Rebecca Jones-Howe's Blog, page 11

DARK ANGEL: A Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews Review

Heaven, the first book in V.C. Andrews’ beloved Casteel series didn’t exactly wow me upon reading, but I appreciated it more when I did my Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews review. Dark Angel, though? I looked forward to reading this book. Dark Angel is a universal favourite among die-hard Andrews fans, and continues the story of hill-scum Heaven Casteel and her cursed black hair.

AT LAST, HEAVEN WOULD FIND THE HAPPINESS SHE LONGED FOR . . . FREE FROM THE SCORN AND CONTEMPT OF HER PAST!

In her grandmother’s fine, rich Boston house, Heaven Leigh Casteel dreamed of a wonderful new life of new friends, the best schools, beautiful clothes and most important, love. The pearls of culture, wisdom and breeding would now be hers. Soon she would make the Casteel name respectable, find her brothers and sisters, and have a family again.

But even in the world of the wealthy, there were strange forebodings, secrets best forgotten. And as Heaven reached out for love, she was slowly ensnared in a sinister web of cruel deceits and hidden passions!

About Dark Angel

Dark Angel was the last book penned by Andrews herself before her death on December 16th, 2986.

Piking up where the first book left off, Dark Angel follows Heaven’s transition from hill-scum life to her new elite life with her mother’s family in Boston. It quickly becomes a hodgepodge mess of school, a romance in a literal hedge maze, and Heaven’s mission to reunite her family.

My Copy of Dark Angel

I located my review copy of Dark Angel at a thrift store and was thrilled that it was a first edition stepback in quite good condition. No dog-ears, just one crease down the cover and one very faint crease on the spine. Of course, I read this thing while breastfeeding my son at night, so I failed to maintain that quality.

The spine crease deepened as I read BUT IT WASN’T MY FAULT. Just like the knot in my back, once it’s there it’s impossible to not exacerbate the problem.

[image error]

I love this stepback so much because it’s so simple and so creepy. Unlike other covers, this one shows the house in addition to our protagonist and a looming Tony Tatterton in the background. And while there is no family album featured in the book, I do love what it hints to in the illustration. It’s a wonderful stepback and probably one of the best in the V.C. Andrews canon.

Dark Angel: The Grown-Ass Review

V.C. Andrews’ writing honestly doesn’t do much for me. She can tell a bloody good story, yes, hell yes, but her prose fails to hold my attention. It tells. It ventures down every corridor. It’s like when your best friend tells you a mundane story about an argument with her coworker, but she meanders and sidetracks and you just wanna scream in her face GET ON WITH THE STORY I WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.

Frustrating prose aside, one can’t help but continue. Why?

BECAUSE V.C. ANDREWS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND

V.C. Andrews is your best fucking friend. V.C. Andrews knows you. She understands you, and she weaves a story that caters to every one of your deepest, darkest, ridiculous tastes. She doesn’t judge you. That’s why you keep reading these books. That’s why you’re here. So let’s dive right into those classic V.C. Andrews tropes and see how Dark Angel holds up.

An Innocent & Pretty, Yet Completely Naive Female Protagonist

Heaven starts this book in her mother’s childhood home, wondering why the hell her mother could ever leave it. Honestly, it’s a great opening that that proves that V.C. Andrews’s can write mood really effectively:

All about me the large house loomed dark, mysterious, and lonely. The shadows whispered of secrets, of incidents best forgotten, and hinted of dangers, but said nothing at all about the safety and security I needed most. This was my mother’s home, my dead mother’s home. The longed-for home that had called to me when I lived in that mountain shack in the Willies; called loud and sweet into my childish ears so I had been beguiled by thoughts of all the happiness waiting just for me, once I was here.

page 3

Sure, Andrews has a tendency to abuse commas. Her sentences run on. The above paragraph continues on into oblivion, BUT she writes the house as a character. It does things. Says things. Moves Heaven to act.

Heaven spends much of Part One (the Andrews penned books had parts, yo!) navigating her new life. Her step-grandfather, Tony, oversees Heaven’s day-to-day adventures. The book’s synopsis makes it seem as though he’s supposed to be a domineering figure but Heaven breaks his rules constantly and is never reprimanded for it.

A Rags to Riches Plot

We didn’t get much of this trope in Heaven, but boy oh boy does Dark Angel make up for it. Heaven quickly acquaints herself with her new privileged life at Fathinggale Manor, otherwise known as Farthy. She makes home in her mother, Leigh‘s, old suite and fits herself with new clothes chosen by Tony. The clothes are fancy and noticeably always blue.

Later on, Heaven’s admitted to a prestigious school, which she boards during the week I found the school settings to be the most engaging content in the book. Heaven goes in with her fancy clothes old-school clothes, only to discover that all the cool kids wear worn-out jeans and jackets and stuff. Because you know…

IT’S THE 80s!

Heaven excels in school but fails to make friends. They do the whole high school routine of pretending to be interested while setting her up for failure. In the only scene where Heaven doesn’t don blue, she attends the school dance in a form-flattering crimson dress that’s waaaaaay too formal for the occasion.

The below quote is Tony buying Heaven the dress:

“Yes, indeed, much too mature. But dresses like this aren’t easy to find, and I love this shade of red. This will never go out of style. My ward can wear it ten years from now. When the right woman wears this she’ll seem to be made of liquid fire.”

page 144

The dudes flock to Heaven and grab at her for a dance. She enjoys being the centre of attention for once, up until she notices that all the other girls at the dance are staring not out of envy, but in expectation of something. Then a cramp hits Heaven’s stomach.

She tries to leave but the boys keep harassing her for more dances. She quickly realizes that they are in on it too. The cramps worsen and quickly she runs to find a bathroom, only to find all the doors locked.

Turns out the girls spiked Heaven’s drink’s with some laxative. GASP! Heaven narrowly makes it back to her room so she can shit in one of her garment bags.

FOR AN HOUR!

Heaven then chucks the bag full of her diarrhea down the laundry chute and confronts the mean girls for hazing her. The ringleader, Pru, finally agrees to let Heaven join their clique, but only if she does their silly initiation challenge: to slide down the laundry chute and find her way out of the locked cellar.

Heaven takes advantage of the situation, daring Pru to complete the task first, and well, it’s pretty satisfying. She overcomes the bullies at their own game. Few V.C. Andrews protagonists get this kind of joy.

A Vivid Gothic Setting

Farthinggale Manor doesn’t exactly play the role that the book’s opening promises. Heaven spends most of her time in her own suite. The rest of the house comes off as dark and brooding and empty. Of main focus is the goth AF hedgemaze that Heaven finds herself getting lost in one weekend. She discovers a cottage inside the maze, which houses a brooding sexy man named Troy, who is Tony’s young brother:

So quiet. So intense. So tragically wooden.

Mistaking Heaven for a servant, Troy demands that Heaven leave. Heaven then becomes offended because Troy doesn’t appreciate her liquid fire bod in a lustful way. She rages at him for not properly looking at her, but then Troy finally snaps and looks at her CORRECTLY. Lust is shared. Then anger again.

IT IS A GREAT MEET CUTE MOMENT, RIGHT?

Many V.C. Andrews fans love this scene. I found it decent. I like the characterization, even though Heaven comes off as petty and vain. That being said, the scene still annoys my minimalist sensibilities by consuming several pages with only somewhat intriguing but still poorly-written sexual tension:

Even without looking my way, he appealed to me immediately… as if he sent out his need to me… that it was telling me it would be my need too! It also warned me to tread slowly, to be careful, and keep my distance. I didn’t need or want a love affair at this stage of my life. I’d had enough of men forcing sex on me when I wasn’t ready for it. Yet I stood there trembling, wondering what I’d do when he turned full-faced, when just his profile excited me so much. Cynically I told myself that he’d be flawed when I saw all of him, and maybe that’s why he was taking such pains to keep most of his face hidden in shadows.

page 42

They argue back and forth but then Troy makes up for his lack of accommodation by serving up some fancy-ass sandwiches and wine. Which is nice, I guess.

I gazed too long at his face, watching the play of the florescent lights on his hair, stared too long at his body, astounded at how responsive my body was just to the sight of him.

page 51

Because there’s nothing sexier than florescent lighting. V.C. Andrews really knows how to set an enticing environment.

Throughout the book, Heaven ventures into the hedgemaze to meet up with the forbidden Troy.

BUT WHAT ABOUT LOGAN, YOU ASK?

Logan Stonewall ghosts Heaven for a bit. He dates a few girls because that’s what college bros do. Then, when Heaven seeks him out, he tells her that he’s not into her whole rich girl makeover.

“You don’t seem vulnerable anymore, you seem like you don’t really need anyone or anything.”

page 163

Logan accuses Heaven of wanting to bone Tony like she boned Cal. Sure, she’s super hot now but that the real Heaven was “destroyed in Candlewick” after she fell victim to Cal’s grooming.

Understandably, Heaven runs back into Troy’s (NOT Tony’s!) arms. A blizzard overtakes the hedge maze, trapping Heaven with Troy.

PRO TIP: DON’T GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS NAMES THAT START WITH THE SAME LETTER. SUBSEQUENTLY, DO NOT GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS NAMES THAT VISUALLY LOOK THE SAME ON THE PAGE.

They lounge on the floor, eat sandwiches and drink brandy. Troy talks Heaven out of her funk and then shows her the shows her the secret tunnel beneath the cottage that leads her back to the manor. More gothic stuff, yeah!

Throughout the book, Heaven almost bones Troy over and over but Troy always relents. At some point they do hook up for realsies and then Troy confesses that his angst is all about that he gets sick easily and is CONVINCED that he’ll die young.

So brooding. So goth.

A Beloved Doting Paternal Figure

To be honest, I loved Tony. Perfectly menacing, he shadowed over most of Heaven’s antics, though I did find that Heaven got away with a lot of her infractions far too easily. Would have been nice to get just one scene where she was reprimanded for sneaking out, but whatevs.

I kept expecting Tony to make advances on Heaven. Some scenes drew so near to this happening that I was like I CALLED IT, ANDREWS! I SEE YOU!

But nope! Tony’s just a maker of fancy toys (remember the doll from Heaven?) who is invested with maintaining his image like a true VP Arbonne representative.

A Hostile Maternal Figure (+ Bonus Mean Girl!)

Heaven’s grandmother Jillian becomes an elusive character in this book. Obsessed with her appearance, she refuses to admit her real age. Tony (NOT Troy!) tells Heaven that he assumed Jillian was only ten years older than he waswhen he met her, but it was later revealed that she was 20 years older.

Jillian spends much of her time getting beauty sleep, which alienates Heaven, who just wants a legit maternal figure in her life. Jillian also has some weird friction with Troy that is never really understood. From what I gathered, it was because Troy took up a lot of Tony’s devotion or something. It doesn’t really matter so there’s no point in dwelling on it.

EXCEPT!

In the book’s second half, Heaven takes a convoluted side plot to reconnect with her two younger siblings, Keith and Our Jane (now just Jane). She reunites with Fanny, who sold her baby back to the priest who adopted (and subsequently raped) her and is now prostituting herself for money. Heaven also reunites with Tom who now works at a carnival with her father, Luke, who now owns a travelling circus for some reason.

Incest!

Heaven heads back to The Willies and finds her grandfather still squatting on the old Casteel land. The old cabin, however, has been demolished and replaced with a new bitchin’ cabin. She also discovers that Logan now cares for her grandpa.

A crazy storm overtakes Winnerow, and Heaven’s car gets stuck in the mud. Logan saves her and brings her back to the cabin, but OF COURSE Heaven gets sick with a horrible flu that leaves her bed-ridden for several days. Logan insists on taking care of her and it’s this weird sort of hostage situation that I found intriguing (I like sexy hostage stories, okay?), save for the fact that Logan sucks the big one and I hate him.

THE BIG REVEAL…

Tony gets all pissed with Heaven for not calling back to Farthy. Turns out Troy gets sick too. (He fell asleep in his house with all the windows open.) Heaven immediately goes back to Boston, only for the massive truth to get blown wide open when Tony reveals that Heaven’s mom Leigh was a hot teenager who was also a total slut whocouldn’t keep herself away from him.

So yeah, Tony slept (ahem, RAPED) Leigh and get her pregnant with Heaven. T

Tony is Heaven’s dad-grandpa.

A Tragic Death

This whole time, Troy’s sickness worsens and eventually Heaven makes her way back to Boston to bone Troy one last time before he runs away. Then, upon hearing that Heaven has discovered the truth that TROY IS HEAVEN’S UNCLE, Troy rides one of Jillian’s prized horses into the ocean and dies.

Heaven’s (now not biological) Grandpa also dies.

Also Tom dies in this HORRIBLE tiger attack at the carnival.

Jillian also goes crazy at the end of the book, which isn’t so much as death as it is another V.C. Andrews trope ticked on the checklist.

Some Good Olde School Misogyny

I didn’t find the misogyny as bad as other Andrews books. Maybe because it wasn’t written by an effin’ man, but this was written in the 80s so that “women gotta be beautiful” sentiment definitely exists here.

Take, for instance, this quote from Jillian:

I sat one evening in Jillian’s room watching her put on makeup, wishing I could talk to her as a mother, or even a grandmother, but the moment I brought up the difficult tests I’d taken that way, she flung her right hand out impatiently. “For God’s sake, Heaven, don’t bore me with talk of school! I hated school, and it was all Leigh could talk about. I don’t know what difference it makes anyway, when beautiful girls like you are so quickly snatched off the market they seldom have use for what brains they have.”

page 77

There’s another scene where Jillian gets all horny with Tony and begs to go on another honeymoon IN FRONT OF HEAVEN. In response, Heaven has this sexist revelation:

Were all so acutely turned to their sexual lives that they lost control of common sense when a beautiful woman flattered them? Oh, it was true, Tony didn’t seem like the same man who had templed his fingers under his chin only moment ago.

page 84

Lastly, here’s a great beauty tip from dear old Jillian:

“Never go to a woman stylist; men are so much more appreciative of a woman’s beauty and seem to know just what to do to enhance it.”

page 85

EXPLAIN TO ME WHY THIS MAN IS SO GOOD AT STYLING HAIR, JILLIAN. MAYBE HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR THIS. MAYBE HE’S JUST NATURALLY GIFTED. IT’S CERTAINLY NOT BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BED A WOMAN.

Fanny Update!

In one of Dark Angel‘s hasty B-plots, Heaven reunites with her younger slutty sister Fanny, who we all remember was sold to the Winnerow reverend and was subsequently raped. After selling her daughter to the reverend and his wife, Fanny left Winnerow and prostituted herself for cash, only to find Heaven to ask for more cash and to also please please please get her daughter back.

Heaven tries to do Fanny a solid. She visits the reverend at his house and the reverend tells his sob story about he couldn’t control Fanny and gave in to her sexual wiles. Heaven threatens to call the police but the reverend gets all typical with his response:

“My congregation will sympathize with me. Knowing that in my own home that wicked, sinful girl did steal int my bed and with her lewd, naked body that she pressed against me, she seduced me, for I am only a man, and a human…pitifully, shamefully human.”

page 357

I want to scream because real Christians sympathize with real garbage “Christian” leaders like this ALL THE TIME. It’s rage-inducing, but let’s continue with the scene, in which the reverend reveals more of his misogynistic toxic thinking about women:

“You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds of your own destruction, and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face, for your seductive body; but you will fail them all, because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the most devastatingly tragic kind — the romantic idealist. Born to destroy ad self-destruct!”

page 359

I mean, I guess Andrews got the whole prophecy aspect of his character down, so props for that? Nevertheless, Heaven fails to procure Fanny’s daughter and Fanny gets angry and that’s about that. Just sisters being sisters.

Some Really Bad Writing

The funny thing is that Andrews’ writing isn’t inherently bad. Not in the purple prose way that Neiderman’s “poser-Andrews” writing is. Andrews attempts to write description but her focus drifts from active characters and onto passive objects, thus making her scenes IMPOSSIBLE to engage with.

Here’s a scene where, after a date with Heaven, Troy tries to avoid talk of marriage:

He turned on his heel, crunching beneath his shoes loose gravel on the flagstone walkway, and with some effort to tactfully get away from me, from the specialness of this night, he gave me his congratulations again from ten feet away, then wished me a good night.

page 208

THIS MAKES ME WANT TO FUCKING SCREAM.

Here’s the scene where Heaven confronts Jillian about Tony being her dad-grandpa, which is written so ridiculously that I can’t exactly call it bad so much as it ironically bad. Enjoyably bad, which is, ultimately, V.C. Andrews GOOD:

“Grandmother…” and I said this clearly, sharply, causing her to shudder as she went dead white. “Was Tony the reason why my mother ran from this house?”

Her cornflower blue eyes, so like my own, went wide, stark, bleak, as if I’d snatched the floor from beneath her feet. Gossamer strands of sanity seemed to shred before they snapped behind her eyes, and her hands fluttered helplessly to her face.Her palms pressed tight on either cheek, so tightly her lips parted and from them came screams, terrible, silent screams that tortured her face — and suddenly Tony was there, yelling at me!

page 394

This is the best part of the entire book and I cannot recommend it enough!

Fantastic Psychological Horror

With the above prose mentioned, there’s no denying that Dark Angel has got it’s share of psychological horror. It definitely takes a lot of high school drama and stupid tragic romance to get there, but it is there, my friends, and it is good.

Here’s the aftermath of that Jillian confrontation scene, wherein Heaven realizes that her existence has implications:

He carries Jillian to her bedroom, and I watched him lay her carefully on her ivory satin spread, and only then did her mute anguish find its voice.

Over and over she screamed! Hysterical rising and falling screamed that buckled her back and flailed her arms, and as I stood there almost paralyzed by what I’d brought about, I watched the youth peel from her face is if all the time she’d worn a mask of onion peelings.

page 395

OH YEAH, and at the very end, Heaven dyes her hair blonde so she can look like her mom to get Luke to notice her, which is what causes the ruckus in the circus that kills Tom in the tiger cage incident.

Dang.

Dark Angel : My Grown-Ass Final Thoughts

I found that Dark Angel took its sweet time putting Heaven into predicament. I expected this book to contain a lot of deep dark family secrets. Instead, we meander through Heaven’s new life like bored tourists. It wasn’t until Heaven tried to reconnect with her siblings that I really found myself invested.. Tony could have been creepier but he came off as a gross sad-sack loser by the book’s end.

And look, I KNOW that people will hate me for saying this, but Troy felt like a whole lotta filler. That’s just my Grown-Ass opinion. He’s supposed to be hot and brooding. He’s supposed to be a forbidden love, but once Heaven’s relationship with Troy is discovered, nobody even gets all that grossed out by it. Tony even approved of their marriage (which I guess makes sense because he has this ridiculous obsession with keeping the Tatterton Toy Company in the family, and what better opportunity is there to continue the legacy with a paired bond between his brother and his daughter-granddaugther?) but I digress.

To be entirely honest, I would have rather had more shitty Logan being shitty because he’s fun to hate, but that’s just me, right?

The post DARK ANGEL: A Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

Quarantine #momlife, Writer Style

Everyone’s talking about watching Tiger King and doing jigsaw puzzles and playing elaborate board games. I bet quarantine without kids is pretty great. Most days I don’t get a lot of joy because I split my time between my 5 year-old and my “almost-a-toddler” baby and my nightmare rectangle of a phone, which stresses me out with coronavirus updates that I CANNOT LOOK AWAY FROM.

It hasn’t been all bad. Most days I find one or two moments wherein I enjoy the company of my children. They’re beautiful moments, valuable moments. I’ve made up for lost time in these moments. I’ve bonded with my daughter and connect with her in new ways that have eased the guilt I’ve held since she was born and I dealt with that PPD.

I refuse to lie, though.

Quarantine #MomLife

I don’t want to complain about being a parent in quarantine. While there are plenty of things to do, the soul-draining parts of being stuck with small children all day long can prove grueling.

We’ve had dance parties. I’ve played all the boring-ass children’s games. I’ve struggled to cook an acceptable meal for my daughter while breastfeeding my son. Everything is inconvenient. I wish I could just so a fucking 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and play Settlers of Catan while catching up on Better Call Saul BUT I CAN’T.

Fortunately, I now have access to Disney+ so I have access to all the good movies. BUT, my daughter won’t let me watch my childhood favourite Disney princess movie and tale of a woman taken captive who falls in love with her kidnapper, Beauty and the Beast because tHe BeAsT iS tOo ScArY.

I am, however, eagerly looking forward to watching Maika Monroe getting terrorized like she does best in 10 minute installments in this new movie, show, thing?, called The Stranger:

Shoutout to all my ladies who weirdly ABSORB the whole “woman stalked by a weird creepy dude” genre. I know you don’t understand why you like such troubling content and I see you.

On a healthy note, my daughter does like Wall-E. I’ve watched Wall-E every damn day and it’s still a great movie that gives me hope for this whole stupid epidemic situation.

BUT, my son’s napping schedule has changed. My daughter refuses to nap. I never get to take enough naps and I never get enough sleep at night. And if that isn’t #momlife in a stupid nutshell, then I don’t know what is.

My Current WIPs

Once the kids go to bed I need to VALUE MY TIME, which means writing and writing and writing. Don’t get me wrong, though. I want to do a jigsaw puzzle just like everyone else but I CAN’T BECAUSE MY DEVOTION TO WRITING DEMANDS I SPEND ALL MY FREE TIME WRITING.

I posted in my recent CANDID UPDATE about my pandemic erotica story. It’s not so much an erotica now as it is a weird kind of love story. A “love in the time of coronavirus” story, if you will. It had sex scenes but I took them out because I wanted to value social distancing in fiction form.

This yet to be titled story will be FREE FOR EVERYONE. All you have to do is sign up for my mailing list and you will receive a copy of the ebook when it drops.

I also recently mentioned my next Patreon exclusive feminist Easter horror story, “White Rabbit”. Pandemic or not, Easter is still on the way, so if you’re bummed out about not being able to spend it doing your traditional stuff, perhaps you could enjoy my depressing horror story instead.

[image error] Current mood: Easter, but scary and on the Alberta prairies.



My Husband

So funny story: I got my husband to pick up my diabetes drugs from the pharmacy on the 19th. Turns out where was a positive COVID-19 carrier working at the pharmacy that day. Local news encouraged all who had contact with the individual to self-isolate for 14 days from time of exposure, so now he’s home with me until April 2nd.

At first I thought, HEY, I HAVE A PARTNER IN CRIME, but of course he has to say this yesterday:

“At first I was excited to not have to go to work but after two days of this, I’m kind of itching to go back there.“

And I was like:

via GIPHY

Now, I don’t want to bash my husband because I hate that kind of sexist shit. He works his ass off and barely gets much time to himself at all. He goes to work a 5AM and goes to bed sooner than my daughter does. And, because I’m a lazy distracted cook, he cooks dinner 90% of the time.

Allow me ot have a bit of a rant:

The one thing he doesn’t understand is why I have a mental breakdown nearly ever day, because he doesn’t spend every day at home with small children. Like dude, you might THINK it’s just getting a few odds and ends done between dealing with small children, but the small children become a part of EVERRRRRRRRRYTHING and you do every task with your brain split in half.

Most days, with my caffeine intake, I feel like my head is a pile of mash. I forget things. I drop shit all the time. Having kids literally made me stupider, and I don’t say this to scare any potential moms out there. I say it to tell the truth, which is what I’m all about here.

Being a mom is like gaslighting yourself into thinking you’re okay when you’re not. So I mean, take that knowledge into your ultimate decision when you consider producing spawn.

I’d kill to do a jigsaw puzzle right now. Instead I spend my son’s nap time trying and failing miserably to teach my daughter how to properly strategize while playing Connect 4.

TALK TO ME!

How are you? Are you working? Are you, like, me, at home with your stupid kids? Do you not have kids and get to enjoy Netflix like we all should? What are you watching? What are you writing? Do you hate your spouse?

I should also note that I have been finding the time to watch Tiger King. And yeah, it’s pretty messed up.

Lastly, feel free to recommend some “creepy dude terrorizes a white girl” content. Movies, books, whathaveyou. The trailer for The Stranger looks quite similar to that of Red Eye (one of my favourite movies), so hopefully I can review it or something.

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MOODBOARD: “White Rabbit” Short Story

In light of this global pandemic, allow me to provide a distraction with my new Patreon-exclusive story, “White Rabbit”. I wrote this post before things got crazy. It feels weird posting about it now. Nevertheless, we still have Easter coming up and “White Rabbit” is a feminist Easter horror story that I hope you’ll love.

A part of my short story mission this year was to cater to holidays. I’m a big sucker for holidays. I look forward to them, though I won’t like that I did drop the ball with March’s story. Honestly, I did brainstorm ideas for a St. Patrick’s Day horror story but I just couldn’t cement a concept that I liked. There’s always next year, right?

The Failed “Pete Buttigieg is a Serial Killer” Story

FLASHBACK TIME! So, before the Democratic party combined all the candidates into keeping Joe Biden afloat, we were all hating on Pete Buttigieg pretty hard. At least, I was. Numerous folks on lefitist Youtube joked about him sounding like Patrick Bateman and potentially being a serial killer.

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Note: I want to state that the explorer who filmed this video didn’t didn’t entirely get the High River story 100% correct. This link shares some extra details on Beachwood Estates. I included this footage because it’s the most extensive of the location and did inspire “White Rabbit” quite a bit. Of specific note is the graffiti on the sidewalk at the 15:25 mark.



Creating Some Characters

The only character I manged to salvage from the “Pete Buttigieg is a Serial Killer” story was the final girl, or rather, the final victim who got shoved into a trunk. I dusted her off and made her younger, just a collegiate small town good girl who revisits her small home town during Easter Break.

In “White Rabbit”, she became Ashlynn, who OF COURSE visits the decayed remains of the suburb she grew up in, only to confront a troubling aspect of her past. There’s slut-shaming and masklophobia and some graffiti and small town diner talk. It’s teenage feminist horror at its best.

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Easter Influences

So yes. The bunny stuff.

My obsession with bunny mascots originates from the “Bunnyman” urban legend. I’ve been obsessed with it since high school. I’ve wanted to write my own “bunnyman” short story for YEARS, and have tried and failed on a few different occasions. Now, in “White Rabbit”, I FINALLY GOT MY CHANCE!

The bunny costume part isn’t a major aspect of this story, but the influence is significant. It’s there. I’m really proud of this one. It’s like my VILE MEN stuff blended perfectly with my new horror-based stuff.

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Everyone Needs some Easter Feminist Horror

Want your fill? Join my Patreon at the $5 tier and you will have access to my latest horror, “White Rabbit” in April. This tier also grants you access to exclusive Patron-only blogs such as my A LOOK BACK feature and my CANDID UPDATE posts, which get a little more personal than usual.

I want to keep writing. I want to stay up late, to write until the early hours, to make these graphics and amazing playlists, to tear myself apart and put words on pages. Your support would mean the dang world to me.

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IMAGE CREDITS

Bunny Head / Alberta Highway / Girls / Empty Pool / House / Kissing Couple / Easter Eggs / Flood

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CANDID UPDATE: Quarantine Time, Coping Mechanisms, Writing Updates

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UPDATE: CORONAVIRUS!

My inbox is full of public coronavirus updates from every company I’ve ever looked at online. These updates talk about store closures or limited hours or extra sanitation practices. Others are pointless. Why is my webhost or my Internet or my phone company telling me about their COVID-19 regulations? I literally have no physical contact with them. Not every company needs a damn coronavirus update, dammit!

Anyway, here’s mine:

Rebecca’s Coronavirus Update!

I mentioned my trepidation about returning to work a while back. In light of the news and my diabeetus putting me into a more vulnerable position, I have decided to postpone my return to work. This is both good and bad. Good because I don’t have to go back to work. Bad because I won’t be making an income.

The Canadian government just announced a benefit for those who must stay home to take care of children. Applications open in April. I’m hoping for the best because things are scary.

Panic and Freak Out

I understand that my chances of catching this illness and dying are low. That said, I worry about my Boomer parents. I worry about my own condition. My husband’s still working. His job isn’t so much a concern at this point. Most days he’s crammed in an office and then he grabs some groceries and comes home.

I think we have enough toilet paper. I was worried that we wouldn’t but my sister managed to buy a pack and split it between my family and my parents and herself. She even drove around and tried to pass some off to pedestrians crossing the street.

Let’s all let’s just be kind and do what we need to.

SHARE YOUR TP. ONE ROLL = THREE ROLLS.
The math is literally on the damn package

I’ve only gone outside once or twice since the panic stage really hit. And it’s weird, right?

I had to get some buns last weekend. I went to see the empty toilet paper aisle. People walked down pretending like they didn’t need toilet paper, or maybe just to gawk at the sight of their being no toilet paper. Nobody acknowledged it. We all just walked. Pretended like it wasn’t a sight to behold. The checkout clerk just kept on saying how busy everything was. Busy! So busy!

Nobody can mention the reason why.

We’re in a stare of emergency. It’s smart. The precautions will lower the curve. But the phrase STATE OF EMERGENCY, while necessary, does not incite calm. Things are getting tense beyond the walls of my house. Every day I pass an article that grinds my gears a little.

That Kelowna couple that bought out the entire stock of meat at Save on Foods? That enraged me. The panic buying is asinine. But hey, it’s sparking some short story ideas, so there’s that?

I’m serious. If you all want some coronavirus grocery store erotica, let me know.

Quarantine: Day 3948

Being a hermit on maternity leave has taken me here. I write. I blog. Packages arrive on my doorstep and I’ve got Netflix playing all day long. Today my computer died and all my uh, stored Disney movies are gone. Now I’m considering getting Disney +. I can’t survive this without Frozen II, which, hell yes, I agree is better than Frozen.

My son’s growing more teeth and he’s fussy.

My daughter has taken to collage art and I’m out of glue.

All the rest of the curling championships were cancelled and I forgot to cancel my TSN subscription so, now I’m paying another $25 for a month of NOTHING.

And therein lies the problem with social distancing. Isolation. It surmounts. It builds. I’ve taken a liking to weekends because it’s often the only time when I go out and get stuff done. Now that’s gone. My favourite stores have shuttered their doors. Church is cancelled (and it takes a LOT to cancel church). The playgrounds are a cesspool of germs I don’t want.

Perhaps this weekend it will be warm enough to wash the car. Something to look forward to, right?

Fear the Future

Last week my daughter told me that everything on the news was about the virus. She knows its name. CORONAVIRUS.

I told her the truth. I told her why I’m not comfortable taking the bus and why we can’t go to the park. For a 5 year-old she is very understanding. When she’s older she’ll remember this, and her and her friends will think back and laugh be be like, “REMEMBER THE CORONAVIRUS? REMEMBER WE COULDN’T GO ANYWHERE? REMEMBER THERE WAS NO TOILET PAPER?”

At least, I hope for that.

As a mother, I do worry. What diseases does the future hold? What other epidemics will we face? Are we just going to keep sharing memes about it? I think about taking to the streets in outrage, but you know, we can’t gather in groups of more than 50 people, so yeah. We can’t even protest, dammit.

What kind of world are my kids going to grow up in? Sometimes I get really caught up thinking of this. I think about what my parents must have thought when Columbine happened or 9/11 happened or that whole anthrax scare happened. And hey, I grew up into a world of major economic downturn and impending climate change. What the fuck is gonna happen to my kids?

The spiral starts and it’s not until I engage in memes that I force myself to laugh.

Let’s just stay calm.

Or try to. We’re all in the same boat here. Do your best to help your fellow seniors or other people who might need an extra hand. Don’t panic buy. There are enough groceries and supplies for everyone.

In the words of the great Red Green:



Red Green The Red Green Show GIF from Redgreen GIFs



What’s Your Coronavirus Update?

How are you doing? What’s your grocery store like? Any crazy stories? Any good stories? I’m considering posting a free story for everyone to read during this coronavirus quarantine season, so we shall see.

I’m not joking about the grocery store erotica. Express interest below.

The post UPDATE: CORONAVIRUS! appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

No, I Will Not Talk About #MomLife

I used to dream of run a mom blog back in the day. This was back in 2004 when I idolized Dooce, a popular mom blogger who uh, definitely lives herself an unstable life of cringe now, to put it mildly. I like to think that I dodged myself a nice bullet because we now live in a day where most parents think twice about sharing personal details about their lives online. #momlife, right?

I’d never want to run a mom blog now because again, blogging is more about affiliate marketing and monetizing content and dumbass Instant Pot recipes that take 10,000 years to scroll down to than it is about personal content.

A Mom Blog In A Blog Post

When was the last time I talked about motherhood? I cannot recall, for I find great difficulty in doing so. First, because the idea of talking about #momlife sets off my anxiety. Second, because I’m kind of a sub-par mom and I really do not have advice to share with you. I hate leggings and baby carriers and I hate mom forums and never felt entirely comfortable breastfeeding in public. I am not a “stereotypical mom”, but I still am a mom, and well, I’m gonna try my best to explain myself here.

After all, I used my first novel to vent all my frustrations about becoming a mother, so I’m at the point where I’ve successfully offloaded the trauma and misguided anger has from my chest. So let’s talk about motherhood, shall we?

I’ve discussed my postpartum depression before. I realize now that I should have asked for help but hey, when they put your child on your chest and everyone’s gushing and fussing and taking pictures, you kind of just go for the ride. It’s the mom stereotype.

That baby’s placed in your arms you’re forced to play the damn part.

I did the best that I could, faking it for the nurses and for family. Then we got home. We were a family now. We had a new member, a new person that didn’t exist before. I supposed there was a sense of excitement around that concept. The cats sniffed my daughter, confused. Me? I didn’t feel that sense of automatic love one is supposed to feel after giving birth, and I felt like something was wrong.

What Makes A Good Mother, Anyway?

Desperate for clarity, I consulted the Internet and found myself in a vortex of mom forums. Like me, these women wanted advice, wanted consolation, wanted to know they weren’t fucking crazy insane. But they sounded crazy fucking insane, using all these damn acronyms.

DD. DS. DH. SAHM. EBF.

Sitting up until the early hours of the morning trying to breastfeed my daughter without my nipples screaming in agony, I found myself growing enraged every time I had to ask the Internet for parenting help. I hated these women. I felt like I was engaging with cult members.

They laughed about everything, talked about their kids all the time, about how amazing their husbands were. They made teething solution about of essential oils. Every one of their posts featured the hashtag: #momlife

To be fair, I don’t want to criticize modern mothers or #momlife. It’s a tough gig full of undervalued labour and social isolation. Ultimately, the Internet proves to be a major resource for many moms and I recognize its value.

#momlife is a Trend

Truth is, I’m just an asshole.

I’m also a hypocrite, because I’ve used #momlife to tag some of my posts on occasion. It just frustrates me when I click on the damn #momlife on Instagram and it’s literally full of white sisters with professionally-taken family photos and those saccharine AF rustic quote signs with that millennial cursive font and gorgeous marble-countered kitchens fully stocked with fucking Rae Dunn mugs.

Now, I realize is mean to mock people for liking what’s trendy. It’s the hipster in me. I personally enjoy my 60s – 70s mid-century vibes, so feel free to tell me how fucking tacky the retro deer collection in my bathroom is. Home decor is subjective.

Unrealistic Expectations

My daughter was born 6 months before Princess Charlotte, and as a woman with a weird infatuation with Kate Middleton, I found myself delighted with the prospect that we were both pregnant at the same time. Then that whole story about how Kate lost all the baby weight three months later came out, and yeah, that shit messed with me.

I remember posting on Facebook about it and plenty of other moms shrugged it off, saying things like IT’S ALL SO UNREALISTIC! YOU LOOK TOTALLY FINE! SHE HAS TRAINERS AND TIME AND NANNIES AND SHIT!

And yes, they are correct! I knew that. But dang, my body was a mess.

Mom-Bod

Most of my adult life I’d been treading into obesity. I wasn’t entirely out of shape but I wasn’t in shape either, and yes I hated the crap out of my pre-pregnancy bod most of the time. My love of fashion did allow me to explore creative options. However, my new mom body refused to fit into my old clothes. Getting ready for church every Sunday became an absolute nightmare.

And that goes without mentioning the horrific C-section scar, but we’ll get to that.

I didn’t feel like myself and my body didn’t feel like mine and it didn’t matter how much I talked about it. Everyone was just like, IT’S OKAY YOU LOOK FINE YOU LOOK AMAZING OMG AREN’T YOU SO IN LOVE WITH YOUR DAUGHTER?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I felt fucking crazy. My feelings were left invalidated. The urge to scream always lingered, but I smiled and held my daughter. I kept faking it because stereotypical moms talked about their babies all the time. So I answered all the questions even though I could never get the facts straight about how she was sleeping or how many diapers I’d changed or how much milk she’d consumed.

The Scar

I said I planned on getting to this, right?

Before getting pregnant, I had these big plans of a perfect natural birth. All those mom blogs made it seem so empowering and easy and I thought I was a tough lady and that I would manage. In addition to being a “tough lady” I am also a Type 1 Diabetic, which meant that my pregnancy was “high risk” and that when my blood pressure spiked in the 9th month that things were not going to go my way. I ended up induced. Labour chose not to progress. Then, three days later, when it became evident that my daughter struggled with the contractions, I chose to have a C-section.

I got over my longtime fear of surgery, but not having the birth experience I wanted proved difficult to work through. The C-section contributed to the PPD. The resulting scar was like a participation ribbon.

THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE BIRTH EXPERIENCE!



BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!

So that sucked. The ugliness of it. That whole C-shelf thing? The fact that the bump showed through all my pants? The fact that capitalism had to make me insecure about it by following me around in banner ads for those fucking C-shelf panties that cost like $40 a pair?

I didn’t die like Lady Sibyl. That was my only consolation at the time. C-sections save lives and get babies out of your body. It’s major surgery and I did it twice. And yes, it’s taken a long time to work through my guilt and anger and “loss” of what is considered to be the ideal birth experience. But I’m okay now.

New Lady

My body eventually turned normal again, with some stretch marks and the aforementioned scar, yes, but I managed to slip back into normalcy. I went back to work and I wrote my novel, The View From the Basement, about all the of the above. The process proved cathartic and relieving. It allowed me to embrace some of that stereotypical mom stuff too, and I often talk about my kids with my other mom friends and coworkers.

In other words, I’m less hateful now.

After the PPD crisis, I spent a lot time getting to know myself again. Women give up so much of themselves when they become mothers and I think that once a child starts becoming their own person that it’s important for a mother to grow back into herself too. Writing was a major part of the process but I also got into makeup.

Makeup was one of those things that intimidated me as a teen. I never wore it, could never apply it correctly. I went bare-faced into my late 20’s before finally watching some YouTube videos. And lemme just tell you that it’s a fun community. It’s not intimidating and it’s not ultimately about vanity. It’s about creativity. I might have to get up an hour or so earlier than I usually would to put it on, but I’ll listen to a podcast while doing it. I have fun when I put on my makeup.

In addition, I also figured out how to properly do my hair. My whole life, I’d always wanted pretty curls. Doing my hair always intimidated me. I never used to invest much time in my hair or my face but doing so really helped my self-esteem.

Note:

I don’t want to suggest that my turnaround should apply to every woman. I’m just an insecure lady who grew up saturated with beauty norms and yes, a part of my personality is invested in those norms. I accept that. I’ve got insecurities and unrealistic ideals. I’ll never not want to look like Kate Middleton when I go to church on Sunday.

Another mom’s “personal investment” might differ from mine.

All I’m saying is that it was nice to finally embrace the “self-expression” I wanted to embrace when I younger, and that I felt I finally could as a grown-ass woman, and a mom. The 16 year-old Rebecca who just wanted to wear black lipstick would be so damn proud of me now.

Losing Weight + Diabeetus

Like most women, I have spent a majority of my life fretting about my weight. In the interest of being sensitive to others, I don’t like to talk about diets or my ideal body type. Nevertheless, before I decided to have a second kid, I did lose a large amount of weight by doing the keto diet.

Losing the weight was of course part of the reason why my husband and I decided to go keto. But, as a Type 1 Diabetic with high blood pressure that never did return to normal after my daughter was born, I also realized the the diet could benefit my health.

My blood pressure normalized. My blood sugars remained stable. I stopped having to get up every night to treat hypoglycemia. I cut my insulin doses in half. My thyroid levels returned to normal. And I gotta say that getting that clear bill of health from my doctor felt so effing good.

Aaaaaand then I got pregnant again and gained all the weight back. The blood pressure spiked again and I dealt with all the standard diabetic pregnancy shit, but I’m 11 months postpartum and back to my pre-pregnancy post-keto weight. All is good.

Becoming A Mom is a Personal Journey

I return to work in a couple of weeks, and quite honestly, this new change scares me.

Writing (and blogging!) has found its way back into my life. It’s an integral part of my identity and I’m grateful and blessed to have kids who go to bed and sleep through the night and allow me to stay up until 2AM writing every night. I am, how do you say it… #blessed.

I don’t know. I hate the whole #momlife thing because it makes the experience seem so white and suburban and commonplace, and this goes without getting hardcore political about the experience of moms in poverty, single moms, minority moms, transgender moms, etc.

I’m mixed-race and I have a chronic disease but my experience is still pretty privileged as far as I’m concerned. My coffee-joint of choice is Starbucks and yes I like the egg bites. I could probably run a successful mom blog if I just joined Amazon Affiliates instead of wanting to guillotine Jeff Bezos. I could probably get more hits if I made up my own Instant Pot recipe for DIY Starbucks egg bites that linked to some sponsored Pepperidge Farm cheese and Epicure paprika or whatever.

My issue is capitalism. I don’t want to whore out massive corporations and brands if I don’t care about them. I tried it a little with my outfit posts on Instagram but I can’t commit the time required to do it well. This definitely sounds cheesy, but I jUsT wAnT tO wRiTe HoNeSt CoNtEnT oKaY?!?!?!?!?!!!!

I don’t know what percentage of today’s self-proclaimed “mom blogs” don’t have affiliate ads or sponsored posts or utilize marketing of some form. They’re less about telling you the honest reality and more about selling you a dumb baby carrier or some organic mac and cheese or some C-shelf smoothing leggings. I can’t fucking stand it.

Talking #MomLife

I realize that in order to sell my novel (which is a sort of psychological horror about #momlife) that I need to talk about #momlife more. Not just my personal #momlife but about mainstream #momlife and mom culture in general, because it’s a lot of the online “mom influencer” life that inspired my novel.

Truthfully, I’m just trying to find my angle. I can promise that I’ll be hitting you with some honest #diabeetusmomlife content soon. (No ads here, people! Just annoying posts about my #writinglife fused in.)

And the only reason why I used the #momlife so gratuitously in this post is to trick Yoast SEO into thinking that I formatted this post for correct SEO optimation when all I want is to is post a diary-like blog post like we used to do in the old days, dammit. But hey, we’re full-circle here. I grew up and got married and had kids and now I have my stupid mom blog. 2004 Rebecca would be so proud.

Anyway, I’ll post some more mom stuff soon because I know a bulk of my audience is probably moms? I see you moms and I hope I didn’t offend you with my rant. I might mock your Rae Dunn mug collection I still stand in solidarity because life is tough and kids are frustrating and coffee is what we all need in our veins. And yes, I do like wine but it’s not keto and I can’t always drink it because my diabeetus doesn’t know how to deal with the sugar.

My son just woke up from his nap so I gotta wrap.

How do you #momlife?

Are you a mom? Do you like mom-based content? Has it helped you in your momming experiences? If you’re not a parent, does this form of content alienate you? Why or why not?

The post No, I Will Not Talk About #MomLife appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

I Started An AuthorTube!

Four years ago I started an AuthorTube channel on YouTube. In a span of one year, I produced two author-related videos, one unboxing video and one video of my sister using a cat scratcher to do stomach crunches. Somehow, this amazing content gained me 10 whole subscribers!

I bet they’re excited now, because last night I uploaded a brand new AuthorTube video:

Check out my Youtube channel !



WTF Is AuthorTube?

This video is what’s called an “Author Tag”, which authors use to engage in the “AuthorTube” community. Or so I think? Basically, it’s a serious of author-related questions that I answer in order to let views know what I write and what I’m all about. I’m a bit awkward. I’m a bit rusty. Most importantly, though, I made and uploaded the video.

It’s an accomplishment, yes, but I do worry about what kind of time I can commit to producing more.

What sparked my interest in making videos (again!) was following some “AuthorTube” channels like SAVY and Alexa Donne and, of course the great Jenna Moreci. Check them all out because they offer fantastic writing tips and have fun personalities. You’ll learn a lot.

Should I Continue?

Now, I would love to make more videos but I’m really wary about finding the time.

I’m a young mother who will be returning to work in two damn weeks. My daughter will be heading to kindergarten this fall. What little time I have I want to spend writing, so I don’t exactly want to spend hours learning how to edit videos. Thus, I make no excuses for my lackluster InShot editing.

I do, however, want to apologize for swearing a lot. I was nervous. Swearing broke the tension. I’m a human being. I should be a better influence, I know.

But yeah, that’s about it. If you like this content, feel free to give the video a like and a comment. And yes, SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL!

Most of all, I just hope that you enjoyed my Canadian accent, because I now it’s the one thing that throws all my American writer friends off when they first hear me talk.

The post I Started An AuthorTube! appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.

HEAVEN – A Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews Review

After finishing the Cutler series, I wanted to take a break from V.C. Andrews and try some old school lit. I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was the longest drawl ofstrong-together sex scenes that have definitely not aged well through the years. (PRO TIP: Don’t reference the word “bowels” in every sex scene you write.) So, with the disappointing classic book finished, I decided to dive right back into the V.C. Andrews cesspool of melodrama.

And I went with a classic with the first book in the beloved Casteel series, Heaven:

OF ALL THE FOLKS IN THE MOUNTAIN SHACKS, THE CASTEELS WERE THE LOWEST — THE SCUM OF THE HILLS

Heaven Leigh Casteel was the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, despite her ragged clothes and dirty face . . . despite a father meaner than ten vipers . . . despite her weary stepmother, who worked her like a mule. For her brother Tom and the little ones, Heaven clung to her pride and her hopes. Someday they’d get away and show the world that they were decent, fine and talented — worthy of love and respect.

Then Heaven’s stepmother ran off, and her wicked, greedy father had a scheme — a vicious scheme that threatened to destroy the precious dream of Heaven and the children forever!

About the Book

Published shortly before V.C. Andrews’ death, Heaven is the first book in the Casteel series. The first two books, Heaven and Dark Angel were published by Andrews shortly before her death, and the family hired a ghostwriter to complete the series under her name. V.C. Andrews fans often hail the Casteel series as the best, and I was extremely to see what all the fanfare was about.

My Copy

I’ll be honest. I really, really tried to score myself a stepback copy but it’s definitely not easy. Heaven is a beloved V.C. Andrews novel, and it’s also an older one, which makes getting a first edition difficult. I’m not sure how many times this book was republished but the editions are definitely not the same.

I bought two different copies online from Thriftbooks. Both copies were supposed to be in “Like New” condition and they were definitely not in what I could consider to be “Like New”. Both of my copies were published in 1985 but neither of them had keyhole covers.

I read the severely damaged copy because, hey, it had character! Luckily, this edition had the stepback photo featured on the back, which is worth sharing because this book is jam-effing-packed with family:

[image error]Chapped that I don’t have a proper keyhole copy of this yet. The Andrews-written books are considered collector’s items at this point, so pristine copies of these books prove to be very difficult finds.

We’ve got Heaven with her doll in the middle. Behind her is stepmother Sarah, and lurking behind Sarah is who I’m assuming is Heaven’s father Luke (though he looks too young). Gripping Heaven’s shoulder is Logan, and in the overalls is brother Tom. Left to right in the front row stands Fanny, Our Jane, and Keith.

The Review

Lemme start by saying that I was kind of let down by this one.

It’s a well-known fact that V.C. Andrews is not a good writer. Her prose wanders all over the place. Plot meanders between paragraphs. The tension fails to stay taut. Revelations happen in passing exchanges and out of the actual action. It’s hard to actually FEEL the feelings because all Heaven does is tell me her day in extended summary.

I hate to say it but I kind of missed Neiderman’s writing, simply because it was easier to mock. There’s a significant lack of “breasts” in this book. And the sex scenes don’t immediately start with a dude grabbing a woman’s breasts, either. Much appreciation in that regard. *golf clap*

That all said, while V.C. Andrews might have not been the greatest writer, her true skill was telling a saucy twisted story with a very female-focused dilemma. So let’s see how Heaven holds up to the V.C. Andrews formula.

An Innocent & Pretty, Yet Completely Naive Female Protagonist

Readers meet Heaven in the middle of the night. She’s 10 and her grandmother takes her to the graveyard and tells her that her mother isn’t her real mother. She shows Heaven her bio-mom’s grave. Engraved in the marker is the name Leigh, her father’s one true love. Leigh, of course, died giving birth to Heaven Leigh Casteel and her father never got over it.

Heaven’s grandmother gives Heaven a fancy suitcase full of fancy clothes and a fancy doll wearing a bride’s gown. The book states that Leigh had lovely blonde hair and that the doll looks exactly like Leigh, but for some reason the doll on the stepback photo has brown hair like Heaven. Such inconsistency!

Heaven loves school and reading, but she’s also the oldest girl in the family, which means that she’s frequently burdened with cooking and childcare duties whenever her stepmother doesn’t do it. Surprisingly enough, Heaven doesn’t have that secret special skill that other V.C. Andrews protagonists possess. No singing. No dancing. No painting. No true crime podcast obsession. She’s pure blood Casteel scum through and through.

A Beloved Doting Paternal Figure

Luke Casteel fails to make much of an appearance in the book’s events but he sure makes an impression. Hailed as the hottest dude in all of Winnerow, he captures the heart of every middle-aged woman who meets him, but he never looks or talks or acknowledges Heaven.

He spends most of his time making moonshine out in the boonies somewhere and only ever comes back to bang some dancers over at the local strip club. Occasionally he brings the kids some food or something he’s killed and he walks in like the savoir of the family even though he’s a total POS.

I pictured him like this, I won’t lie.

Heaven fails to understand why her father hates her. This is the underlying plot of the novel, which I actually quite appreciate, but most of this theme is relayed with Heaven just not getting it. Here’s but one example of Heaven crying to her half-brother, Tom:

“Pa doesn’t love me like he loves you, Fanny, Keith and Our Jane,” I sobbed, and even that made me feel weak and ashamed. “Am I so ugly and unbearable, Tom? Is that why Pa hates me so?”

Heaven isn’t actually that unbearable. She holds her own better than most V.C. Andrews protags. Heaven’s main issue is that she gets vapid from time to time. Jealous. Big-headed. They’re real flaws, though, so I can’t cut into her that much.

A Tragic Death

Heaven’s step-mom Sarah isn’t quite the bitch that the back synopsis makes her out to be. She’s just one of Luke’s side dishes who he impregnated immediately after (or perhaps sometime before?) Heaven’s mother died. Heaven states that she and her brother Tom shared a cradle growing up, but I’m not entirely sure how the timeline works out exactly, because Heaven and Tom are supposedly the same age.

Nevertheless, Sarah sticks with Luke and births three more of his kids. Heaven feels sorry for Sarah, who’s always tired and cranky and exhausted, getting fat (Heaven’s words, not mine!) and wasting her life waiting for useless Luke to turn his life around.

In the book’s rising action, Sarah admits to Heaven that she’s pregnant again, and Heaven helps out as best she can until the baby’s birth, where all hell breaks loose:

Granny looked where some type of sex parts should be, and neither she or I saw any.

I could hardly accept what my eyes told me. Shocking to see a baby with nothing between its legs. But what did it matter that this child was neither girl nor boy when it was dead and the top of its head was missing? A monster baby, icky with running sores.

“STILLBORN!” screamed Sarah, jumping out of bed and seizing the baby from my arms.

Okay, first off, you see what I mean about the narration falling flat? Heaven’s voice just feels passive and it dulls the intensity of the scene, but then Sarah’s dialogue kicks it scene back into momentum when she does something that I doubt any woman who’s LITERALLY JUST GIVEN BIRTH would do.

This is exactly why I love V.C. Andrews BUT I also love being critical of V.C. Andrews’ writing. It’s just not great.

QUESTION: Can a baby like legit be born without genitals? I’ve heard of them being born with both or a misshapen version of one, but never none at all. I really don’t think that can happen, but somebody in the medical field, please enlighten me in the comments.

Now, returning back to the book, Sarah takes the baby outside and confronts Luke, blaming the baby’s monster features on his whoring ways. (Luke has also just told the family that he has syphilis (gasp!) but this revelation doesn’t amount to much, really.)

Luke then takes the baby and THROWS THE DEAD BABY ON THE GROUND and drives back to the strip club. It’s some next-level crazy that I was no prepared for.

Sarah takes the next few chapters to work through the loss of her baby. Heaven takes over the role as mother until the day that Sarah vanishes, leaving just a simple note on the table that is pretty much the ideal breakup letter:

Dear husband,

Can’t stay no longer with a man who just don’t care enough about anything. Going where it’s better. Good luck and good-bye.

Much as I loved ya, hate ya now.

Sarah

Perfect. It’s perfect.





A Rags to Riches Plot

With Sarah gone and their father trying to overcome his syphilis by banging more women, the kids do their best to survive. The grandmother also dies shortly after the baby fiasco. The kids run out of food and start stealing from the townfolk to get enough to sustain themselves. Eventually they decide to leave the cabin, leaving their sad feeble grandfather behind. They pack up their things and turn to leave. BUT then Luke returns at long last!

It’s nearly Christmas and he has a special gift! What is that gift, you ask? Oh, it’s selling each kids to a new family for $500 a head.

Keith and Jane go to a young couple. Fanny goes off with the local reverend. Tom goes to some old man who plans to work him like a mule. Then Heaven sticks around the house with her dad for a while before two couples show up at the door.

Luke allows Heaven to choose which couple she’s sold to: the old, more distinguished couple, or this one:

The man was tall and good-looking, with dark brown staight hair and light brown eyes. Beside him stood his wife, almost as tall as he was. Six feet, or very near it, she had to be, even without those high heels. Her hair was a huge mass of auburn red, darker and richer than Sarahs’s hair had been. Sarah had never been to a beauty parlor, and only too obviously this woman’s hair couldn’t survive without one. Hair teased to such exaggerated fullness it seemed quite solid. Her eyes were a strange pale color, so light they seemed not to have any color at all, only huge pupils swimming in a colorless seas. She had that porcelain-white skin that often came with naturally red hair, flawless and made up to perfection. A pretty face? Yes. Very pretty.

And here’s the cake-topper:

Unlike the older couple who wore those heavy gray tailored coats, she wore a hot-pint suit, so tight it appeared painted on.

I mean, I guess with all things explained so well, how could Heaven NOT choose the latter?

A Hostile Maternal Figure (+ Bonus Mean Girl!)

Heaven leaves home with the young couple, Kitty and Cal Dennison. And because this is fun, here’s one more passage where Heaven OBSESSES over Kitty’s beauty:

Truthfully, I’d never seen a woman with so much exaggerated femininity, radiating sexuality with her heaving bosom, her full buttocks, her tiny waist that must have struggled to support all it had to. Her knit top was strained so much it appeared thin over the stress areas. Her pants emphasized the wide V of her crotch — making Pa stare at her with a queer smile, not of admiration but of contempt.

Upon arriving at the Dennison abode (a standard mid-century home in a suburb called Candlewick), Kitty reveals that she’s a former lover of Luke and that she bought Heaven because she was once impregnated by Luke and aborted her own child when the relationship went awry. Now unable to bear her own children, Kitty uses Heaven to both take revenge on Luke and also to be the mother she always wanted to be.

Joke’s on Kitty for buying the Luke’s least-favourite kid, right?

Kitty quickly becomes a controlling nightmare of a woman, first giving Heaven a boiling hot bath in friggin’ LYSOL to wash all the hillbilly scum off her. Kitty then forces Heaven to spend the first night in the house sleeping between her and Cal because she’s terrified of Heaven sleeping on her side and humping her pillow. Seriously, no joke.

There is no explanation for Kitty’s paranoia. She bans Heaven from watching TV unless there’s another adult in the room, and, of course, forces Heaven to do all the housework and all the cooking. Having lived without electricity and other modern luxuries, Heaven finds herself at a disadvantage. It takes her time to figure out how to use the washing machine and how to wax a floor. She also learns the hard way that it’s not safe to put china plates in the dishwasher:

“Yer a damned fool — that’s my best — took me foreva payin fer all those cups, saucers, plates, and things — now ya gone and ruined my things — goddamn Jesus Christ idiot hill-scum trash!”

Her pinching grasp hurt my arm. I tried to tug free. “I won’t do it again, Mother. I swear I won’t!”

“Yer damned right ya won’t do it again!” Wham! She punched my face, once, twice, three times!

Like yeah, this is beyond soap opera. This is some legit Tarantino shit right here.

Moments of the book show Kitty actually doing her best to be a caring mom, but she’s also a mess of a woman trying to maintain a status quo which portrays her wealth and luxury, even though at the heart of it, Kittye still loves McDonald’s and has never gone to a fancy restaurant. She’s insecure AF and, despite the horrors, is actually an interesting character.

Incest!

Early in the book, Heaven has the odd touchy-feely relationship with her brother, Tom, but it never progresses and further than than cuddling for the sake of soothing each other. It’s weird but not Flowers in the Attic weird.

Heaven attaches herself to a boy named Logan at her school. Logan represents a good future option that Heaven could have by marrying him, but there are some weird complexities that occur in the course of their relationship that make no sense, plot-wise. Before Heaven’s sold, Logan visits but doesn’t seem to give a shit that she’s being sold and then it’s revealed that he had eye surgery and couldn’t see things straight? I don’t get it. I don’t understand why these things are even included in the book.

Anyway, the main relationship is Heaven’s father-daughter relationship with Cal. In his early 20’s, Cal is a clueless cougar-lover who puts up with much of Kitty’s unstable personality while taking pity in Heaven’s position.

I mean, he tries but he also puts up with the abuse because he is also a victim:

“When I understand what makes her what she is, how can I not love her? There’s one thing, though, I want to say now, while I have a chance. There are times when Kitty can be very violent. I know she put you into hot water on your first night here, but I didn’t say anything since you weren’t permanently harmed. If I’d said something then, she would be worse the next time she has you alone. Just be careful to do everything as she wants. Flatter her, say she looks younger than I do . . . and obey, obey and be meek.”

He helps Heaven navigate her new life in her modern home. He buys her nice clothes and furniture and then, you know, falls in love with her. The two eventually bone and Heaven quickly realizes that she’s made a mistake by sleeping with her rebound-dad, the shame of which lingers with her for a long. damn. time.

Again, more props to Andrews here for that realism. It’s nicely buried and very gutting.

A Vivid Gothic Setting

One major component that Heaven lacks is the gothic setting. She grows up in a two-room cabin. She moves into a suburb home that vastly differs from the V.C. Andrews settings that I know and love. That said, the Dennison house is actually fantastically weird.

To start, everything is white. The walls and the carpet and the floors are all clinical white so Kitty can see that it’s clean. But the best part is Kitty’s handmade pottery.

Her living room was larger than our entire cabin — but the most surprising things about this room was the colorful zoo it contained. Everywhere, on the window-sills, in corner cabinets, on the tables, lining the white carper up the stairs, sat animals made into fancy stands to hold plants; animal faces and forms made picture frames, lamps, baskets, candy dishes, footstools.

It turns out that Kitty is a ceramic artist who teaches classes. She’s also a hairtylist with lots of famous customers and she brags about them all the time. Later in the book, Cal convinces Kitty to give up a portion of her ceramic studio so Heaven can have a bedroom to herself. Heaven realizes that all the locked cupboards in the studio contain molds that Kitty uses to make her ceramic pieces, which doesn’t matter all that much but is a pretty major burn when Heaven confronts Kitty about being a fake.

Also of note is that the bathroom is pretty much exclusively hot pink. Kitty uses hot pink towels and Cal’s towels are black and velvet. Can you imagine drying yourself off on fucking VELVET?

Some Good Olde School Misogyny

So of course, V.C. Andrews books always focus a lot a woman’s attractiveness, but also on woman’s tasks like child-rearing and minding the home:

Sarah taught me a thousand things. By the time I was eight I knew how to make biscuits, melt the lard for the gravy, add the flour with water before I blended it into the hot grease. She taught me how to clean the window and sand scrub floors and use the washboard to force dirt out of filthy clothes. She also taught Tom to do as much as he could to help me, even if other boys did call him a sissy for doing “women’s work.” If Tom had not loved me so much, he might have objected more.

Speaking of being a “sissy”, there are also a lot of scenes that focus on the way men ought to be, like this scene where Heaven’s boyfriend Logan gets beat up by a bunch of other dudes for dating “hillbilly scum”, and when Heaven asks Tom to intervene, he chooses not to because doing so would emasculate Logan:

“There’ not gonna kill him, silly. They’re just testin t’see if he’s got what it takes.”

“WHAT DOES IT TAKE?” I yelled, ready to pitch in myself and help, but Tom caught and held me.

“Don’t you dare shame him by helpin,” he whispered urgently. “As long as he keeps sling blows and fightin back, they’ll respect him. Once you or I help, it’s all over for him.”

Heaven holds these same beliefs when she first meets Cal. There’s a scene where Kitty tries to seduce Cal while Heaven’s still sleeping between them. Cal barely manages to stand up for himself (because he’s a victim of abuse, ya’ll!), but Heaven just thinks he’s not a man:

I listened, amazed that he took what she dished out. Pa never would have. What kind of man was Kitty’s husband? Wasn’t a man always the boss in his family? I felt a bit sick that he didn’t fight back and stand up to her.

But then we get to the point where Cal and Heven have sex (which is written properly in that it’s meant to incite uneasiness, unlike that BS that Neiderman wrote in Secrets of the Morning, but I digress!). Luckily, Heaven’s not an idiot and feels insecure and wary about the whole thing. She’s still a child. Cal’s the adult who falls in love with her, and Heaven rightfully tries to avoid him, albeit also needing him because, hey, he’s supposed to be her father figure! And you know what? Props to V.C. Andrews for creating some real tension here.

Kitty’s abuse builds to a boiling point when…

SUPRRISE!

…she goes into a funk of insanity that ultimately puts her into a catatonic state. Desperate, Cal and Heaven go back to Winnerow to take Kitty back to her family. This is where Heaven crashes into her old beau, Logan. Heaven emotionally updates him on her life as Kitty’s slave and here’s Logan’s garbage misogynist reaction:

“Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t sell you! I’m terribly sorry that you’ve suffered — but damned if I can see that you have! You look terrific, wearing expensive, beautiful clothes, like a debutante, and you come and tell me you’ve been sold and treated like a slave. If all slaves end up looking like beauty queens, maybe all girls should be sold into slavery.”

Fuck you, Logan. You’re the reason “cancel culture” exists.





Some Really Bad Writing

Andrews’ prose wanders a lot more than Neiderman’s. I’d read over like three or four conflicting emotions in one paragraph. Say what you will about Neiderman, he can at least maintain an consistent emotion in one wall of writing. His melodrama might go off the damn charts, but honestly, after reading a scene like this one where Luke comes home to find Sarah missing, I had no idea what I was supposed to feel.

Not one of us could find words to tell him. Pa stood tall and lean, his bronze face clean-shaven and paler than usual, as if he’d undergone a great ordeal, and had lost at least ten pounds, and he he looked fresher, cleaner, and in a way, healthier than when I’d seen him last. He appeared a dark-haired giant, reeking of whiskey and that strange, overpowering scent that was strictly male. I shivered to know he was back; at the same time, I was overcome with relief. As mean as he was, he’d save us from starvation, now that real winter was upon us, and every day snow would be falling, and the wind would be whistling around our frail cabin, finding all kinds of ways to get in and chill our bones.

I can’t be worried and happy and terrified and relieved and dreading winter at the same time! This is pure train of thought and there’s a reason why fiction shouldn’t be told this way. It’s not effective. PICK AN EMOTION!

Another thing I’ll mention was the book’s ending, wherein a billion things happen in like 10 pages, the most relevant of which occurs outside of Heaven’s POV.

Let’s take a deep breath to get through this:

Kitty gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Her family catches wind of Heaven’s relationship with Cal and kicks both of them out of the house and into the Winnerow hotel. Heaven tries to re-establish her relationship with Logan but then he discovers that GASP! she’s not a virgin anymore. He leaves.

*deep breath*

Tom finds Heaven and attempts to visit their grandfather who is now in a care home. Once they get to the home they discover that Luke has taken the grandfather out. Then Cal finds them and takes Heaven back to Kitty’s family home. Turns out Heaven’s father visited Kitty and left Heaven a note. The note provides Heaven with the home address of her younger siblings, Keith and Jane, and he asks if Heaven and Tom will go live with him and his new wife.

*Another deep breath*

Tom tries to convince Heaven that their father has truly changed for the better. Heaven isn’t convinced. Then this happens:

“Wait a minute,” whispered Kitty. “Got somethin else for ya.” She smiles weakly and took a small envelope from under her pillow. “Had a good talk wid yer pa — and he gave me this here t’keep fer ya, and give t’ya when t’time comes. It’s my way of trying t’make up fer what I did . . .” She floundered, glanced at Cal, then added, “I think t’time is now.”

Inside the new letter is a plane ticket to Boston which Heaven can use to go and live with her mother’s family. Like WHAT? So Luke gave both letters but Kitty didn’t choose to reveal them both at once? It’s all just plot for convenience sake.

Tom tries to convince Heaven to stay with their Pa, but Heaven packs her back to go to Boston. Then Tom calls Heaven to say that he dad is looking for her. Then Cal comes and calms Heaven and then Heaven goes to the airport and then Tom and Fanny (who is pregnant with the reverend’s baby, because OF COURSE the reverend is a rapist pedophile) to say their final goodbyes.

Like, why not just give Heaven one final confrontation with her dad? She never gets that satisfaction as a character, and instead we have to watch like 12 different characters try to convince Heaven of pointless things before she goes and does the thing she wanted to do anyway.

The execution of this climax leaves a lot to be desired.

Fantastic Psychological Horror

You know, I honestly thought it was well done. It takes a while to really get right down to it, and while I did feel that the plot of this book kind of meandered about, the tension between Heaven and Kitty was rough but I liked that she saw who Kitty was even though the abuse. Granted, that understanding doesn’t excuse Kitty’s behaviour, but I liked that her character had real dimension, as opposed to the typical matronly V.C. Andrews antagonist.

There’s some deep psychological trauma that gets explored, and I did enjoy Heaven’s struggle with wanting to maintain her father/daughter relationship with Cal while also trying to navigate her budding sexuality.

Once again, it’s this kind of horror that V.C. Andrews excels at and is famous for, so I’ll give her full props here.

My Final Thoughts

Looking back, there’s more to appreciate about Heaven than I did while reading it. Under a more skilled writer, this book would have had more potential to thrill or entice me. The middle portion with Cal and Kitty felt a bit odd, but the circumstances did develop Heaven’s character to a degree that made me feel somewhat compelled to follow her.

This being a V.C. Andrews book actually penned by Andrews herself, I have to give this one points. The only major deviation was the setting. I loved Winnerow and the cabin and the woods, but the lack of a true gothic house loses points here.

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Why I Love Curling

I’m not a sports fan. During the Olympics I’ll watch the final hockey games to ensure that Canada wins, but that’s about it. Being a hockey fan is kind of a big deal for a Canadian. You gotta love your hockey if you’re Canadian, when in fact our official sport is lacrosse (for some reason). There is, however, one sport that I do care about and it’s more Canadian than hockey. It’s curling. And I love curling.

Did you know that 80-90% of the world’s curlers are Canadian? The sport is widely played in the prairie provinces (where most of the elite Canadian players hail from, for good reason). We’re in the middle of peak curling season right now and these past few days I even skipped a Democratic debate to watch the Scotties Tournament of Hearts on TSN.

Last night I also purchased some tournament package tickets for the 2021 Tim Hortons Brier in Kelowna, British Columbia, which I am beyond stoked for. It’ll be a late 10th anniversary gift to ourselves, which is cool, going to a national sporting championship.

Where My Love of Curling Began

Unfortunately I haven’t had much of a chance to play. I did play one Jam Can Bonspiel in when I was 11 back in the late 90’s (which is where the header image of this blog is from). Back then I wanted to be the great Sandra Schmirler, who won Gold in Women’s Curling back at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Schmirler incited my love of curling.

In the Jam Can Bonspiel, I played Skip just like Sandra, but I was definitely not an epic shot-maker (even though I did have that wicked awesome nylon jacket that made me FEEL like an epic shot-maker. I ended up switching positions with my friend Lauren and played lead because I COULD at least throw a pretty decent draw.

As a team, we weren’t so great. We lost some tough games to literal 6 year-olds, but those wins, when we did win, felt so damn good. It’s part of the reason why I get really invested when rooting for my favourite teams. Obviously their games matter more an involve 120% more skill, but seeing those losses or victories work over their expressions really takes me back.

Obviously I would have loved to learn curling for real but when you grow up poor and your parents can’t afford to put you into sports, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, right?

Recently, I went curling with my husband for his work Christmas party, where I learned the ropes again. I got in one damn good slide and the lady instructing us like like, “Yeah, she’s good!” and I did a bunch of fist pumps because it made me think of my old 1998 Sandra Schmirler dreams.

I was still bad though. My draw weight was weak.

What’s so great about curling?

I love curling because people mock it. It’s an obscure sport, a weird sport that most don’t understand. I love the sweeping. The yelling. The fact that most people don’t understand the game at all. There’s nothing greater than watching an epic curling shot on YouTube and scrolling down to read the comments from people saying, “I literally have no idea what just happened.”

Case in point:

This curling shot, dubbed “The Shot” is considered to be the greatest curling shot of all time, pulled off by Jennifer Jones to win the 2005 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Down two points, this extremely difficult shot scored her 4 points and a win.

Explaining curling to newcomers proves a complicated task. I’m not even going to try because I’m still a relatively new fan and I still have a lot to understand. Teams alternate throwing stones toward the house (the three circles). The team with the rock closest to the button (the centre of the three circles) wins an end. Multiple rocks of the same colour closest to the button equals more points for a team. Usually a curling game consists of 10 ends and the team with the most points at the end wins. Boom. Keeping it simple for you.

That’s really all you need to know to watch curling. The sport proves elusive but you learn more about the strategy and jargon the more you watch and pay attention. The game is all about angles and math and the stuff you didn’t pay attention to in high school, but curling is a sport, so it’s fun!

The Teams

Curling teams consist of 4 players (the lead, second, third (sometimes known as the vice-skip), and skip). Each player makes two shots in each end, with shots alternating between teams.

Typically, the first and second will make draws or guards in order to set up the game strategy. The third and fourth (skip) typically make takeout shots, though many close ends of curling do end up with the skip making a ridiculously tense and accurate AF draw in order to get a stone closest to the button.

Curling teams are always named after the skip, who is typically the most-skilled player. The skip is in charge of formulating strategy during the game and is also responsible for making those integral two shots at the end of the end.

Much of a team’s success depends on communication, which is what the players are doing in that “And Now…” clip that Last Week Tonight featured on Canada Day of 2018:

Ah, the jargon! How can you not love the jargon? And the Canadian accents?

I love being able to watch how teams work through this communication aspect. As a viewer, you get a lot of insight as to how each team works. Ever player gets miked in televised curling, which makes the viewing experience quite candid, in all honesty.

In a game I watched yesterday, this exchange occurred between two players in Team Canada:

Lead: Man, I gotta piss.
Skip: Me too.

So candid. I feel like I know them!

As a writer, I love those close-up shots of players in the heat of the game. Reading faces is a part of my career, and curling really does allow me the opportunity to get a good look at someone’s disappointment, frustration, or, in the best curling moments, their excitement.

Epic Shotmaking

Of course, this is what most curling fans love. Some ends come down to a highly difficult draw to the button, while others come down to a dramatic takeout. One of my favourite curlers is Matt Dunstone, who is like the takeout KING who celebrates his victories:

It’s funny because a lot of curlers make epic takeouts and do that whole “walking away from a burning building and never look back at the explosion” stereotype. Case in point is Kevin Koe, who seems to be the G.O.A.T. in terms of active male curlers (I wasn’t a fan in the Kevin Martin days but I get it, yo). Koe consistently makes epic shots and always walks away stone-faced every time. Which is badass, I can’t lie.

And let’s not forget those finesse shots, which are so slow and agonizing at times, but to watch a stone slip past a bunch of others into the exact place it needs to be is just so satisfying:

It’s those intense shots that make a curling game just as nail-biting as a hockey game. The slower pace simply means that you can actually time your bathroom breaks around those last couple shots so you never miss a thing.

The Courtesy

Curling is known for its politeness. This stereotype is a part of what makes it a “Canadian game”. They respect each other and congratulate each other on their shots. For lack of a better phrase, it’s not a sensationalized sport. There’s a real community aspect that I like, both at the casual and the competitive level.

I do always look forward to that point where the teams shake hands at the end of the game.

Also, curlers have great arms

All that sweeping? Dang. Some of those front end curlers have some nice biceps.

So, that’s Why I Love Curling

Once again, I’m not a sports person, yet here I am with a TSN subscription so I can watch my game of choice. Just remind me to cancel it once the Brier is over because I ain’t paying another $25 to not watch March Madness, whatever the hell that is exactly.

I love curling because it feels like more than a sport. This year, especially, I’ve learnt a lot just watching this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts (the women’s national championship) and am of course enjoying the Tim Hortons Brier (the men’s nationals), where my favourite team (Team Bottcher) is currently dominating.

I’m also beyond excited to go to the 2021 Brier in Kelowna, British Columbia with my husband next year. We got the full package so we’ll be sitting in the stadium for the entire week and will hopefully make it into some TSN crowd shots.

Do You watch Curling?

I mean, you’ve probably enjoyed Team Norway’s fun pants at the Olympics over the years. Mr. T says curling is cool. You should think it’s cool too, because it is.

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MOODBOARD: “Spellbound” Short Story

Last month I struggled with the graphical elements for Modern Ruins. (Not my best work, I admit!) This month, however, I managed to churn out my moodboard and preview images in a couple nights. Not to mention, I penned another story, titled “Spellbound”, in just over a week. All with a bloody sinus cold and an ear infection, too. I might feel like I’ve been living in a fish tank all month, but productivity knows no bounds!

In my most recent Patreon post, I shared this month’s writing adventure with you, wherein I attempted to write a story that ended up becoming too big to be a story, and thus, I had to start writing a new story. That story will be this month’s Patreon-exclusive story.

It’s an MLM-based horror called “Spellbound” and I’m so excited to share it.

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