of English class I liked in high school. #OriginalClashOfTheTitansWasBetterThanTheRemake

The skies over Elysia sparkled with Apollo’s light, but soon, Nyx would pull Erebos together, and Selene would take to the skies on her nightly visit to the mortal realm. Time in the Astral held no real meaning, but Marcaeus estimated it would take fourteen Earth years to reach Chiron’s temple at the pace with which Fiona traveled.

“Why can’t we use one of those magic portals?” Fiona whined.

“Because Chiron’s secrecy and protection are absolute. He won’t allow anyone to travel directly into his home. If you rode me, we would be there by now,” he grumbled at her, not for the first time.

And not for the first time, she grumbled back, “Stop phrasing it that way.” This time, she added, under her breath, “You’re my boss, for Christ’s sake.”

“I thought it would be obvious that you’re fired.”

She trudged slightly behind him through the hip-deep, iridescent wheat, and her ill-suited footwear carried in one hand. Now and then, a soft curse would escape her; the ground could not have been comfortable under tender mortal feet.

Not that he cared a bit for her comfort. She is an enemy. You should treat her as such. But empathy dictated he do something to help. “If you won’t ride me—”

“Stop saying that!”

“—at least, let me carry you. Your feet will be bloody by the time we arrive.” He twitched his tail in annoyance. “And several decades older, if we have to wait for you to pick over every rock and broken stalk. Not to mention the serpents.”

“Serpents?” She turned in a circle, skittering on the balls of her feet.

Marcaeus fought against a smile. Any serpent they met would likely be Zeus out hunting for nymphs. Of course, that might also complicate things for Fiona. The God of Olympus could be incredibly persuasive, and Marcaeus assumed a half-snake offspring wouldn’t be welcome in the Trasket dynasty.

“Suit yourself, though. I would hate to give you the impression that I’m bossing you. As I am not your boss,” Marcaeus added pointedly.

“Fine!” she acquiesced, still standing on her toes. “I’ll…get on your back. I just don’t know how.”

“Like this.” He reached down before she could protest and gripped her upper arm firmly, pulling her from her feet and swinging her behind him in one smooth motion. She shouted in outrage and surprise and grabbed his shoulders as she scrabbled to get her leg over his back.

“No. Here,” he said, guiding her arms around his torso. “Haven’t you ever ridden a motorcycle?”

“No. But somehow, I don’t think it’s the same at all.” Her sentence ended with a startled noise as he took off at a gallop, and her fingers dug into his sides.

“Hold on,” he warned her belatedly.

After some time, her hold loosened, though he would likely bear scars from her fingernails, and not in the way he would have preferred.

And in what manner would you have preferred such maiming?

“I wasn’t lying,” Fiona said, startling him. Was she one of the rare humans who could read minds or emotions?

“You were lying,” he replied evenly after the context of her remark occurred to him. “From the moment you stepped through our doors, you have been lying.”

“I meant I wasn’t lying about my motive for lying. I really was trying to protect someone from my brother.”

“Dishonesty is dishonesty, no matter the reason.” That was a difficult truth for mortals, he’d learned, especially in business. It seemed that any lie could be justified if the deception benefited the deceiver in some way.

To his surprise, she agreed. “You’re right. But sometimes, the end justifies the means.”

“Didn’t your human, Machiavelli, write that?” The book had come out recently; he was fairly certain.

“My father quoted that around the house, more than he quoted the Bible.” She snorted in derision. “Regardless of what his campaign ads said.”

“That is something I’ve never understood about mortals.”

“Our hypocrisy? I can’t figure it out, either.”

“No. Your belief that there is a god who wishes you well or grants boons based on a system of goodness or morality. The truth is, all-powerful deities are only as all-powerful as their attention spans allow. Once they lose interest, you’re all on your own.”

“And you think God has lost interest in us?”

“You’re a shrewd person. You make foolish decisions, but you are no fool. Do you really need me to answer that question for you?” The mortal plane had been burning when the Astral races had stepped in. Where had the god of man been? Why had he not intervened? And yet they still could not bring themselves to believe in his disinterest.

Her hold around his waist tightened. “What’s going to happen to me?”

He wanted badly to reassure her that no violence would come to her, that she wouldn’t be detained in the astral for long, but no matter the sweetness of her voice and the courage of her convictions, she was still a spy—still his enemy.

“That’s for Chiron to say. Not I.” Let her believe danger awaited her; perhaps it would serve as warning enough to stop her from participating in her brother’s schemes.

She is not your student. His own voice sounded too reasonable in his head. It wasn’t his place to teach this mortal ethics, especially since she came from a family who so deftly maneuvered around them.

“I assume I’ll be interrogated,” she said, her sentence tilting slightly upward at the end.

This, Marcaeus had learned, was referred to by humans as “fishing.” If they didn’t state what they meant plainly, someone might correct them, and that correction might come with additional information or context the querent sought.

“You won’t trick me, mortal.” He reached behind his back with one arm to hold her steady as they approached a stream tumbling merrily down gently sloping rapids.

“I’m not trying to—” she began. “Wait…you’re not going to swim us across that thing.”

“Of course, I’m not.” The water was hoof-deep at most. “But you do not wish to be pulled down.”

“Pulled—”

He stepped into the water, moving carefully over the rocks, and almost immediately, a playful squirt arced a hair’s breadth from his face.

Water flowed upward to form the deceptively pleasing shapes of Naiads, spirits of the river who lazed decadently along the banks and peaked over the swirling rapids.

A fluid hand crept up his back leg. He flicked his tail, dispersing the droplets. “Let us pass without mischief. I have no time for Fae foolishness.”

One of the Naiads lifted herself from the water’s surface, rising on a waterspout of foam. “Oh please! We’re ever so lonely here—”

The water spirit walked its fingers up Marcaeus’s chest, soaking his shirt through in seconds.

Fiona yelped, “Hey!” and clung to him tighter. He turned his head to see another Naiad gripping the human’s leg while she fought and kicked free, spraying them both.

“Leave her be,” Marcaeus snapped at the stream.

A chorus of sinister, bubbling giggles answered him. Fiona screamed, and her hold on him vanished; he whirled in time to see, but not prevent, her fall into the dangerously shallow water. Her head struck the rocks and lolled to the side, a grim red flower blossoming at her temple.

The water receded in horror, leaving the human stranded on the moist rock. Marcaeus cursed and bent his forelegs to kneel beside her. He laid a hand at the side of her neck, feeling for the current of energy through her, the electrical impulses that raced the pathways of human bodies. He found no evidence in the flow of her energy to suggest anything had broken, but he was no doctor. He scooped her up, looking about the now dry streambed and cursing the damned Naiads to Tartarus.

Fiona’s head lolled against his chest, her blood staining his sodden shirt pink, then crimson, spreading across the fabric like sinister flowers opening.

With another frustrated curse, he bowed his head. “Asclepius…I know I am still indebted to you. Grant me this favor, though?”

A sliver of golden light flared and took form; Apollo’s son had inherited his father’s flare. “You’re knee-deep in favors, you know. And those are higher-than-average knees.”

“To those who chose to appear as mortals, perhaps.” There was no time to trade barbs. “Consider it a favor to Chiron. This mortal is his prisoner.” However, he does not know it yet. “He’ll want her alive for questioning.”

With a weighty sigh, Asclepius rolled the sleeves of his golden robe up to his elbows. “For Chiron, then. But only because he taught me everything I know.”

That, Marcaeus knew, bothered the god more than he would let on, despite the fact that he’d surpassed his teacher. Any comparison to Chiron or his skills wounded Asclepius’ vanity. This was why Marcaeus said, “And his hard work certainly shows through in yours.”

“I raised Hippolytus from the dead, you know,” Asclepius grumbled under his breath. Still, he would never deny a patient, no matter who’d brought the injured individual to his attention. He raised his hands and laid them gently upon Fiona’s head. The still-wet blood staining Marcaeus’s shirt lifted off in a twisting curl of red smoke that slowly dissipated into golden sparks that raced back to her body as if suddenly remembering where they should be. But then they popped and fizzled back to the surface, crackling like the embers of a dying fire, and the mortal did not stir.

Asclepius raised his eyes to meet Marcaeus’s. “There’s something—”

“A demonic mark, yes.” His gaze flicked down to Fiona’s paling face.

Asclepius’s normally arrogant tone took on a foreboding gravity. “Then I fear this healing may require more than my powers can provide.”

“She’ll die, then?” Marcaeus could no longer bear to watch her fade in his arms, but they felt suddenly empty when Asclepius reached for her limp body.

“For once, I must set my ego aside. But there isn’t much time. I will take her to Chiron. Perhaps by the time you arrive, she will be conscious.” The god fluttered his glorious robes and vanished, leaving Marcaeus stunned and alone.

He’d done this. Brought the mortal into the Astral, where she might die.

It was his fault.

The stream slowly crept back, water rolling to collect in an apologetic puddle around his feet.

“We’re sorry,” it simpered.

Marcaeus stamped and galloped toward the temple, his guilt growing with every hoofbeat. 

Guess I’m forty now.

Honestly, I thought I would have transitioned into stand-up comedy. No, seriously, that was my bucket list item for this year. I was going to do an open mic night. I wasn’t going to tell anyone I know, I was just going to drive to a whole different city, do an open mic night, and cross it off my list of things I’ve always wanted to do but never did. Some of my jokes were about turning forty and how people start assuming you can’t learn or do or be anything new at that age.

And it’s true. All through my thirties, my friends and I were telling people that it’s never too late to go back and get your doctorate or your real estate license or learn how to be in roller derby. After all, Alan Rickman didn’t start acting until he was forty!

Well, now I’m forty. At the end of the world.

I’m fired up to do new things, take different directions, reinvent myself as a person. How the hell do I do that now? I can’t go out and start a weird, midlife crisis grasp at my stand-up dreams that never panned out. I can’t go to improv classes or form an experimental theater group. I can’t up and run off to New York to chase the dead hope of the Broadway career that didn’t happen then and will never happen, now.

I’ve lived my life fantasizing about the stuff I’ve always wanted to do. I saw turning forty as a golden opportunity and I was going to Rickman the hell out of it. Maybe I would move to L.A. and try writing for television! Maybe I could try my hand at acting in small films in Chicago! What if I decided to ride my bicycle around Lake Michigan? I could do it all.

Instead, I’m seriously considering starting a YouTube channel that’s just me riding my bike around town with a GoPro looking for the flock of cranes.

I guess the thing I’m struggling the most with right now is the idea that I’m not the only thing holding me back. Somehow, my lack of courage to pursue everything life has to offer was totally acceptable but forces I can’t control are completely devastating. Maybe I was expecting to suddenly shake loose the bonds of self-consciousness and soar to the heights I’d imagined when I was a kid acting out Yentl in my living room. The point was that I had a choice.

Now, I don’t have any of those choices. So, make a cautionary tale out of that as you will.

I’m usually miserable on my birthdays. Largely because I struggle daily with this idea that the circumstances of my birth made me a problem, that I started all this trouble by being born. I try to be happy but there’s always a weird thing in the back of my head saying, this is the day you ruined your mom’s life. This is the day you burst, in all your larval obnoxiousness, into a world you still don’t understand well enough to navigate without inconveniencing someone. But the milestone birthdays always seem to be about a transition between now and next.

So, here I sit, having just become forty, trying to remember the upsides and downsides of every milestone birthday. Not including my seventeenth, which isn’t a traditional birthday milestone but was a new frontier in making out because my boyfriend put his hand up my shirt and I touched it through his jeans.

For the sake of symmetry, though, I’m thinking specifically about decade milestones.

Ten years ago, I turned thirty not knowing that I was about to have some of the most painful transitions, transformations, and losses of my life. I’m still processing those. They can’t be left behind easily or summed up in hindsight. It’s all still too close. I didn’t know I’d have to give up my name. But I also didn’t know that I was about to become a much cooler person in that new identity.

Twenty years ago, a boy who would become one of my most painful heartbreaks leaned over during a late-night showing of the first X-Men movie to whisper happy birthday in my ear. I didn’t know then that only a year later, I’d find my soulmate and have two children before my next decade started. I had no idea how much the world was going to change, and how much my world was going to change. And I’d never even considered writing a book.

Thirty years ago, I was trying so, so hard to be a human correctly. To make people love me. To not annoy anyone too much. To take my pills and go to my therapy and not allow my erratic emotions to become a burden on my grieving family. To not be selfish and make a traumatic loss all about myself. To not sin, to pay attention in church, to perform the deeply ingrained and complicated rituals of two incredibly strict religions. But I also had a sweet-ass scrunchy and only four years to go before I’d meet some of the best friends of my life.

So much has changed in forty years. I can’t assume it’s all going to be for the worst. Or, I can. I just shouldn’t. But I’m so afraid that forty is going to be this weird-ass decade where I start drinking smoothies and pretending avocado doesn’t taste like butter someone dropped in the grass and also one of the children I birthed is going to be an adult in six months and I’m sitting in bed at 1:30 in the morning on my birthday drinking 64 oz. of Tang out of a big plastic pineapple because that’s how we party when time and mortality are making themselves so, so damn present.

Speaking of presents, this year, in lieu of diamonds, sacred objects, or the gift of song, I just really want someone to write me a Community fanfic where I’m friends with Troy and Abed.

 

Dear Mental Illness: We’re all in this together

CW: mental illness, suicidal ideation

To: “Depression” (depresh_daddy@hotmail.com), “Anxiety” (worrycutie69@gmail.com), “C-PTSD” (fyte_n_flyte@yahoo.com)

From: Jenny Trout (formerhumandistaster@jennytrout.com)

Subject: What team? WILDCATS

Dear mental illnesses. As you may have gleaned from the subject line, I come to you with a proposal of teamwork. We’re all in this together. You’re the Troy to my Gabriella, the Ryan to my Sharpay. Actually, the everyone to my Sharpay. The important part is, I’m Sharpay at the denouement of every HSM story after she realizes yet again that being a team player is better for everyone and we all help each other to be stars. And that’s why we’re all going to do that from now on.

Depression? I totally understand where you’re coming from. You’re right; somedays, it’s just too overwhelming to get out of bed. And you’re trying to do the right thing by me in supporting, nay, encouraging me to take a break. But sometimes, you want that to be a forever break. And that doesn’t work for me. I know you think you’re helping when you suggest that wading into freezing lake water with my pockets full of stones might be an easy way to get some time off. And I know a lot of the time, this is an idea you’ve already brainstormed with C-PTSD. But the advice you two are coming up with? Really not working for me. Imagine if I really did drive my car off a bridge. What if I lived? Can you imagine the bullshit hassle? First would be the hospital stays, then the hospital bills, probably some surgery, some in-patient psychiatric supervision, and then when that’s all over you’ve got to fight with two different types of insurance, it would be a nightmare. By the way, Anxiety is really good at extrapolating things out that way. I’m sure that if you just consulted with it, you’d see the downside to this plan, and the other plan, which is the one where I neglect bills, notices, important mail, my children, my pets, my friends, my hygiene, basically I just cancel whatever is going on that day to stay in bed, Google all the reasons people hate me, and just leave Big Mouth running on a constant loop in the background until Depression Kitty shows up and I momentarily pay attention so I can chuckle with wry humor at how same and a mood it makes me feel, without ever acknowledging that I shouldn’t take pleasure in the fact that everyone in society is fucking miserable all the time, always, forever, isn’t the helpful shuffling around of my schedule as you think it is.

But Anxiety, while I appreciate how you constantly motivate me to be and do better, I think we can find a better way of doing that. Maybe a pep talk that doesn’t start with me getting up to refill my water bottle and ends with my entire family being homeless because of that minute-long break. You definitely shouldn’t be sharing my biggest fears with Depression; it has absolutely zero productive ways to use them. What generally happens, I imagine, is that you see me not working and you think, well, she’s never going to get back to it. And if she doesn’t get back to it, she’ll be another day behind. And if she gets too far behind, we’ll be homeless and probably dead and eaten by rats in an alley. I guess I can see where that might be a concern. After all, my failure to manage our life is the reason we almost were homeless. And admittedly, there are two rats in my office. But I think the more important point we need to focus on here is that those rats are in a cage. They’re probably not going to eat us. Also? People probably do think I’m lazy. But remember: what other people think of us? Is not the end of the world. We have to keep on keeping on. Remember how we started taking those pills and OCD decided to go on hiatus? Consider sucking up some of those brain-altering pharmaceuticals, yourself.

Now, C-PTSD. You and I have a lot of work to undo. ABA ruined what should have been a perfectly awesome brain. But you and I have to be on the same page here. Having my own emotions isn’t actually inconveniencing or hurting anyone, just so long as my actions aren’t inconveniencing or hurting anyone. I’m also allowed to set boundaries. I shouldn’t be grateful that my friends and family love me despite all the shitty things about me. I should be grateful that my friends and family love me and recognize all the cool things about me. And nobody is trying to kill us. Nobody will reject us if secretly, in the quiet of our mind, we let ourselves be mad or sad or uncomfortable. And that touch of the ’tism that ABA was supposed to fix? It’s not the burden to everyone around you that you think it is. Like, 70% of all the people you choose to hang out with are also “on the spectrum.” Look, we deserve to not be victimized by weird childhood traumas we couldn’t express because bad therapy trained us to pretend we were fine with everything all the time and that if we weren’t fine with it, that was selfish of us. I promise, hand-to-god, that we do not have to be constantly tense and ready to defend ourselves or flee from imaginary dangers like someone coming to the door. Yes, they might be pushy. Yes, you might have to assert yourself in a way that might feel rude to them. I promise, they don’t know we’re broken and also, we’re not responsible for how they feel when we don’t want to go to their church. Oh, and PS. expressing our anger at Papa in the one whole argument we ever got into his whole life? Didn’t kill him. Time and Russian-level alcohol consumption did that. We’re not to blame, no matter how much our perception of how our emotions damage other people insist otherwise.

You guys. We’ve got this. We can be a team. Imagine how much time off you’re going to get once you’re not constantly bombarding me with all this helpful advice. Look how much better we feel now that we’re letting go of some masking behaviors. Imagine if all of us could just kick back, put our feet up, and function? I know we can get there.

Sincerely,

Jenny, the brain you ride around in.