S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 9

SM Johnson ~Jazzmatazz ~ the story of a beloved dog~

So here's the thing. I haven't blogged anything more than promo materiel for about a month. Because what needs to be here next, as far as personal shit, well... frankly just sucks. It's been much easier to think about Jeremiah Quick and do interviews and promo stuff, and I knew the next time I write write about what's going on with me it was going to be a real downer.

Deep breath. The beloved old dog.

(Warning, this is a picture heavy post)

I figure I might as well get it over with now though, considering I feel like crap from THE WORST COLD EVER THAT TURNED OUT TO BE STREP THROAT, and I am missing 32 hours of work. (Holy crap, right?) Yeah. Welcome to the sick house. This is where we live.

I'm avoiding the real issue again, can you tell? Because sickness really isn't interesting enough for a whole paragraph. (sigh).

Okay.


On March 7th, 2014 our beloved old Boxer/Rottweiler (Boxweiler?) of 10.5 years named Jazzmatazz, was a sad pile of misery lying next to the back door, looking at us like, "Um, come on guys, it's time to go."

Her belly looked too big. Her back legs and feet were swollen. Every time she exhaled it ended with a loud sigh, almost, but not quite, a whine.

She'd never been a crying kind of dog. She was a happy-go-lucky creature. Every day. Perky ears, lolling tongue, bright smiling eyes. Happy.



Yeah. It was time to go.

(and yes, here come the tears, damn it)

Jazzy had been battling anemia of an unknown origin for about a month, and a course of prednisone gave her a lot of really decent days. But now. Well. If the prednisone wasn't going to work, nothing much else was going to work, and our wonderful vet agreed that the kindest thing would be to let her go peacefully. Clearly she was hurting. Clearly she was miserable.


We picked up Sprite from school. Sprite is also 10.5 years old. She has grown up with this dog. She laid on top of Jazzy and cried all the way to the vet's office. I did, too. Our vet is kind and compassionate and we sent Jazzy peacefully onto the next leg of her journey. I hope she can run and play and bark madly at squirrels and cats and bask in the sunshine. That's what broke my heart the most - that Jazzy's last days were spent during this cruel and brutal winter. I was hoping she could lie in the grass and enjoy the sun, just a little more.

This is how it starts... my dad calls when my daughter is just a couple weeks old and says, "We had puppies!" (This itty pup isn't "ours" - but a very close rendition)


But here's Jazzy and Sprite, when they were both awfully new. Look at that puppy face! Bashful and proud and nervous all at the same time. We were pretty careful about supervising the large ungainly and clumsy puppy around the baby, so being this close was a novelty, at first. To give Jazzy credit, however, she never not even once in the whole of her life snapped or growled at a child. Not once. Never. She loved children to the end of her days. If she startled her, she moved. If they flopped on top of her, she twitched an ear. If she really wanted them off, she'd just slowly roll out from underneath. No stress, no drama.


My photo files are littered with hundred of pictures of Sprite and Jazzy. I couldn't even count the number of times Sprite would holler, "Mom! Take a picture of me and Jazzy!" There are only a very few from when Sprite was very small (separation of infant and dog, after all) but once Sprite was walking and talking? Endless. This was more than a dog, this was a sister, truly a member of our family.

It didn't take Sprite long at all to realize that Jazzy was very food motivated, and would follow her beloved girl around and pay her lots and lots of attention so long as that girl had a bag of treats.



And lest I forget, let me show you right now what happened every week, on garbage day:



And the day Sprite got her first tiny little bike with training wheels? Well. Let me just tell you that Jazzy was beside herself, running paces along the driveway, and looking truly concerned. Fast-forward about three years, and Sprite's taking OFF on her bike, down the driveway, down the street, without supervision, and let me tell you, that dog was beside herself. She gave me a look that clearly said, "Are you out of your mind?" and barked out the window. Didn't I see what was happening? Our girl was going off down the street ALL BY HERSELF.

Daddy loved the dog, too. In fact, right to the end of her life, Jazzy's favorite place in the whole world was curled up behind Daddy's knees on the couch, her head resting on his thigh. Big sigh, happy dog. In the last week or so of her life, she was not able to get onto the couch, even with help, and honestly? Every one of us was a little bit heartbroken, right then.



The school bus. I don't know if Jazzy could hear it from several blocks away or what, but every day, without fail, she would perk up and jump off the couch to go wait by the window, watching for that bus. She liked it best when the bus driver dropped Sprite off right at the end of the driveway, and liked it least when the bus passed our house and dropped her off at the corner down the street, and Jazzy waited with boxer wiggles and prancing paws for her girl to come into view. Home safe. This was Important.

What is Jazzy waiting for?

THIS:

I will leave you with this last little photo set... what does growing up together look like? It looks like this:










Rest in peace, Jazzmatazz. You are an important member of this family, are well-loved and will be dearly missed for a long, long time. There's never been a better dog.


And now that I'm sobbing, I will say... peace out, darlings. Hug your puppies and your beloved old dogs for me, would you? Because I miss mine.

SM Johnson ~ Jeremiah Quick, featured new book!

Hey gang, forgot to shout this out last night, but lookie! Jeremiah Quick is the Monday featured new book at West of Mars! HERE



Huge thanks to Susan Helene Gottfried, for featuring my book on her site.

This is what I know... marketing horror/psychological fiction is much harder than marketing erotica.

Yep. I said it. Erotica pretty much sells itself.

Not that Jeremiah Quick lacks sex  - it doesn't, I promise! It's just as  explicit as my other work... although not quite as geared toward turning you on. It has a couple of hot hot hot scenes.

It's just that the purpose of it is a little bit different.

I had to pick one, just ONE song to represent Jeremiah Quick. So yeah, I did it, but I gotta tell you, there's a lot of musical referenced in this book, because music is how Jeremiah and Pretty attempt to find common ground. Also, in a bit of a throwback to their past, they share unhappy opinions about each others' favorite music.

I managed to pick a song, but it was not easy. Uh-uh. No way.

Need the link again? Here it is!

Go check it out at West of Mars!

Thanks darlings. Hope your week is sunny and, uh, well, I was going to say not below zero, but let's just stick with sunny (grin).

~SM

Official Jeremiah Quick Post

Jeremiah Quick - February 28, 2014 (ebook)

Buy it from Amazon

Buy it from Smashwords (all digital formats)



Once she was Light to his Dark. Now he's more than she bargained for.

Jeremiah is Other, he's always been Other, and he's always fascinated Pretty Loberg with his Otherness. He doesn't give a fuck about society, or middle class values, or following the crowd. He believes in anarchy, self-education, doing the research, and making up one's own mind. He believes in asking cui bono? – who benefits?

To pampered middle class good-girl Pretty, Jeremiah is terrifying. And she can't stay away.

She's been trained since her earliest years to follow the crowd, not stand out, don't embarrass the family. Stick to the status quo and not only will everything be fine, but everyone will like you.

Jeremiah doesn't like her. Not at all. In fact, sometimes she thinks he hates her.

When he finds her twenty years after high school, Pretty gets into his car, even though she knows Jeremiah will disrupt her marriage and her life.Behind those blue eyes is a man with a quick brain, a cynical outlook, and a penchant for the subversive. He's kinky, mean, controlling, and more than a little bit broken.

Pretty wants to fix Jeremiah.

Jeremiah wants to break her, remake her, and talk her into doing something terrible.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

SM Johnson ~ The Music of Jeremiah Quick

I submitted my new book, Jeremiah Quick, to be a featured book on West of Mars, and my task as the author was to choose one song to represent the book.

One song.

I was like, are you kidding me?

There are other books that I could pick one song for, because sometimes a whole book can be inspired by just one song.

But not Jeremiah Quick... (deep sigh). Jeremiah Quick has a 6.5 hour playlist. Yeah.

Because, you see, Pretty and Jeremiah have a history of connecting and relating based on the disparity of their music.

Disparity?

Yeah, that's what I said.

What Pretty loves, Jeremiah loathes, and this, then somehow becomes a dialogue and a Conversation.

There are a lot of references to bands and songs in Jeremiah Quick, and I urge you to check out the ones you haven't heard of - if any such animal exists for you - because the music and the tone of a song had some effect on the scene.

It was particularly fun and interesting to explore what Pretty likes that Jeremiah disapproves of, and what Jeremiah likes that Pretty thinks is tiresome noise.

Musically, these two characters aren't compatible, and never have been. It was an interesting growth concept, however, that the more Jeremiah and Pretty interact with the same goal, or the more Pretty submits to what Jeremiah is doing, the more she appreciate the music he loves.

Is he doing it on purpose?  Yeah, my sense is that he is.

I think... Jeremiah recognizes Pretty's love of quieter, melodic music, so I think he plays the most mellow of his favorites on purpose. And, to tell you the truth, it works, and Pretty finds new music to love.

So there I was, for two days to pick just one song.

Riiiighhhttt.

(following links go to YouTube)

I wanted Beautiful Thing by Romantic Torture - because it's so amazing and just... so... Jeremiah ("the most beautiful thing in the world is killing me..."). And because Pretty came to love it.

I wanted to choose Coil's agonizing version of Tainted Love because it embodies so much of the symbolism of Jeremiah Quick, and makes me want to shriek in absolute pain. Seriously - if you're writing something that just smashes and crashes your heart, get this song on your playlist. It fucking hurts. It's also a total Jamie song, so I sort of wish it had been my one-song choice.

I wanted to pick London After Midnight's The Spider and the Fly - because "nothing ever comes from nothing, and we pay a price for all our choices made..."

I wanted to pick Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue, or Patience  by Guns-N-Roses - because they're just so... pretty. Pretty, I mean - these were her favorites when she was a teenager, and she'll defend them without shame, the way she defended her love of Air Supply's Making Love Out of Nothing at All . "Lyrically," she says, "it's an amazing song." And she sings it, to prove her point.

She'll always prefer her comfort music of Lifehouse and Train and Matchbox 20 to Jeremiah's Leaether Strip and Nine Inch Nails, but she discovered new favorites in London After Midnight and the Virgin Prunes.

On a musical level, the differences between Pretty and Jeremiah are blatantly apparent, and I guess that's what I really want you to see.

So. What song did I ultimately pick to represent Jeremiah Quick?

It's an oldie but a goody, covered by many artists since the original version. It's a song that really represents (for me) how the past and the present can intertwine. The Who. Behind Blue Eyes.

Peace out, Darlings. I'll leave you with a sample of my Jeremiah Quick playlist, and you can search out any of the songs that intrigue you (wink).

~SM

PS. Many thanks to my friend 19 (site link, not YouTube, lol) for helping me discover goth/punk/industrial music that even Pretty Loberg could love.

JQ Playlist sample

The Dreaming Song - Torn
Beautiful Thing - Romantic Torture
Exile - The 4 on the Floor
Go In Peace - Mike Rayburn
Dark Allies - Light Asylum
Deadly Sins - the Virgin Prunes
Detonation Boulevard - Sisters of Mercy
Stay - Shakespeare's Sisters
Into the Light - In This Moment
Strap Me Down - leaether Strip
Breathe Me - Sia
Bigmouth Strikes again - The Smiths
1234 - Feist
Lover I Don't Have to Love - Bright Eyes
The Story - Brandi Carlisle
Timothy - Jet
The Road - Jackson Browne
I'm Still Here - John Rzeznik
Fix You - Coldplay
Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad - Meat Loaf
Everything - Lifehouse
She's On Fire - Train
Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band
Light in Your Eyes - Blessid Union of Souls
This Ain't Goodbye - Train
Only Women Bleed - Alice Cooper
Round Here - Counting Crows
Shattered - O.A.R.
Bother - Stone Sour
Claire's Horrors - London After Midnight
The Scientist - Coldplay
Rest in Pieces - Saliva
Tainted Love - Coil
Personal Jesus - Marilyn Manson
Cradlesong - Rob Thomas
I Am - Train
Broken - Seether (feat. Amy Lee)
When You're On Top - Wallflowers
Behind Blue Eyes - Pearl Jam version
Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
A Long December - Counting Crows
Love Remains the Same - Gavin Rossdale
Cuts Like a Knife - Bryan Adams
Love Song - Tesla


Plus pretty much Everything Else by Train, Lifehouse, and Rob Thomas (solo)... but this list is intended as a small sample : )

SM Johnson ~ Jeremiah Quick available NOW!

Yaaaaaay! Are you happy? I'm so so happy!

***happy dancing around and around my living room, that's how happy I am***

BUY IT HERE AT SMASHWORDS RIGHT NOW!

BUY IT HERE AT AMAZON RIGHT NOW!

Also available very, very, very soon at Amazon, for the same low price. Maybe by the end of today. Hopefully by tomorrow. Once it's live at Amazon, it should show up among the scrolling book covers to the right of this post).

Meanwhile, I'm still doing my happy dance. The dog wags her tail. The cat is giving me that look - the one that says, How is it I've come to live in this insane place? Kyle is hiding under his tank rug. Just the usual mid-afternoon in the Johnson house. Except... (sing-song) I published a book I published a book I published a boooook.

I don't mind. I'll be happy all by myself.

All right, the details...

Jeremiah Quick (ebook) is available for purchase right this minute at Smashwords, in all digital formats, for the low Reader Loyalty price of slightly less than one dollar. This 0.99 price will remain until March 10th, when it will go to it's regularly scheduled price of $2.99.

I stole the idea of low-price first release from my friend JC Andrijeski, author of the Allie's War series, who was musing out loud about how we tend to make our most loyal readers - the people waiting with breath held for our newest release - pay the most for our books. And how backward is that?

We price them, put them out there, and after a couple of months put them on sale in order to reach new readers. But should we reward the fans who stick with us? Who keep trusting us to entertain them?

Yeah, I agree. So from February 28th to March 10, 2014 I'm pricing Jeremiah Quick at .99. It's one of my shorter novels, at about 81,000 words, but it is novel length, and I'm giving you a lot of story for a buck (grin). And maybe some bang and even some blood.

I'm going to hush now before I give you too many spoilers.

Have a great weekend, darlings! And if you need something to read... I could make a suggestion or two (wink).

~SM


Shady Character

SM Johnson ~ final polish ~ Yay!

gods we have snow. Like 80 inches.No real coffee this morning, Darlings, as I'm busy doing a final polish on Jeremiah Quick so I can hurry up and get the ebook published!

Wanna know what final polish means to me? It's very exciting (no, it really isn't, lol).

I do global searches for words and concepts that I fear might be overused. For instance, someone pointed out to me that the phrase, "But she loved him," was sort of something that Pretty repeats a lot. Umm, just in case the reader forgets? No. We can't be having that. I trust my readers to get it without endless repetition.

I global find/replace quotation marks and apostrophes, in an effort not to have a combination of smart "curly" quotes and straight quotes. I change them all to straight quotes, mostly because in my experience simpler seems to be less complicated.

Yeah, okay, that's profound. Heh.

I also do a global find for "ly" - with the goal of eliminating 2/3 of the adjectives in the book that end in -ly. This involves examining every sentence that contains a word ending in -ly. (See? Didn't I say this was exciting?)

If I'm really ambitious, I might search out all the curse words and make sure that I really want to use them, really and for sure,  each time I've used them. I actually don't think anyone cusses overly much in this book (shrug).

These are all little tiny things that I'm doing, although each one takes its own amount of time. But they do make a different to the reader experience, so I honestly think taking the time is worth it.

So now you know what I'm going. I'm still shooting to have this baby available for purchase at some point Friday the 28 of February. It will probably go live at Amazon, first.

And... for a great idea I got from JC Andrijeski, I'm going to price Jeremiah Quick at .99 for about the first ten days, so the kind and wonderful people who follow me and like my books can, if they're paying attention, buy it for cheap for this limited amount of time. I like this idea - release the book ON SALE so loyal readers get a deal. That's so lovely.

Okay, darlings, that's all for today.

Have a fun and safe weekend.

~SM

SM Johnson ~ Jeremiah Quick to be released NEXT WEEK! ~

Jeremiah Quick -  expected ebook release February 28th 2014! (paperback release possibly March 2013)



Pretty is Light. Jeremiah is Dark. And this time around, he's more than she bargained for.
Three people in the world are important to Jeremiah Quick, but two of them are dead, and the only one left is Pretty Loberg. And he needs her help now to complete a task that is anything but pretty.
Once she was light to his dark. 
Pretty grew up safe and rich, compared to Jeremiah, and spoiled, and her people were teaching her that she was entitled to be complacent. Jeremiah taught her how to separate the truth from the capitalist lies, and then he had to leave. Before she was ready. Before they were finished. And now… now she's just as complacent and entitled as if he'd never spent all that time trying to teach her Everything Important.
Well. That's going to change.
Jeremiah wants Pretty to remember everything he taught her way back when, and he'll make sure, this time, that she never forgets.

SM Johnson ~ Damn you, winter ~

It just never ends, this, this snow cold snow cold cold snow cold cold cold WARM snow snow snow. I mean, honestly. I already hate winter, and this one is being really, really awful. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, we have had SIXTY days of below zero temperatures this season. 60. Days. TWO MONTHS. And 23 of them were IN A FREAKING ROW. And I heard on the radio that we've had 64 inches of snow already. Wanna put that into perspective? I'm 59 and a half inches tall.

Yeah, this winter is seriously sucking.

Other places have been cold, too, places where people are more likely to have central air than central heat, so it's sucking for them, too. Because they're freezing their asses off INSIDE their houses. At least I don't have that problem - expensive or not, the inside of my house is warm.

So... what happens when it's that freaking cold for that many days?

I don't leave the house unless absolutely necessary.

So what that means, is that there's a good possibility that Jeremiah Quick might actually end up published on February 28, which was my original target date. Yaaaaaay! So I'm going to be trying to create a cover for it this weekend... or rather, begging and pleading my friend 19 to create a cover for it this weekend. (I'm such a trickster, aren't I?)

This is like... a season of goodbye.

I've been wanting to to write some form or other of Jeremiah Quick for, oh, about twenty-five years now, so to have this "done" - is just... wow. Almost like grieving something you've given birth to. It's very weird.

It's also very weird to write memoir-ialized fiction. (You like that? It's a play on words, because most people say ficitonalized memoir. Hee. But this isn't that, at all. There are real people in Jeremiah Quick, but almost everything about them is fictionalized. See how that works? There I am again, the trickster.

Anyway. How about a story?

This I have to tell... I was accused of being "trouble" and "a brat" at work today. And I laughed, and said, "Takes one to know one," and "ya'll are lucky that I only make trouble for good," and this guy kept teasing me, which was fantastic, and finally I said to him, "Shhhh. They (co-workers) still think I'm normal. You're gonna blow my cover."

And you know what? This guy laughed his ass off for the next ten minutes.

Man, that's a good feeling. Most of the people I work with are in some kind of crisis, so to make them laugh or to make them feel safe, means it's been a successful shift. And sometimes, just exactly that, is enough.

And I do apologize, my darlings, but this is about all I have tonight. My old dog is feeling worse and better and worse again, eating some days, not eating some days, walking well, then collapsing in the snow and needing much help and coaxing to come back into the house...  so I'm afraid that there will be one more goodbye in the not so distant future. I'm not ready, but I guess I'm slightly more ready than I was a week ago. So if she's that tired and it's her time, yeah, I'll let her go. But I'm gonna cry. A lot.

Peace out, my darlings. Be safe, stay warm, and have a great weekend.

~SM

SM Johnson ~ Life is Messy

Good morning, Darlings, and happy almost Valentine's Day.

I have lots of good news today. The big primo important news is that our beloved boxer, Jazzamatazz (Jazz for short) was so anemic on Monday that I thought we were going to lose her, but today she is up and running with about 60% of her normal energy levels - and this, THIS my friends, deserves a happy dance.

This dog... she is sweet through and through, not a mean bone in her body (well, except about the cat), and to see her too exhausted to eat, go outside, bark at her neighborhood friends, or even WALK was devastating.

I noticed she was acting droopy last week, and we visited her vet, but she did that whole, "Oh! New places, new people, yay! I'ma pretend that I feel fine, because all of this is so exciting!" thing... but let me tell you, by Monday morning, her gums and the inside of her lips were pure white (they're supposed to be pink!) - an indication of severe anemia. She plodded into the vet hospital Monday morning looking as depressed as Eeyore.

Few days of prednisone and she's practically herself again. Except her old self ate dry dog food, and her new self is pretty sure that the liverwurst diet should continue indefinitely. She still might have a cancer of some kind, but at least it looks like she doesn't have any sort of direct internal bleeding. Whew. This is good news. She's an old dog, and an old dog will break your heart, but thank goodness we don't have to let her go just yet.
Me, not outsideThe other good news is that beta readers have been sending feedback for Jeremiah Quick  and their responses have been very positive. Some of them were screaming-and-figuratively-jumping-up-and down-while-flapping-hands positive.

Yay!

I can't tell ya'll what a relief this is, especially considering this book is rather not much like my other books, and strayed down a far darker path.

(wipes sweat off brow)

The not-terrible-news is that between sick dog and vet visits and supportive care and crying (with resulting sinus headache) and hand-feeding liverwurst, I haven't been getting much work done, which means very likely I'll end up pushing the release of Jeremiah Quick into March, and subsequently pushing the release of Dare in the Dungeon closer to May.

I wish I could do this faster, I really do.

Me, outsideHow are ya'all holding up in the cold, btw? That's another thing slowing me down, as far as editing. Navigating life when it's below zero almost every day is exhausting. I love staying up late and do a lot of my editing work when the family is all tucked away in their beds, but lately I can hardly wait to snuggle into bed myself. Midnight is about the cap on my "late nights" these days. Which kind of annoys me, but I suspect will change as we move closer to spring. Egads, I hope it changes.

I'm tired of cold and snow and bulky winter jackets and Sorel boots and gloves. I mean, I'm grateful for the jacket and boots and gloves, don't get me wrong, I'm just TIRED of needing them.

(Drums fingers against keyboard, I know I have other news, now let's see, what was it?)

Kyle the garter snake is still happy and healthy. He's shed 3 times, probably due to do that again pretty soon, and has graduated to eating thawed dead mice. Yay! (I know, right? Totally gross, partly because the little newborn mice are so dang CUTE), as well as still enjoying his nightcrawlers. He's getting big, last shed measured 16 inches.

Someday when I'm either ambitious or bored, I might make a garter snake page here, with links the to the sites that helped me the most, and some basic garter snake care stuff. I mean, now that I've learned all about garter snakes and nighcrawlers and toxic worms and frozen newborn mice. So maybe once I get those next couple of books out and I'm lazing around wondering what to do with myself I'll do that.

Okay, I'd better put on my editor hat and get to work. Have a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend, my dears. Be safe out there, but remember... life is messy, so you might has well have fun.

~SM

SM Johnson ~ Overlooked Books ~

bleak depressing winter cupGood morning, darlings! Welcome to Thursday. We're almost to the weekend, because time marches on like that. It's a good thing, I suppose, especially if we can hang on and march out of this bitter winter. I wish it would happen sooner, although where I live in northern Wisconsin, one never knows. Last year schools were closed because of SNOW every Friday in May except the very last one. It genuinely felt like it was never going to end. It would be lovely if we could manage not to repeat that.

My topic today is overlooked books. A lot of my favorite-favorite books are old stories that few people have heard of and I want you all to have a chance to enjoy them. Hopefully they won't be hard to find. I'll link them to Goodreads and Amazon, but some of them I suspect you can probably find at your local library.

One really cool thing - last year I met someone who's read and loved quite a few of my favorite books (this NEVER happens), and a lot of his recommends have become favorites of mine as well. This just blows me away. It's like having a book filter or a personal shopper who knows exactly my taste making suggestions for what to read next. I recommend a friend like this for everyone (grin).

Wreaththu by Storm Constantine circa 1987.

I read a really big fat paperback edition that contained the first three books of the Wreaththu world. It was a little intimidating to dive into, considering its length, but this is a very easy to read. The concept of Wreaththu seems complicated, but I assure you, the storytelling is not.

From Goodreads: In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion of Homo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won't die without a struggle.

Here at last in a single volume are all three of Constantine's Wraeththu trilogy: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, and The Fulfillments of Fate and Desire.

These aren't just books and stories, but the creation of a whole world. Wikipedia can give you the dry sense of things, but let me just suggest these are coming of age novels, tragedies, and love stories, all rolled into novel form, each written from a single point of view, (but each of the three points of view characters have important relationships to one another, so don't be fooled that any of these first three tales could stand alone).

There are five more Wreaththu books by Storm Constantine for me to read yet, and apparently a slew of author-sanctioned fan fiction.

What? Did I just say author-sanctioned fan fiction? Oh yes, I did.

Wreaththu is available as a bargain book from Amazon.




Night Magic by Charlotte Vale Allen circa 1989.

This is a charming re-telling of the Phantom of the Opera (and a lot more accessible, as far as ease of reading goes).

Amazon has a kindle edition for 9.99, and yeah, that's expensive. Mine is a hardcover I got from somewhere in my earthly travels. I still recommend. Try your library.

It's just a sweet, sweet depiction of a compelling love story between a young girl and a damaged musician. Mmmm.... I love love love this book, every time I pick it up and read it again.




The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley circa 1983.

Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Hillfolk. Her life is quiet and ordinary-until the night she is kidnapped by Corlath, the Hillfolk King, who takes her deep into the desert. She does not know the Hillfolk language; she does not know why she has been chosen. But Corlath does. Harry is to be trained in the arts of war until she is a match for any of his men. Does she have the courage to accept her true fate?
I first experienced this as an audio book, and I gotta tell you - whenever I read it, I can hear the wonderful and delicate British accent of the narrator, which somehow makes the story even more perfect. It's a love story (aren't they all?), but it's also so much more than that. The mass market paperback is available for a reasonable price at Amazon. 
The sequel/prequel The Hero and The Crown is also good, but doesn't rock my world the way The Blue Sword does. 



Okay, so do you remember Sesame Street and the whole "One of these things is not like the other" bit? Here's the one that's not like the others.
Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg circa 1993.
"Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to."
They met at a party. It was hate at first sight. Ruth was far too beautiful, too flamboyant. Not at all Ann's kind of person. Until a chance encounter in the bathroom led to an alliance of souls. Soon they were sharing hankies during the late showing of "Sophie's Choice," wolfing down sundaes sodden with whipped cream, telling truths of marriage, mortality, and love, secure in a kind of intimacy no man could ever know. Only best friends understand devil's food cake for breakfast when nothing else will do. After years of shared secrets, guilty pleasures, family life and divorce, they face a crisis that redefines the meaning of friendship and unconditional love.

Honestly. THIS. BOOK. O.M.G.
You know when you have those days/weeks/maybe even a month when nothing feels quite right? You randomly cry while doing dishes or folding laundry, and wander around with a frozen knot of grief for absolutely no reason whatsoever?
This is one of my two go-to books for unlocking that feeling. Read it and cry. And then feel fixed.
Talk Before Sleep is available at Amazon in kindle and paperback. It's probably available elsewhere, too. Like your local bookstore. Or your library.
The other, just in case you want to know is Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott circa 1993.
The most honest, wildly enjoyable book written about motherhood is surely Anne Lamott's account of her son Sam's first year. A gifted writer and teacher, Lamott (Crooked Little Heart) is a single mother and ex-alcoholic with a pleasingly warped social circle and a remarkably tolerant religion to lean on. She responds to the changes, exhaustion, and love Sam brings with aplomb or outright insanity. The book rocks from hilarious to unbearably poignant when Sam's burgeoning life is played out against a very close friend's illness. No saccharine paean to becoming a parent, this touches on the rage and befuddlement that dog sweeter emotions during this sea change in one's life.
Always the book for a heartfelt and cathartic cry. And also available at Amazon in kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions. Or probably the library. Or your favorite bookstore.

That's all I've got for today. I would love for you, my darlings, to leave a comment telling me one or two or five of your favorite-favorite books. Maybe I'll find some new things to love.
Peace out. Have a wonderful and safe weekend!
~SM