Sarah Rees Brennan's Blog, page 10

How I Met Your More Awesome Friend

Robin Scherbatsky: 'This just in' is what I'm going to say when I'm stabbing you.

Isn’t that a great opening line?











So, I was watching The Avengers last weekend with my roomie (good movie! Evil brothers, kickass ladies, just what I like) and an agent fighting on the side of light and wearing tight pants like all the important people in the Avengers do, caught my eye.

SARAH: That’s Robin! Robin from How I Met Your Mother! I love Robin!
ROOMIE: I know you love Robin.
SARAH: I’m going to go straight home and watch How I Met Your Mother.
ROOMIE: We’ve been down that road before. You know how that ends.

How I Met Your Mother has this very common problem. The HIT problem. HIT does not mean ‘is hugely successful!’

It stands for Hero Is Terrible.

It is a sitcom told from the point of view of a dude who’s telling his two kids how he… met their mother, who over seven seasons is yet to be revealed. It’s mostly about his wacky hijinks with his bunch of friends.

Side characters, awesome! Lovely couple Marshall and Lily, free-wheeling singletons Robin and Barney. Ted, the hero on a search for fairytale love who acts like fairytale love is owed him and is deeply narrow-minded, however, gets up my nose so far he hits brain.

It also has the common sitcom problem where there is very little character continuity or development and sometimes all the people in it are just amazingly awful for the sake of comedy. What can you do?

So I watch it on and off until I get annoyed/Ted becomes unbearable/I get annoyed because Ted is unbearable.

But I always love Robin. That does not change.

Let us talk about Robin Scherbatsky, Canadian lady reporter living in America, commitmentphobe and sass bucket, dedicated to fun times and good drinks.











Admittedly, Robin’s job is not a huge feature of the show, except for when it causes her to have comic mishaps.

Ted: So, you're a reporter?
Robin: Sorta, I do those fluff stories at the end of the show, like... Monkey can play a ukulele. I'm hoping for some bigger stories.
Ted: Bigger... like, a Gorilla with an upright bass? Sorry, you're very pretty.

(Thank God, Ted does not get the girl! TED, THE PREMISE OF THE SHOW—ALL ABOUT HOW THIS TERRIBLE DUDE MEETS THE GODFORSAKEN MOTHER OF HIS UNFORTUNATE CHILDREN-- FORBIDS YOU ROBIN'S HAND! PRAISE THE LORD, GLORY HALLELUJAH. Because though people put themselves down all the time, other people don’t have to put them down, and dudes do not have to dismiss ladies’ jobs.)

But it is always shown as an important thing to Robin, who is ambitious.

Don: Look, Robin. You seem like a nice kid, but this is my 39th morning news show, and from those 39 shows I've learned a few things. 1. Avoid the all you can eat sushi buffet in Bismarck. 2. Don't go to the bathroom with your lapel mic still on, and 3. Your entire audience at this hour is one half-drunk slob sitting in his underwear.
Robin: Well let's do a great show for that half-drunk slob.

The one time Robin was shown as not taking a job because of a guy... well, that was shown as a mistake, and I'm not saying it always would be a mistake. But I am saying that 'Other Stuff Is A Valid Choice To Make Over Romance' is a message I like seeing.

Robin has national pride as well as pride in her job.

Robin: I am Canadian. Remember? We celebrate Thanksgiving in October.
Ted: Oh right I forgot. You guys are weird and you pronounce the word out, oot
Robin: You guys are the world's leader in hand gun violence; your health care system is bankrupt and your country is deeply divided on almost every important issue.
Ted: ... Your cops are called "mounties."

Robin: I'm proud to be Canadian. We may not have a fancy NFL team, or Prince, but we invented Trivial Pursuit—you're welcome, Earth.

Robin very casually dismisses traditional gender roles: not just interest in marriage and commitment and babies, but even interest in cleaning up. It’s fine to be interested in those things… but it’s also fine not to be, and I like that Robin is always very casual about it. She knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like, and there’s an array: pretty sundresses and Scotch and sexy good times, yes! Babies, no. Robin is clear about what she wants and where she stands, always. Even when a lot of people are trying to make her feel bad about what she wants and where she stands—or are just dismissing it or making fun of her, she says the way she feels is valid.

Also, she was briefly a pop star and she can fly a helicopter if she has to and shut up, Ted.

Ted: [Seeing Robin eat cereal] That looks good. I’ll have some of that.
Robin: Sorry. No milk.
Ted: But I just saw a carton of milk in the fridge yesterday.
Robin: It’s empty.
Ted: Then throw it away.
Robin: Can’t. Trashcan’s full.
Ted: So empty the trash.
Robin: I would, but I’m eating cereal.

Ted: Robin hates kids.
Robin: I don't *hate* kids!
Ted: Well, you don't want to have any.
Robin: I like sports cars, but I don't want to push a Ferrari through my vagina.

Robin: Babies are scary, OK? They have giant eyes, and come on, the soft spot? If there's gonna be a self-destruct button, at least hide it somewhere it won't accidentally get pressed!

Robin (to Lily and Marshall): Look, I hate most babies, but your baby; I'm going to love that kid so much. I'm going to pick it up and everything.

Robin finds out, pretty late into the series, that she can't have biological children, and it is seen as sad--having a choice taken away from you always is--but not life-destroying. It doesn't make Robin suddenly sure she did want marriage and babies, and it's absolutely not a punishment for her not wanting them. It's shown as one of those things, sad senseless things, that happen and that you have to deal with.

Marshall Eriksen: So Robin, do you have a playbook?
Robin Scherbatsky: [motions at breasts] Two volumes, right here.

Robin has no time for ridiculousness.











Marshall Eriksen: You don't understand love. You're like a robot who asks someone who's crying "Why is your face leaking?"
Robin Scherbatsky: Okay, robot initiating parking-on-the-curb-until-jackass-apologizes sequence. Beeb-bob-boop-beep-booooop!

Robin: You think the only way to be in love is to have pet names, or leave each other stupid little notes or go charging off into a blizzard for no good reason. You know what you are? You’re a love snob! There’s lots of ways to be in a relationship, and you would know that if you ever left your little ‘Love Snob Country Club.’

Robin: Look at me, I've sworn off relationships.
Marshall: She is so about to get married.
Ted: I gotta work on my toast.
Marshall: I gotta make sure my tux fits!
Robin: I will bang your heads together like coconuts.

Ted: Gee, is that ice cream cone big enough?
Robin: Uhhh, it's delicious enough.

Ted: Seriously, where do you see yourself in five years?
Robin: Where do you see yourself?
Ted: Honestly, in five years, I’d probably want to be married.
Robin: And I’d probably want to be in Argentina.
Ted: Argentina?
Robin: Or Tokyo, or Paris. Look Ted, I don’t know where I’m gonna be in five years. I don’t wanna know. I want my life to be an adventure.

'I want my life to be an adventure' may be the best quote in this post.

While Robin is obviously an awesome single lady, I admit I do have a wish for who I want her to end up with: her friend, the womanizing compulsive liar, Barney.

She and Barney did date for a little, but it was so poorly handled that I have deleted it from my brain. However, I think they are a sweet couple and while they both have their issues (Barney has so many. So many. More than Vogue), I think they work well together. There is much smiling and dancing and actually genuine fun times had.











(Convince me the couple have fun and you've got me.)

Barney is frequently disgusting, but at least the show treats him like he is saying terrible stuff constantly when he says terrible stuff constantly, and Robin—as is her way—smacks him down all over the shop.

Barney: It's my apartment and I need to assert my dominance as a man.
Robin: Don't ever say that to any girl, ever!

She nursed him when he was sick, as he feebly protested 'Don't look at me! I'm hideous!' Aw, sickly boys into their appearance. No, I don’t even know what’s wrong with me.

Robin: You know what game I really miss? Battleship. I’ve never lost a game.
Barney: Neither have I. Of course, I cheat.
Robin: Oh yeah, me too.

Look, good partners! And I support their amoral ways. They also enjoy running through museums in formal dress and touching all of the exhibits.

They’re both insecure and both have daddy issues and both act out, but nobody is perfect! Indeed, that is part of what makes couples interesting: healing each other and working through stuff together.

Robin Scherbatsky: No.
[laughs]
Robin Scherbatsky: No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, Barney and I are not together. No. No.
Barney: Really? Sixteen 'no's? Really?

Robin Scherbatsky: You're right. This is a mistake.
Barney Stinson: Yes... No!
Robin Scherbatsky: I love you.
Barney Stinson: Let's be friends.
Robin Scherbatsky: Okay, friends then.
Barney Stinson: I love you.
Robin Scherbatsky: Ah... Let's get married!
Barney Stinson: No! You're smothering me!
Robin Scherbatsky: Okay, forget it!
Barney Stinson: Gaah!
Robin Scherbatsky: Gaah!
Barney Stinson, Robin Scherbatsky: *Kiss*

Barney: Ah-ah. Boyfriend? I don't wanna be Robin's boyfriend.
Lily: Well, what do you want then?
Barney: I don't know... I just wanna be with her... all the time. I wanna hear about her day, tell her about mine... I wanna... hold her hand, smell her hair... but I don't wanna be her stupid boyfriend!

Robin: I'm such a mess. Why do you even like me?
Barney: I guess cause you're almost as messed up as I am.

Robin Scherbatsky: No matter how bad things got, Ted really did love Zoey for a minute there. Didn't he?
Barney Stinson: Yeah... he did. And she loved him, too. Didn't she?
Robin Scherbatsky: Yes, she did.

(Aw, kids! Talking in code.)

What I like most about Robin and Barney together is that Barney obviously adores her and is constantly showering her with support and with compliments.

Barney: Holy crap, you’re beautiful!

Barney: Look at her Ted, she’s the greatest woman on the planet!

Barney: You’re the most awesome person I’ve ever met. Well, second.
Robin: Right, first being you.
Barney: No, actually, it’s this guy I know who lives in something called the mirror. What up?

Robin: Hey. Um, when we were dating, did - did I make you feel needed?
Barney: No, I didn’t feel like you needed me at all.
Robin: [sighs] That’s what I thought. Uh, I’m sorry. [turns to leave]
Barney: Wait, where are you g- that’s a compliment! You’re the least needy woman I’ve ever met. That’s awesome! No guy’s gonna say “Who’s your daddy?” to Robin Scherbatsky; you’re your own daddy. And mommy. And weird survivalist uncle who lives in a cabin with a shotgun blaming stuff on the government. And that is what makes you the most amazing, strong, independent woman I’ve ever banged.

(... while he’s still terrible...)

Barney: When I let a day go by without talking to you, that day’s just no good.

And best of all, Barney is shown as thinking that Robin’s job is important, and as supportive of her career. The rest of her friends pretend to have watched her early morning show, when he says he doesn’t watch it: but he secretly does. And, much more important, he steps up to the plate with support when she needs it.

Barney: I finished your video resumè on my own. Messaged it to every news station in the city. A guy from Channel 6 called: he loved you, he wanted you to come in and audition.
Robin: Oh my God.
Barney: I told him no. Robin Scherbatsky doesn't audition. He gives you the job, or nothing.
Robin: So-so I got the job?
Barney: No, he cursed me out and hung up. But then Channel 12 called! They also loved you, they offered you a job hosting their new morning talk show.
Robin: Barney, that's amazing!
Barney: I told them to shove it.
Robin: Dude!
Barney: It's only made them want you more. So they jacked up their offer by 10%. Congratulations, Miss Scherbatsky.

Robin: Okay. There's a job opening at a new cable network that would be perfect for me. Completely legit world news, interviews with people who matter... ah, but I decided I'm not gonna apply.
Barney: Why not?
Robin: Because I'm a joke. I'm just the scary news lady from some stupid local news channel.
Barney: Hey. We both know you're more than that. Promise me you'll apply.
Robin: Barney, it's not as easy as -
Barney: Promise me you'll apply.
Robin: Okay. I promise.

D’awwwwww. Reporter ladies who rock and boys who adore and support them for the win. Also, comedy!

I admit... I have a favourite fanvid. (Yes, you have correctly assumed from this confession that I have watched more than one.) It is, of course, from Robin's POV.



And of course, a lady reporter with an imaginary man is extremely relevant to my UNSPOKEN interests.

Ted Mosby: You are driving me crazy! No wonder your fake husband moved to Hong Kong!
Robin Scherbatsky: [deadly serious] He moved there for business!

I love you, Robin. Shut up, Ted.

It's A Team Human-y Couple of Days!

I have just espied with my little eye that Ms Justine Larbalestier has put up the first chapter of Team Human!

Soooo, I hope you will all enjoy it.

We also recently got our very first Team Human fanart. And it's a COMIC STRIP! Isn't it gorgeous?

I hope you all enjoy ALL the things!

A Cover Photoshoot

So, Anne Hoppe, the editor for mine and Justine Larbalestier's TEAM HUMAN, told us that they would be doing a photoshoot for the cover. 'Cool' we said. 'Very fancy!' we added, because often covers are made from stock photographs and not photographs taken specially.

Anne continued that she and other wise people at Harper Collins were going to choose models for the four characters they wanted on the cover: Mel, our sporty wisecracking heroine who thinks vampires are losers, Cathy her pensive, book-loving best friend who thinks vampires are dreamy, Kit, who was raised by vampires and is kind of a mommy's boy, and Francis, the dreamiest vampire and most accomplished lute player of them all.

'I can't wait to see them!' I said in an agony of joy.

'Wait,' said Anne. 'You will both be in New York around that time, won't you? Do you want to come to the photoshoot? It'll be quite bor--'

'DO I EVER!' I said. 'I must choose what to wear to the photoshoot?'

My roommate pointed out they were unlikely to be taking pictures of me, given that we would be surrounded by models.

'So... dress inconspicuously, you're saying,' I said wisely. 'Business ninja chic. I gotcha.'

Aside from the heels covered in polkadots, I like to think I accomplished my goal.

The photoshoot was located at the top of a very tall building. New York has no shortage of those. I, naturally, got lost and Scott Westerfeld, Justine's other half, was deputed to come find me. Having secured me, I was deposited with Justine and our editor Anne outside some large, black doors.

I was VERY nervous. I'm not sure why. I had never done anything so fancy as go to a photoshoot for my own cover before, so I didn't want to get going to the photoshoot wrong.

ANNE: Do you want a drink of water before we go in?

SARAH: Is that a trick question?!

We were ushered in to a large, warehouse-like room, with material fold-out chairs like directors' chairs where we could sit. And racks of clothes, and people bustling about four very attractive people.

We'd seen a rough sketch of the cover, so we knew how they were going to be positioned--three on the front, the heroine in the centre, one on the back. We hadn't seen the people actually chosen to portray the characters before.

I admit it, I was staring.

SARAH: There they are! THERE ARE OUR BABIES.

JUSTINE: No, no, no. There are people you don't know. Quit giving them the google eyes.

SARAH: *googles hard*

There was a black backdrop, and lights that shone like the eyes of intently watching vampires. There were outfit changes, and we got to leaf through the models' bios and hear how they were chosen. Justine took pictures, like a normal person.











Our Francis and Cathy, posed together under the lights.

I stalked the models, like a crazy person.

At one point I sidled over to the model playing Mel. She told me her name, but I continued to think of her as Mel.

SARAH: Hiiii. Oh, I, uh, I wrote the book. With the Australian one over there. Me. Me and her. Hiiii.

MEL: Hi. So, cool that I'm going to be in the center!

SARAH: Yes. YES. You are the star. You are the MOST important. You look JUST RIGHT. You have an EXCELLENT smile. And also eyes.

MEL: Oh... thank you.

MEL: *starts to edge away from the googly eyes*

I wish I could tell you that was where it ended, with me debatably hitting on our cover model. But... that would be telling you a lie.

The models playing Mel and Kit began to talk to each other. They were laughing and chatting, and seemed to be having a good time. Everyone was having a good time! Photoshoots are so much fun.

SARAH: Justine... Justine look!

JUSTINE: Why must we keep staring at these people?

SARAH: Look at them talking to each other!

JUSTINE: Sometimes people do that. And sometimes they hiss at other people like maniacs. Apparently...

SARAH: MAYBE THEY WILL FALL IN LOVE!

JUSTINE: Sarah, please tell me you are not matchmaking our models. Though they do seem to be having fun togeth... Sarah where are you going?

SARAH: I'm going to go lurk behind the sofa so I can see them better. SEE HOW THEY ARE GETTING ALONG.

ANNE: What is she doing? Can we stop her?

SARAH: Secret agent mannnnn... secret agent mannnnn... they've given me a sofa... and taken away my name...

I think the Mel and Kit models thought that I had lost an earring behind that sofa. Better that way. Much better that way.

On covers, models mostly look quite serious and dramatique, as they are on a mission. (Friends don't let friends date vampires!) But as the photoshoot went on, we did see that the Mel and Kit models both had really great smiles.

It seemed a pity not to record them.

ANNE: Do you guys want to go to lunch now?

SARAH: Noooo I don't wanna gooooo I wanna stay here with my people and my sofa and my--

JUSTINE: Yep. Lunch. Great idea! But before we go... Hi, guys, would it be okay to get a picture before we go?

MEL & KIT MODELS: Yes, of course! *model faces*

JUSTINE: Hey, relax, this is just fun.

KIT MODEL: Oh... okay then! Well, in that case...

That was when Kit startled Mel by grabbing her and lifting her right off her feet! We all started laughing. I also googled so hard it's a wonder my eyes didn't fall out.













ANNE AND JUSTINE: Bye guys thanks you were great!

SARAH: Goodbye I love yoooooo-

ANNE AND JUSTINE: *drag Sarah off*

I admit I find being a writer a super cool adventure. But I know other authors handle it with aplomb and elan. I cannot help freaking out and bringing shame to a legion of poker-faced badasses. Such is my fate.

ANNE: I hope you guys liked the models we chose!

JUSTINE: Oh they were amazing.

SARAH: I loved them! Maybe I loved them TOO MUCH. And I love staring creepily at people!

It is clear to all that, of the two of us, I have a natural affinity for Team Vampires. Vampires, good starers.

And this was the cover we wound up with...














My babies. *continues googling*

In Justine's native land of Australia, we are being published by Allen & Unwin, and they decided to use the same photoshoot but make the cover different, to suit the different Australian market! Thus is much beauty brought about by a photoshoot.

Behold!













I hope you guys like the models and the covers and most of all, I hope you like the book.

Just last week, we got confirmation that Kirkus like the book, because they gave Team Human a STARRED REVIEW.

Both lovers and loathers of teen vampire romance will revel in this hilarious satirical take on the genre.

Mel might not exactly have her own life sorted out, but she’s always been there for her BFFs, Cathy and Anna. She indulges Cathy’s passion for history, ruins and old things in general; that is, until Francis Duvarney enrolls in their high school. Vampires may be both dead and deadly, but they are also a legally tolerated minority and even tourist attractions—and Francis, with his mesmerizing good looks and stuffy arrogance, is irresistible to an old-fashioned girl like Cathy. Meanwhile, Anna sees Francis as an unbearable reminder of the collapse of her parents' marriage. Mel knows her duty to both of them: prove that Francis is up to no good, whether the clues lead her into the city's terrifying vampire district, the school's rat-infested basement, or even the arms of a cute guy. While primarily an affectionate parody of the genre, filled with clever allusions and devastating snark, the story also sympathetically illuminates the allure of vampire romance, for characters and readers alike. In an unexpectedly poignant turn, it becomes a celebration of love in all its forms: crushes and spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, families born and created, and, above all, friends tested and true.

Laugh-out-loud funny, heart-wrenchingly sad and fist-pump-in-the-air triumphant, this sparkling gem proves that vampires, zombies and even teenagers … at heart, we're all on Team Human.

I googled pretty hard at that, let me tell you.

TEAM HUMAN, coming to a store near you July 3rd.

RESTRAINING ORDERS FILED BY MODELS AGAINST ME, hopefully not coming at all. But you never know.

I Belong to Chrestomanci Castle

There is a Diana Wynne Jones tribute going on, and I have kept thinking and thinking about a way to contribute to it, and kept feeling entirely and massively inadequate.

I never met her, and if I had I don’t think she would have been terribly impressed. I would have just stared with damp adoration, and maybe said ‘I loooooove your books’ in tones more unutterably creepy than I can describe to you. It would have been like Gollum saying ‘I am rather fond of costume jewelry.’

Robin McKinley, in her tribute to Diana Wynne Jones, which is, fair warning given, much better than this one is going to be, said ‘I was a better worshipper than I was a friend.’ That is how I would have been if I’d ever met Diana Wynne Jones—I just flat-out would never have believed she wanted to talk to me or that I could ever have had anything interesting enough to say. (That is certainly how I feel about Robin McKinley.)

I cannot talk about her as a Fellow Writer because honestly I feel like as a writer she was like a star—so, so far away, and yet so illuminating to me. I’d be much too overawed to do that.

But I eventually thought I could talk about her as a reader, because I wanted to talk about her while the tribute was ongoing.

I always planned to write her a letter—a real letter, I mean, on paper that I’d post to her, because that seemed more Real and Like Tribute, and I started that letter so many times. It was an ongoing project of mine, starting the letter to Diana Wynne Jones, and then putting it by, in a desk, until I was better, until I could say it right.

I never sent any of the letters. I never even finished one. But I did want to write this.

When I found out Diana Wynne Jones had died, I just quietly shut up my laptop and immediately went to Belfast. This doesn’t sound like a very impressive reaction, but when I came home my roommate was a bit frantic. ‘You left your computer!’ she said. ‘OVERNIGHT! Is everything okay?’

I’d just wanted to be alone for a bit, with the weird feeling of loss for a woman I never met, and without torturing myself reading all about other people’s feelings about Diana Wynne Jones, which I knew I would do if near my computer. And indeed once I was back to my computer, that was what I did, and I cried and felt a little better.

Cassandra Clare and I were doing a bookshop event together, and we were asked about our favourite books and our favourite heroes in them, and she said ‘Howl in HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE!’ and I said ‘Oh, you wench, that was what I was going to say!’ Cassandra Clare at another time when she was not creeping all up on my fictional boyfriends, said: “People who know and love the same books you do have the roadmap of your soul. I believe that.”

I believe that, too.

A girl I was vaguely friends with in college said ‘I love Harry Potter and I wish there were more books like that’ and I said ‘I have something so much better for you’ and brought in an armful of books by Diana Wynne Jones the next day. She was, I think, alarmed and somewhat put off by my extreme fervor, but she read them, and she asked for more. She may have thought she’d be in trouble if she didn’t read them, mind you…

She now lives with me and has for years, and is one of my closest friends. She reads everything that I put in her hands. It’s possible we’re in some sort of hostage situation that I’m just really oblivious to.

Diana Wynne Jones has marked epochs in my life: not simply the first discovery of CHARMED LIFE, a battered paperback that neither of my parents seemed to have ever read, in my house (Magic book-lovin’ elves seems to be the only answer there), or the discovery of THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT on my first trip to the library when I was about twelve, where I also discovered Robin McKinley and Margaret Mahy and a lifelong love of fantasy. The first book I was ever sent for a professional review, when I sat about on a worn red sofa and felt like a Real Official Author, was ENCHANTED GLASS (of course it was a rave).

One such moment in my life stands out very vividly: being at a fair in Guildford, when I was twenty-three, wandering disconsolately around because living in England was new and I was having a hard time making friends and I missed both my Irish and my American friends. There were stalls of fruit and used clothing, mainly, and the bright orange fabric covering miles of melons and yards of shawls seemed frankly oppressive. I was in, if it is not obvious, a somewhat jaundiced frame of mind. The sky was grey and it was raining, that fine persistent drizzle that everyone always just tries to ignore. ‘Oh no, it’s not really raining, and it’ll let up in a second anyway!’ I call that rain Frizzle Drizzle, because your hair will frizz right up and your clothes will all be damp and one particular awful icy trickle will go right down your neck, and you’ll be miserable, and you still won’t go inside.

My jumper was damp, my spectacles much beflecked, and I think you have a picture of how my hair looked already. I saw the tiny stall with just a very few books in it, instantly gravitated toward it, and began rooting through them with my vaguely numb red paws. And I came upon a copy of THE OGRE DOWNSTAIRS, the 1977 edition (before I was born) with the cover illustration gone all sepia and an inscription inside with love to a stranger. A Diana Wynne Jones I’d never read before! Suddenly the whole day was bright. I passed over a 50p coin and retreated with the book clutched to me. I read it leaning against a gray brick wall by the fair, body angled to protect the book. My hair at this point might have been setting off cyclone alarms in the weather report and all my edges were chilled, but I was happy and at home.

Books can be like that, a light in a hearth or a beacon welcoming you, something to rush toward. Books like Diana Wynne Jones’s taught me that.

Her books taught me a lot of other things: that children’s books were just as smart and important as adult books, never to believe that fantasy or publishing were American-centric, that fantasy could seem real and true and near, always to have the magic on the doorstep with the milk bottles.

Her books left memories I have easy access to, which occur to me at random moments in my life like jewels on a chain

There are the horror of Christopher realising the packets of fish were mermaids in THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT, the ‘everyone’s got to have hobbies, and ours is human sacrifice’ moment in THE POWER OF THREE, the feeling like drinking bleach faced with the fact that people you love cannot be trusted to love you back or treat you well in FIRE AND HEMLOCK. I realise at this point I sound like some sort of book masochist, but I find misery in books really enjoyable. Crying madly over fictional death is cathartic! And if a book can make me feel anything deeply, then it’s a GOOD book.

But also, sometimes—and with Diana Wynne Jones, often—the misery in books tells you ‘You are not the only person who ever felt this way. You are not alone.’

I never met Diana Wynne Jones, but she kept me company.

And her books did a lot of fun things for me, too: Diana Wynne Jones has the dubious honor of writing the most heroes I have crushes on. Christopher Chant, Howl, Malcolm McIntyre, all have a place in my Fictional Boyfriends Hall of Fame. Her books did perhaps the most important thing that books do—they made me laugh, and taught me that smart, wonderful, heartbreaking books could make you laugh, and that humour never diminished them in any way.

In CHARMED LIFE, there is a moment when the protagonist Cat takes out a bunch of stuff from the castle of the nine-lived enchanter who is now his guardian, but even simple things like china plates are magic there—and they all start to shout out their protest.

‘I belong to Chrestomanci Castle!’ they say. ‘I belong to Chrestomanci Castle!’

Because of Diana Wynne Jones, who I never met, I was irrevocably altered: my purpose in life, the things I wanted, the way I think and the way I communicate with other people. He words changed my world.

That means a lot. She meant a lot to me.

Part of me belongs to Chrestomanci Castle. It always will.

SLIDING UNDER THE WIRE WITH MY... GOTHIC TUESDAY!

I was at the Sirens convention in Denver last year, sitting on a sofa and talking about my all-Gothic-novels-all-the-time project. Rachel Manija Brown spoke up, with a conspiratorial smile on her face.

RACHEL: Have you read anything by Isabelle Holland?
SARAH: Oh yes. Yes I have had that experience. Yes.

I am going to tell you guys about TRELAWNY by Isabelle Holland.

TRELAWNY was published in 1974, so it is one of the MODERN GOTHICS, and it is (and I use these words advisedly, as a Professional Writer and an amateur reader of all the things) totally cray cray. It belongs to the period of a few years when I believe everyone writing Gothics all decided at once that they could get away with ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. Personally I blame Virginia Andrews? I’m not saying my case would hold up in court, but Virginia Andrews has a shifty look about her.

TRELAWNY is also set in America, which is a modern Gothic thing. The Gothics stretch out to incorporate the New World! ‘Guys,’ said America. ‘We can have manors and people being inappropriate with their relatives TOO. Hello we keep women in attics all the time? Please read Charlotte Gilman’s THE YELLOW WALLPAPER? Pass us a slice of the Gothic action.’

A lot of the modern Gothic is set in the South, and it is known, with brilliant originality, as Southern Gothic. Which is a big favourite of mine! But TRELAWNY is set in Maine, which I also enjoy because the vampire city Justine Larbalestier and I created in TEAM HUMAN is set in Maine. I like Maine! Mysterious things go on in Maine.

And in TRELAWNY, oh boy, they do.

So let’s proceed with the story of the most hilarious twins in literature. Because of course, a Gothic novel is nothing without its Gothic family.

STATE TROOPER: Ma’am I hate to ask but are you brutally murdering someone in the back seat of your car?
KIT TRELAWNY: That’s just my cat. She’s slightly Siamese. Since we’re talking, could you direct me to Poop Manor?
STATE TROOPER: …. Ma’am?
KIT: Uh. I mean, Trelawny. A huge mansion that used to belong to my snotty aunt, who despised my dying lower class mother, and my hotass but assfaced twin cousins Giles and Nicholas. My mother and I left the mansion never to return and I have built my life as a college graduate and successful book editor to show them I didn’t need them and spit upon them! And now they’re all dead and I get the mansion.
STATE TROOPER: I’m very happy for you.
KIT: I’m going to turn it into an artists’ colony. That will show my aunt! Take that, Trelawny assfaces!
STATE TROOPER: So you’re giving up your home, life and successful career in order to upset your dead aunt?
KIT: That’s correct, yes.
STATE TROOPER: Just take a left turn at ‘Emotionally Unhealthy Decisions’ and you’ll get there in no time!


KIT: Almost there…
DR BILL: Why hello, Miss Trelawny, welcome to town! I’m the local doctor. Let me know if you need any help at all. Going out on the town. Staying in with smooth jazz playing. Anything.
KIT: I’m not here to date, I am here to spit upon the graves of the Trelawnys. Them and their charmed lives!
DR BILL: Aren’t they all dead?
KIT: So what?
DR BILL: The twins both died in Vietnam, and their mother died all alone, and their house is basically cursed, and there is a long ancestral tradition of Trelawnys hanging themselves from a particular rafter…
KIT: I don’t take your point.
DR BILL: I’m just saying I wouldn’t describe it as the ideal life.
KIT: You don’t understand. Giles and Nicholas Trelawny were so hot. I mean they were so, so hot. Hot like burning. Hot like fire. So hot they made the eruption of active volcanoes seem kind of luke-warm.
DR BILL: Giles and Nick could probably have made it as underwear models, it’s true.
KIT: Everybody knows that people with perfect bone structure have perfect lives.
DR BILL: You know, I’m just a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist. But I have the numbers of some good psychiatrists.
KIT: My aunt was mean to me! I said my cousins weren’t that alike and she said they were identical and I had a stupid face!
DR BILL: Identical twins are usually pretty alike,
KIT: And my Cousin ‘Hottest Relative Ever’ Nicholas was also mean to me! And my Cousin ‘Also Super Foxy’ Giles saved me from drowning and from a runaway horse!
DR BILL: That doesn’t sound too bad to me…
KIT: He saved my life twice in a very superior manner, and I am still mad. Now excuse me, I have a lot of plotting for revenge against dead people to do.
DR BILL: …. Call me!

SIMON THE CARETAKER: Hello Miss Trelawny. You look so like the Trelawnys.
KIT: No I don’t. I am blond and they were tall and dark and so, so burningly fine…
SIMON THE CARETAKER: Ahem.
KIT: And I hated them so burningly much! Anyway, thanks for caretaking the place, Simon, you’re a pal.
SIMON THE CARETAKER: I just wanted you to know that if you hear anything in the attics, it’s rats. Large, possibly radioactive rats.
KIT: Riiiight.
SIMON THE CARETAKER: It might sound like a person up in the attics, but it’s definitely the rats. They behave erratically because they all have rabies. And they’re mutants. Rabid mutants.
KIT: Jesus! It sounds like we should do something about the rats.
SIMON THE CARETAKER: Oh no, no, I wouldn’t bother about a little thing like that. Best just not to go up there. But if you hear anything in the attics, remember: totally the rats. Definitely the rats. In conclusion: rats.
KIT: … This strikes me as irresponsible caretaking. Oh well. So is Simon your first name, or your last name, or what do I call you?
SIMON THE CARETAKER: Just Simon. Like Madonna.

KIT: Time to welcome my artist colony! Good day, Unpleasant Frank!
UNPLEASANT FRANK: ‘Sup.
KIT: Unpleasant Frank’s Bullied Girlfriend Tess, a pleasure.
BULLIED TESS: ‘Scuse me, I gotta take Frank’s heavy art supplies upstairs.
KIT: My freeloading cousin, Jeremy!
FREELOADING JEREMY: Just point me to the family silver and I’ll be out from under your feet in one minute.
KIT: My cousins from my mother’s side of the family are so much less hot. Welcome, Pogs the amiable aristocrat artist!
POGS: Please put me in the worst room! I don’t want to be a bother! I like to make pottery and apologise mainly!
KIT: Excellent. And Rod, Pogs’s dull love interest.
ROD: I am composing a sonnet. What rhymes with ‘Pogs’?
KIT: You are very welcome too.

PETE THE HANDYMAN: Did someone ring?
KIT: Oh yes. I keep hearing these weird noises in the attic…
PETE: That’ll be the rats. Nothing to worry about! Best not to check, though. The rats will bite your face right off!
KIT: But that’s nothing to worry about.
PETE: Exactly!
KIT: I’ve found a secret door up in the attics and I want you to unlock it.
PETE: … Touching the door of the rats will anger the rats.
KIT: Do the rats own this house? Are the rats aliens from Planet Rodentia with death rays?
PETE: That depends. If I say yes, will you keep the rat door closed?
KIT: If you do not open this door I will kill you with a hammer.
PETE: All right. I will unlock the door but you have to promise not to go in there!
KIT: … This is my house.
PETE: It’s rat territory in there.

KIT: I hear footsteps up in the attic!
PETE: It’s an echo. Or the rats.
KIT: Are the rats up there wearing BOOTS?
PETE: Do not question the rats.

KIT: My cat has gone missing. To the attics! She’s probably after the rats. I must go save her from the mutant rats! Here kitty, kitty, kitty…
NOT THE CAT BUT THE DUDE LIVING IN THE ATTIC: Hey.
KIT: Well, I guess in retrospect the rat story was a little thin. Excuse me for one moment. Ahhhhhh ahhhhhh a dude has come back from the dead and is lurking creepily in my attic ahhhhhh ahhhhh ahhhh! Okay, better now.
DUDE LIVING IN THE ATTIC: Cool. ’Sup?
KIT: Despite the fact I never thought you twins were that alike, I can’t tell whether you’re Cousin ‘Hottest Relative Ever’ Nicholas or Cousin ‘Also Super Foxy’ Giles. Which is it?
DUDE LIVING IN THE ATTIC: … Nicholas?
KIT: Hi, Nicholas!
OBVIOUSLY GILES: Hey, baby.

KIT: Ew, you’re all covered in scars.
OBVIOUSLY GILES: That would be from the war I was involved in, Little Miss Insensitive.
KIT: Oh the war where you made broadcasts saying you’d switched sides? You are a traitor!
OBVIOUSLY GILES: No no no. That was… totally Giles. And I am… totally Nicholas.
KIT: So why are you hiding up in the attic if you’re innocent?
OBVIOUSLY GILES: Oh silly me, did I forget to mention that I am wanted for murder?
KIT: … Who did you murder?
OBVIOUSLY GILES: Uh, Giles’s fiancée. But it wasn’t me who murdered her! It was totally Giles. And I am totally Nicholas.
KIT: And you expect me to just believe all this?
OBVIOUSLY GILES: Yes indeed, because I have no proof at all! I am the most innocent and most frequently accused man in America.
KIT: … I’m going back to bed.

KIT: You know I’m feeling in an inexplicably bad mood about men today! Unpleasant Frank’s Bullied Girlfriend Tess, you shouldn’t let Frank bully you!
BULLIED TESS: HDU FRANK IS A PRINCE AMONG MEN.
KIT: Sometimes he talks to you impolitely.
BULLIED TESS: I am going to tip rat poison into your stew!
KIT: …. Sure. That’s a reasonable response.
KIT: … And now I’m in a bad mood about all of humanity.

KIT: Nicholas! I remember you teasing me as a child!
TOTALLY GILES: … Yes, that was totally me. But honestly with all the murder and treachery, it’d slipped my mind.
KIT: You were so mean! You stole the blankets in the airing cupboard! You stole a deck chair! And you laughed at me when I was twelve!
TOTALLY GILES: I’m all eaten up inside.
KIT: You are a mean person who is just being mean! *cries*
TOTALLY GILES: … Seriously?
KIT: Shut up you are a poopface!
TOTALLY GILES: But seriously, this is what you’re upset about? Don’t you think that’s a little immature?
KIT: I’ll have you know, MISTER POOPY, that I’m VERY mature.
TOTALLY GILES: … I see that.
KIT: YOU’RE immature. Yeah, that’s right. I – I am rubber *weeps* and you - *blub, blub* are glue and it bounces offa me and – and-
TOTALLY GILES: There there little lady. You’re overwrought. Let Totally Nicholas make it all better.
KIT: Come to me, convict traitor murderer cousin LOVAH!
KIT: Wait I’ve changed my mind I hate you again!
TOTALLY GILES: Too bad, I am going to force a kiss on you!
KIT: You’re lucky I’m too mad about being teased when I was twelve to make a fuss about being physically assaulted.

TOTALLY GILES: I have a fever!
KIT: I will nurse you!
TOTALLY GILES: … Someone tried to poison me!
KIT: Are you telling me all that hurt and also comfort was plot relevant?

DR BILL: Hi Kit I just wanted to come by Kit and tell you that you’re good-looking Kit and I find you attractive Kit and I want to take you out Kit!
KIT: Somewhere in public and not up to the attics? Seems odd…
DR BILL: I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so come out in public with me and let me buy you flowers and dinner and compliment your hair and generally be respectful and admiring… maybe?
KIT: Does this dude know he’s in a Gothic novel? His behavior is most peculiar.

KIT: Dr Bill took me out on a date and told me that either you or your twin fathered the surly fourteen year old girl who works at the grocer’s! Explain yourself!
TOTALLY GILES: … That was totally Nicholas. Wait, I mean, I’m Nicholas. It was totally Giles because I’m totally…
KIT: I’m beginning to suspect you’re totally Giles! Actually now I think about it you have different eye colours and don’t look that alike!
TOTALLY GILES: Curse your eerie powers of womanly intuition!
KIT: You fibber.
TOTALLY GILES: Baby, just because I lied to you about my identity doesn’t mean you can’t trust me! Let me explain!

TOTALLY GILES: Okay it’s time for my mysterious Gothic hero’s monologue. See, Nick was always Mom’s favourite.
KIT: You can’t know that. I’m sure she loved you b-
TOTALLY GILES: For Nicholas’s birthday he got a pony and a cake saying ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVOURITE SON (AND SOME OTHER GUY).’
KIT: Carry on.
TOTALLY GILES: She always told everyone we were identical twins. But we’re not!
KIT: You know, that’s true!
TOTALLY GILES: But everyone thought we were because she said so!
KIT: … Is that how that works?
TOTALLY GILES: *sobs* She made me go to war when I wanted to be an architect.
TOTALLY GILES: So anyway with the Trelawnys there is always a good twin… and an evil twin.
KIT: And which are you?
TOTALLY GILES: Totally the good twin! Totally Giles.

TOTALLY GILES: And Mom brought me up to swap places and take the blame if Evil Nicholas ever did anything, you know, evil.
KIT: I guess he was the hottest. *sigh* Evil’s always hotter.
TOTALLY GILES: Evil Nicholas constantly did evil stuff. He was on the heroin. And he’s the father of the sulky fourteen-year-old shopgirl. And he betrayed his country!
KIT: Wait how did you swap places with him when you’re not identical?
TOTALLY GILES: Mother was very convincing.
KIT: So how did you end up swapped when you were overseas?
TOTALLY GILES: Oh Nick was on the heroin with some hos when it was his turn to fly a plane, so I fooled his Commanding Officer and took his place.
KIT: Wait, how did you fool his C.O. when you two weren’t identical and he knew you both and you were both thousands of miles away from your mother and your C.O. had never even met your mother?
TOTALLY GILES: MOTHER WAS VERY CONVINCING, OKAY!

TOTALLY GILES: And then I was taken prisoner under Nick’s name but I escaped and I was a debonair spy for our country and now I am raising cute little mice in your attic! I am both dashing and sensitive and…
KIT: So if you’re Giles, did you murder your fiancée?
TOTALLY GILES: That was also Nicholas. You see Charlotte preferred him and wanted to marry him.
KIT: If Nicholas was killing everyone who thought he was hot the list of his victims would have looked like the CENSUS.
TOTALLY GILES: Charlotte found out that Mom switched us at birth so that Nicholas would be the heir and not me.
KIT: How many times did you two switch places? You are not even identical!
TOTALLY GILES. About eight million times. It was like a game of Pass the Twin around here for years. Anyway, so Charlotte blackmailed Mom so Mom would let her marry Nicholas, so Mom told Nicholas to murder her. So he did!
KIT: But if Nicholas and Charlotte were in love and wanted to get married…
TOTALLY GILES: I KEEP TELLING YOU, MOTHER WAS VERY CONVINCING.

KIT: Just dropping by Dr Bill’s place because he asked me to come by. I wonder what he wants? I wonder who the kids in this picture are? Oh hey, that’s Evil Nicholas and Totally Giles. Boy are they not identical! Different heights! Different features! Totally unmistakably not identical. And huh. Who’s that other kid?
DR BILL: Hey-o.
KIT: Dr Bill I know your dark secret! …. When you were a kid, you USED TO BE... TUBBY!
DR BILL: … Yeah. Aaaaaanyway. Sorry to bother you, but Priscilla’s really ill and I wondered if she could recuperate at your place? Since your place is… a mansion.
KIT: Who is Priscilla?
DR BILL: The surly fourteen-year-old shopgirl.
KIT: Well, hey. I guess she’s family.
DR BILL: Also here’s a thought: let’s get married! Think about it.

PRISCILLA: Thanks for having me, Kit! I want to grow up big and strong and marry Dr Bill.
DR BILL: Shhh, honeybun.
KIT: … That’s weird. Dr Bill’s mouth is saying ‘no’ but his eyes are saying ‘oh baby I love me some fourteen year old shopgirl.’
KIT: Oh well, I don’t want to be judgemental!
PRISCILLA: Do you think I can marry Dr Bill when I turn fifteen?
KIT: While I support your gross forbidden love, baby, in the words of the immortal philosophers the Supremes, you can’t hurry love. You just have to wait. Until you’re legal.
KIT: … Dr Bill’s proposal to me seems a little weird now.

DOORBELL: Ring ring!
KIT: I hope that’s my Amazon delivery and not more distressing Gothic plot!
FREELOADING COUSIN JEREMY: Hey there! Guess why I’m here.
KIT: You’re here to bum food!
FREELOADING COUSIN JEREMY: Normally yes, today no! I was giving your cousin Nicholas a lift here.
KIT: … Oh God I wish it had been an amazon delivery.

SUPER HOT NICHOLAS, EXCEPT STILL TOTALLY GILES, BUT THE BOOK TRICKS YOU BY CALLING HIM NICHOLAS FOR SEVERAL PAGES, WHICH IS A DIRTY TRICK, DON’T LOOK AT ME I’M JUST PARODYING THIS THING, I DIDN’T WRITE IT: ’Sup?
KIT: Oh my God Super Hot Nicholas! You’re still super hot! And I know what that means.
SUPER HOT NICHOLAS, EXCEPT STILL TOTALLY GILES, MYSTERIOUSLY ENHOTTENED: What, sweetcheeks?
KIT: You’re evil! Evil’s always hotter.
SUPER HOT NICHOLAS (EXCEPT TOTALLY GILES): Just because I am carrying a weapon… and asking in a menacing voice where the good twin is…
KIT: Help somebody save me and Giles from this incredibly foxy man!
DR BILL: Dr Bill to the rescue! Wherever a lady is approached by a super hot guy, wherever someone with chiseled cheekbones and a license to thrill draws near a woman… that’s where you’ll find me. The doctor’s in the house.

DR BILL: I’ve knocked him out and now let me take you in my arms and comfort you, sweet Kit!
KIT: Hahahaha no great really good job, doctor, I gotta go upstairs and take a nap! Not up to the attics to warn any cousins. I have just found being threatened by an evil hottie really relaxing and I MUST snooze.

KIT: Giles Giles where are you wake up I—
PRISCILLA THE FOURTEEN YEAR OLD SHOPGIRL: I am just hanging out. From the Ancestral Suicide Rafter.
KIT: I wonder what could make this night any worse?
KIT: *is attacked from behind*
KIT: Thank you for answering that question. Now I shall faint.

DR BILL: Thank goodness you’re awake. Sadly Super Hot Nicholas killed Priscilla.
KIT: Why would he do that? That doesn’t make any sense.
DR BILL: Kit, being able to tell whether things make sense isn’t like you! Come on now. Let’s get married and murder Nicholas and Giles, who always teased me for being fat, and live happily ever after.
KIT: Killing people because they teased you as a child is not a sane move.
DR BILL: Kit, being able to be reasonable about childhood grudges isn’t like you! Don’t let me down here, girl.

SUPER HOT NICHOLAS, EXCEPT TOTALLY GILES: Personally I’m very relieved Kit is being reasonable about this, since she is the heroine of this Gothic novel and I am the hero.
DR BILL: Bang bang! Okay one twin down, one to go! Come on, Kit, it’s TWIN HUNTING SEASON IN MAINE!

SUPER HOT NICHOLAS, EXCEPT TOTALLY GILES: Bang bang! And that has put Dr Bill out of commission.
KIT: I know who you are.
TOTALLY GILES: Yes, darling, I’m Giles!
KIT: … Oh. I thought you were Superman, because a bullet bounced off you.
TOTALLY GILES: … Let’s never speak of this again.

UNPLEASANT FRANK: Hands up evildoers! I am a policeman! Also Bullied Tess is not my girlfriend, she’s a drug addict that I cart about with me to keep her clean. As you do.
KIT: But… you painted a painting!
UNPLEASANT FRANK: I stole that painting from a lunatic asylum!
KIT: Yes. Everything makes sense now.

DR BILL: I want to make a full, detailed and kind of melodramatic confession! I did everything! And I got a ton of people addicted to drugs, including Super Hot Nicholas.
KIT: Why?
DR BILL: Mostly I hate all the Trelawnys because they are poopheads. But also partly because I was super into Giles and Nicholas’s mom, and she scorned me.
TOTALLY GILES: Ewwwwww!
DR BILL: And then I was super into Priscilla the fourteen year old shopgirl, but I decided to murder her anyway! You see, Priscilla looks a lot like Giles’s mom.
TOTALLY GILES: Ewwwwwww!
DR BILL: I have a lot of very complicated feelings, Giles, there’s no need to be judgmental.
KIT: Officer, please take this sexual deviant away.
DR BILL: Gilesy’s mom has got it going on, she’s all I want and I’ve waited for so long… I know it might be wrong but I’m in love with Gilesy’s mom…

MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL: Good news, Priscilla is alive!
KIT: Oh that is good news.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL: Even better news is that Priscilla is a stone cold fox.
KIT: The bad news is that a solid eighty per cent of the men I know in Maine appear to be child molesters.

KIT: Okay, what the hell just happened?
TOTALLY GILES: I pretended to be Nicholas to make Dr Bill distracted and slip up! I suspected he was evil and he’s conveniently confessed everything, including the fact that Nicholas and I are not identical so now I can use my DNA to prove I am the rightful heir and not guilty of all the five thousand crimes Nicholas committed!
KIT: But we already knew you weren’t identical to Nicholas. All we do is talk about the fact you two don’t actually look that alike.
TOTALLY GILES: Shhh, my sweet. This is no time for logic. It is time for love. And if it helps… I’m not attracted to fourteen year olds.
KIT: Come to me, recently vindicated cousin LOVAH!
TOTALLY GILES AND KIT: *cousinly love*

KIT: But how did you pretend to be Nicholas?
TOTALLY GILES: You mean how did I get so hot? Well, contact lenses, concealer, a little mascara… I’ll confess, Kit. I wasn’t born with it. It’s Maybelline.
KIT: No, I mean HOW did you pretend to be NICHOLAS when YOU ARE NOT IDENTICAL TO NICHOLAS? You guys don’t look that alike! Your mother can’t make you switch places from beyond the grave!
TOTALLY GILES: … My mother was very, VERY convincing.

So that was Trelawny, perhaps the weirdest Gothic novel we have so far. It upholds the tradition of the cursed but beauteous manor, the jerk hero, the Evil Family and their Dark Secrets. It also reminded me how many Gothic heroes have scars—and made me think about how different having noticeable scars would be for a kid, rather than a grown up soldier dude.

And then there is the twins factor. There are twins in many a Gothic novel. Twins can be creepy. Twins, as we have learned in TRELAWNY, can be switched, sometimes over and over and over again.

So I thought it would be fun to have twins in UNSPOKEN. They’re identical. (OR ARE THEY?) (No, they are.)

It's Been Ages Since I Did A Giveaway

And I'm not doing one now, but Saundra Mitchell asked if she could, and of course I said yes absolutely! She also said smart things about boys and girls: about which I agree completely. a) A girl is not a machine you put kindness coins into until a relationship falls out and b) a girl is not responsible for a dude's feelings.

She puts it more stylishly, of course. She writes historical: she wouldn't say dude.

"Do you know what I've missed since coming here? Books. I do miss reading novels, don't you?"
-Zora, The Springsweet

Even though there are two guys and one girl in THE SPRINGSWEET, it doesn't feature a love triangle. Instead, what it features is—I'll be honest—my reaction to a weird pop culture insistence.

Namely, the insistence that if a guy really, really likes a girl, she's somehow obligated to be his girlfriend.

If he makes a crazy big grand gesture like, I don't know, watching you sleep every night, or watching your whole life through a telescope, or following you around with a boom box*, then obviously, that's true love and you must respond in kind.

Except, no. There are lots of perfectly great people, but the brilliance of being an individual with agency means you get to decide your own destiny. You're in charge of yourself and your feelings. Other people's persistence isn't currency. They don't get to buy your love with enough extraordinary acts of attention.

So, I haven't written a love triangle at all. (I'm not sure I could, they're pretty complicated to get right.) But I have (I hope!) written a young woman who has agency and who uses it. I think if she weren't stuck in 1891, Zora would get along splendidly with Mae, actually.

You can make up your own mind, though. Enter to win a copy of Sarah's THE DEMON'S LEXICON, and a signed set of Saundra's THE VESPERTINE and THE SPRINGSWEET. All you have to do is comment in this entry, and leave an e-mail address where we can contact you.

And tell us about your favorite book, too. Growing a TBR pile is the best gardening there is! This is the only stop on the blog tour that will be open to international entries.











THE SPRINGSWEET
A Companion to The Vespertine
by Saundra Mitchell
Hardcover & E-book
From Harcourt

“A high-quality, absorbing drama.”

– Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/12

* A boom box? Whoa, this IS historical fiction... - SRB

Unspoken Mix

Unspoken Mix from SRB on 8tracks.

Would you just look at what I did. This is a moment of proud technological achievement for me, folks.

I was asked twice about an Unspoken playlist in one day, and took this as a sign. Tah dah!

Explanations, and also other songs that I couldn't get on the playlist, below.


We should get jerseys, cause we make a good team – Must Have Done Something Right, by Relient K

(Kami Glass, and her determined creation of teams, and teamwork! Every girl reporter needs a street team.)

The more she ignores me the more I adore her – Just The Girl, by the Click Five

(Angela Montgomery Hates The World.)

It isn’t hard to love your scars, because that’s everywhere you’ve been – Be My Only, by FM Radio

(Jared Lynburn, human disaster. Do not let him get attached. Even if you are an inanimate object such as a book or house.)

I'm not perfect, but I keep trying
’Cause that's what I said I would do from the start – Perfect, by Hedley

(Ash Lynburn, conscientious soul, and the effort he puts in trying to be something he’s not.)

All the boys wanna catch me, but I’m just playing - Supergirl , by Saving Jane

(Holly Prescott, cheerful femme fatale. But also the other girls, too, now and then, when they’re on a roll.)

I got it all figured out
I got no worries that I’m worried about – Good To Be Me, by Uncle Kracker

(Rusty Montgomery’s life philosophy)

Are you gonna be like your father was and his father was?
Do you have to carry what they've handed down?
No, this is not your legacy, this is not your destiny – Family Tree, by Matthew West

(There’s a reason the series is called the Lynburn Legacy, and that’s because the Glass-Lynburn-Montgomery-Prescott Legacy was unwieldy. Everyone’s got a family, and terrible secrets that they don’t know—or even worse, they do—and there is always the spectre of history repeating itself.)

I’ve been keeping my mind wide open, yeah,
Oh your love is a symphony
All around me, running through me – Your Love Is A Song, by Switchfoot

(I know, I know, it’s a religious song, shame on me! But love of the invisible and yet surrounding, love of the dead but not forgotten, love and faith: it’s a theme.)

Half of my heart’s got a real good imagination, half of my heart’s got you – Half of my Heart, John Mayer and Taylor Swift

(Uncertainty about love, about how to define it, about the power of imagination. Also about my endless devotion to Taylor Swift.)

Wherever you go
If my heart was a house, you’d be home -- If My Heart Was A House, by Owl City

(The series is a lot about home, and what makes a home: a manor, a town, another person, you yourself.)

If you wanna slow down,

We can slow down together – Stay Here Forever, Jewel

(Specifics would be a spoiler. But I read the song as about the push and pull of a relationship, and the potential ease of it.)

Finally I'm worth it, though I'm not perfect – Best of Me, by the Letter Black

(Co-dependence, baby, and born romantics. Memo: my born romantics are almost always boys, and this almost always goes badly for them.)

She never let on how insane it was
In that tiny kind of scary house
By the woods – Black Dove, by Tori Amos

(The song for the Gothic novel, the woods and the house and the fear of madness.)

What about gold beneath the sea?
What about when buildings fall? What about that midnight phone call,
The one that wakes you from your peace?
Well, I am not in need. – What About Everything, by Carbon Leaf

(The theme song for the series, really: people are scared a lot, and running to each other’s rescue a lot through strange surroundings. Some of them are very damaged. But they’re strong people, too: they learn to be able to trust in their own strength.)

Miss Marple

If I had not included Miss Marple in my Sleuth Thursday posts, I would currently be homeless.

In fact, I might be dead, murdered by my housemate the Durham Lass, who would be found sewing innocently and looking like Snow White and with a large ceremonial knife cleaned and back in its place in the museum where she works. She’d definitely get away with it, too.

My housemate is a big Miss Marple fan. We have watched the Miss Marple box set (the series starring Joan Hickson, and no other Miss Marple is spoken of within our walls). She plans, when old, to have a rose garden and solve crimes. In preparation for that day, we both drink a lot of tea and discuss lady sleuths. Miss Marple is her hero.

Of course, I was keen to write about Miss Marple anyway. Agatha Christie had a legion of imaginary friends as a child, which fits in well with UNSPOKEN, and is so very best-selling that Miss Marple may be the most famous lady sleuth we have.

Which is OK, as Miss Marple might be the greatest lady sleuth of all time.













One piece of writing advice I think is excellent is to read bad books. The things that are very annoying are often very inspiring. ‘I will do better than that,’ you think. ‘I will fix that.’

The thing that annoyed Agatha Christie when she created Miss Marple was a play of her own book, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD. In it, the narrator has a spinster sister called Caroline. ‘Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.’

In the play they made Caroline a foxy young lady. Well, come on, we see it all the time… what good is a girl who isn’t there to be foxy? Agatha Christie was like ‘OK. OK. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! The elderly gossipy spinster lady who is always a side character is going to be the detective. You try to write her out then. You try. Come at me, bro!--Agatha Christie.’

Miss Marple was also partly based on Agatha Christie’s grandmother and her grandmother’s friends. This is what Christie said of her grandmother: 'Though a cheerful person, she always expected the worst of everyone and everything and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.''

Which is Miss Marple to a T. She’s an old lady knitting away and saying brightly: ‘The world is a terrible place and everyone you know is probably a murderer. These biscuits are delicious!’

The first appearance of Miss Marple was in short stories, in one of which a lady describes her as ‘the typical old maid of fiction.’ It was Agatha Christie’s declaration of war: the deconstruction and thoughtful analysis of a stock type, making a persona into a person.

That’s the crux of what Agatha Christie did with Miss Marple—what Miss Marple does with everyone, and what every writer has to do with a protagonist—look at the surface of a person and think deeply about them. That’s how you make them the main character.

So the archetype of an old lady who loves gossip… what do you have when you really think about that person? Someone who’s lived a long time—who has a lot of experience. And someone who’s obviously really interested in people, and how they work and think. Suddenly, someone who seems obviously qualified to be a sleuth!

That was the beginning for Miss Marple. There was a good deal more.

What is there to say about Miss Jane Marple?

Queen Elizabeth II is a fan. She gave the actress who most famously played Miss Marple, Joan Hickson, an OBE and Joan Hickson was like ‘Thanks, Your Maj’ and Queen Elizabeth was like ‘Basically, I can’t give an OBE to fictional characters, so you will have to do.’

Unlike the Queen, in the books people generally dismiss Miss Marple. And she’s like ‘Oh sorry dear, don’t mind me, just solving a murder and saving your ass so you can continue to talk out of it.’

In the first story where Miss Marple is introduced, there’s a Tuesday night club where friends and relatives of Miss Marple (her writer nephew Raymond, his artist girlfriend, a lawyer, a clergyman and the just-retired former Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Henry) all tell each other real-life mysteries to see who would be best at solving them.

Raymond’s girlfriend Joyce assumes Miss Marple won’t play, excluding her when counting people, and is surprised she’d want to. She adds that ‘I know life as darling Miss Marple here cannot possibly know it.’ ‘I don’t know about that, dear’ says Miss Marple, who proceeds to guess every mystery correctly and shatter everyone in the room’s preconceptions a hundred times over.

Joyce’s name changes to Joan in the books. Possibly Miss Marple steered Raymond towards a nicer artist lady. Possibly Raymond murdered Joyce and Miss Marple turned a blind eye.

Sir Henry Clithering, former Commissioner, becomes a giant Miss Marple fanboy, and wanders the country making people invite her to dinner, insisting she help the police out with all sorts of things, and seeing to it that his godson refers to her as ‘Aunt Jane.’ Sir Henry literally does not listen to any other detectives at any time: he just runs around the place going ‘Ask Jane Marple! Why will you not consult Miss Marple? MARPLE IT! Like google but with knitting! I’m really happy for you, Sherlock Holmes, and Imma let you finish, but Jane Marple is the greatest detective of all time. OF ALL TIME.’

Sir Henry is retired, and Miss Marple in the early books cannot be much older than sixty or sixty-five: they are not that far apart in age. I always secretly believed that Sir Henry had a crush and Miss Marple wasn’t feelin’ it. Too bad for you, Sir Henry buddy, friend-zoned by the greatest detective of all time!

(Which brings us to another point: the old maid seen as ‘unwanted.’ Miss Marple isn’t married, but she references two dudes in her youth—one who she fancied and her parents hated, and later she was like ‘Yeah, Mom, you were right, total stinker, whoops’ and one who her parents liked and she fancied but on getting to know him she was like ‘Sorry, dude, turns out you’re boring, who knew, whoops again!’ Jane Marple had options. And she chose the option of not being with anyone who’d bore her or cramp her style. Miss Marple needs a man like a brilliant crime-solving fish needs a bicycle!)

At one point a character laughs at her because she’s all ‘I am Nemesis’ and she’s knitting something and has a pink scarf on her head. That character is later like ‘Dear Nemesis, plz solve this murder for me, I shower you in gold, I bet the thing you knitted was awesome, I bet your scarf could solve crimes on its own!’

The woman who described her as a ‘typical old maid’ was Mrs Bantry, who became one of Miss Marple’s closest friends. Miss Marple also saved Mrs Bantry’s husband’s reputation when a foxy young blonde’s corpse was discovered in his library. Mrs Bantry, you got TOLD.

The Home Secretary of England hears Miss Marple explaining how she discovered a murderer and foiled a murder plot against herself in the last chronological novel, NEMESIS. He describes her as ‘the most frightening woman I ever met.’ Yes, by the end the Home Secretary and the current Commissioner of Scotland Yard are holding each other and weeping gently before Miss Marple’s awesome power. She may be a hundred and five at the time.

Because Miss Marple sleuths for forty years. Either the sheer force of her awesomeness causes time to pass half as fast for her, so she only ages twenty years. Or she starts the books age sixty-five, and is still facing down murderers at age a hundred and five. Or… Miss Marple was about fifty when the books start, and mocking other people’s expectations and dismissal of a woman gone in years by wearing a Victorian lace cap and pretending to be older than she was so she could enjoy the full tea and spying on the neighbours shizz for as long as possible.

It’s kind of plausible, in that Miss Marple stops dressing as if she’s dressing up in later books, and starts going around wearing tweed. She is, after all, a Master of Disguise. She will chatter at you to get you to let something slip. She will also be quietly comforting. She will pretend to be an idiot or to have gone slightly insane in the membrane. She will steal stuff, pretend to be an elderly relative, or pretend to be a voice from beyond the grave.

Underestimate her at your peril if you are in fact a criminal. She will come for you like a train. Nobody ever says ‘And I would have got away with it too, if it wasn’t for that meddling old lady’… but they should. Miss Marple’s author agreed. “If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid,” she had the vicar say of Miss Marple.

Miss Marple can handle anything. The Miss Marple books are actually way hardcore. Incest. Quasi-lesbian quasi-faux-mother-daughter quasi-necrophilia goings-on. Some weird kinky stuff goes down in Miss Marple’s books. Poirot was not ready for that jelly. Miss Marple’s like ‘Oh, I remember having that jelly at the village fair. Twenty years ago.’

Miss Marple is in fact capable of anything when in pursuit of a criminal. She really does hide into a cupboard and imitate the voice of a dead woman. ‘Woo, woo, I speak to you from beyond the grave, tell them all you dunnit exactly like that attractive and well-preserved Miss Marple said you dunnit!’

She’s brave. ‘We are not put into this world to avoid danger.’ – she said in THE MOVING FINGER. Just because she likes to knit, don’t you think she’s not intrepid! She even saves damsels—Gwenda of SLEEPING MURDER is about to be murdered when Miss Marple blinds her attacker with a spray for the rosebushes. ‘Squirt, squirt, let me explain how this dude killed his victim. Take him away, boys!’

She knows everything. Where secret drawers are hidden in desks she’s never seen before? Check. How much fancy stamps are worth? Check. How to send someone a sexy message with FLOWERS ALONE? Check. Miss Marple went to finishing school in Italy. You know how it is.

The master of disguise strikes again! “So charming, so innocent, such a fluffy and pink and white old lady … she gained admittance to what was now practically a fortress … far more easily than could have been believed possible. Though an army of reporters and photographers were being kept at bay by the police, Miss Marple was allowed to drive in without question, so impossible would it have been to believe that she was anyone but an elderly relative of the family.” – This happens in A POCKET FULL OF RYE. ‘Murder investigation, coming through!’ Not only does she wander around everywhere waving her knitting like a passport, the fact she is conscious of how deceiving appearances and how false assumptions can be means she can see through other people. She knows people don’t really look at maids, so wearing a uniform makes you invisible… and able to commit murder safely. She knows how to look past dyed blond hair and a skimpy dress to see that an innocent schoolgirl has been murdered in THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY. You cannot get stuff past her.

Because Miss Marple knows people. She spies on her neighbours all the time… she studies them, and being interested in other people is shown by the books as not a bad or silly thing but as incredibly useful and worthwhile. She’s become, as she says herself, an expert in people. “You believed what he said. It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.” – SLEEPING MURDER. As you can see, this has made her something of a pessimist. Or a realist. ‘Sorry to inform you, but people are basically terrible. More tea?’ “There was no unkindness in Miss Marple, she just did not trust people,” said Agatha Christie in her autobiography. Miss Marple IS very kind… but she’s ruthless, too. “If you expect me to feel sympathy, regret, urge an unhappy childhood, blame bad environment… I do not feel inclined to do so” Miss Marple says of a murderer. ‘Don’t murder people!’ is Miss Marple’s basic feeling. ‘I cannot believe y’all keep murdering people! This is so uncouth! Well, the rhythm’s gonna get ya.’

Where’s the end with Miss Marple? Hard to say. SLEEPING MURDER was the last Miss Marple book to be published: but it was written during World War II and Miss Marple is obviously younger in it, and some characters who died later still alive. Miss Marple is the oldest we ever see her (you know… maybe a hundred and five!), very frail but still sharp as ever in NEMESIS, which Agatha Christie wrote when she herself was eighty. Agatha Christie may have felt a lot more in common with Miss Marple than when she started. Miss Marple, unlike Christie’s other detective Poirot, doesn’t end her life with her books. She gets a lot of money and goes off to enjoy it. “She’s had a long life of experience in noticing evil, fancying evil, suspecting evil and going forth to do battle with evil.” – is the verdict on Miss Marple in AT BERTRAM’S HOTEL. She’s a knight errant, always off to another adventure in our minds. Miss Marple never dies.

And as to why I found her particularly inspiring for a Gothic novel…

Author William L. de Andrea remarked that ‘Miss Marple is able to solve difficult crimes not only because of her shrewd intelligence, but because St. Mary Mead, over her lifetime, has put on a pageant of human depravity rivaled only by that of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ This ain’t a joke. The man was not kidding. Miss Marple was not just examining small human evils and able to work up to murder cases. ‘Over a period of some 40 years, there occurred in St Mary Mead a total of 16 murders—5 by poisoning, 2 by shooting, 2 by drowning, 2 by strangling and 5 by unidentifiable means—plus 4 attempts at murder by poisoning, smothering and bashing on the head. In the same period there occurred 5 robberies, 8 embezzlements, 2 series of blackmailing, several illegal impersonations, a case or 2 of poaching, and a number of crank phone calls, poison pen letters and criminal libels.’ (I didn’t do these maths: quote from Anne Hart’s THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MISS JANE MARPLE.) In St Mary Mead, they have a different word for ‘crime wave.’ They call them ‘Tuesdays.’ This is a wicked little English town! What the hell is going on at St Mary Mead? And I love the sleepy, old-fashioned English town with the dark undercurrent.

The most chilling thing for me in all the Miss Marple stories is one small casual mention Miss Marple makes. She often tells stories about lost shrimp, stolen lace and so forth in St Mary Mead, and in much the same way she says ‘There was Mrs Green, you know, she buried five children—and every one of them insured. Well, naturally one began to get suspicious.’ The vicar is distraught by the murder of just one dude, and declares nothing like this has ever happened before. Presumably he’d recall a lady murdering her five kids! Did Miss Marple know she didn’t have the goods on Mrs Green, and just hint Kid No. 6 should live or else? Did Mrs Green get disposed of secretly? Did Mrs Green just totally get away with it, and everyone at St Mary Mead is either like ‘No, don’t invite Mrs Green over, she is just too too much!’ or ‘Well, yes, darling I know she murdered her five children but she is a divine bridge partner.’ St Mary Mead, POPULATION MURDERERS.

What’s more, Miss Marple is definitely capable of solving a Gothic mystery. In the short story The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife, a madwoman muttering curses is the suspect in the murder of a beautiful young wife who has just come home to a rambling, ruinous manor with her new husband. Miss Marple, however, is obviously acquainted with the Gothic conventions. Someone’s succeeded in killing this lady, and Miss Marple knows it was her husband. So—evil village, check, Gothic mystery, check!

But more about the sleuth herself. There are quite a few kid sleuths (Nancy Drew, the Famous Five and Secret Seven) and elderly sleuths besides Miss Marple (Amelia Butterworth in the books by Anna Katharine Green, Miss Climpson as a sidekick in the books by Dorothy L Sayers) because both kids and the elderly have unique under-the-radar opportunities. Miss Marple is underestimated because she’s an old lady, and my heroine, like many underage sleuths, is underestimated because she’s a child, as if mental faculties are only awarded at age eighteen and taken away again at age sixty. But the ‘meddlesome Marple’ and the meddling kids use how they are underestimated to triumph.
There’s another thing, and it is this: Miss Marple talks a lot. So does Kami of UNSPOKEN. So do I. Ladies are often seen as chattering away about inconsequential things. Chatty Cathys: not too bright, and in some cases actually crazy. ‘Mad, quite mad’ murmurs the colonel to the vicar in THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE, as Miss Marple begins to explain who the murderer is.

He has to shut up his face because Miss Marple is, of course, absolutely right. You can be very old, very young, very feminine, very chatty… and be the smartest person in the room.

And that’s why I love Miss Marple.

In non-Marply news, am having a fabulous time in Chicago at the Romantic Times convention and hoping to see any of you around: Teen Day is open to the public!

Would You Like To Read Unspoken?

Random House, because they are the best, have put up the first three chapters so you can download them, print them, read them as is... It's all so extremely fancy.

Unspoken chapters: I hope you enjoy them!

And since this is a present from Random House, here is something from me along with it: I got the very talented Jasmin Darnell to draw me some sketches of the main characters of Unspoken. Kami, Angela, Jared, Holly and Rusty are forthcoming, but here is one...














Ash Lynburn, you can be the photographer for my school paper anytime.

Being A 'Real Writer'

So advance copies of Unspoken have been going out in the world and receiving blurbs. And here are a couple.

"Breath-taking, heart-breaking--a compulsive, rocketing read!"--Tamora Pierce.

Tamora Pierce. The lady who wrote the first fantasy I ever read (In the Hand of the Goddess), a tale of a girl passing as a boy so she can train as a knight, with duels and romance and magic cats. Ever after, I expected YA to be funny and feminist and full of adventures. I also expected more cross-dressing than I ended up getting, but Tamora Pierce meant I was onto Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings right off.

I was eight, I think? My mother bought it for me, thinking it was historical (eight year old Sarah was a big history buff and could not be parted from her favourite history book, The Homosexual Kings of England. Eight year old Sarah was a weirdo) and got bitterly reproached... until I actually read it. She also bought me my first LJ Smith book, and received the same treatment. My mama should be entitled to an I-told-you-so percentage of all my book sales.

My mama, to do her credit, did not say 'I told you so' when I launched a mission to get the first book, and all the other books. Which let me tell you in Ireland at the time was no small task. The day my mother came home with the full set of the Immortals series by Tamora Pierce, many years later, was a dazzling day for us both.

Tamora Pierce was one of those writers who changed the way I think, and one of those writers I read when I only had a very vague idea that people wrote books. I knew they did, I knew I wanted to, but books still seemed so much like magic, back then. A paper world, and the stages of creation unimaginable, and the creators faraway, wonderful and mystical. Real Authors! What would a Real Author even be like?

And there is more, folks.

"A darkly funny, deliciously thrilling Gothic. Unspoken kept me up late, turning the pages as fast as I could."--Kelley Armstrong.

I was, I think, eighteen or nineteen when I was early to go to the cinema with my friends, and I popped into the shop next door which had newspapers and sweets and a few popular books on the popular books rack (thrillers and Nicholas Sparks, mostly) to pass the time. I found Kelley Armstrong's Bitten there.

'Werewolves?' I thought to myself. 'No! They never have COOL books on the popular book rack!' I picked it up and flicked through it, and beheld Elena, the werewolf journalist.

... Readers, I was late to that movie. My friends bitterly reproached me, especially as they saw my book in its little paper bag and sussed out that I had been treacherously shopping.

They're authors who let me know there were books like this, and that they could be for everyone. And they're authors who--along with their books--seemed magical and faraway. And yet I wrote a book and they saw it, which is actually kind of scary to think about!

(Actually the fact that I have written books and anyone has seen them is a little scary to think about. Even though all my books are currently in a room with me right now, and I could pick them up and stroke them if I wanted. Or if stroking them is treating them as if they are beloved kitties and too weird, I could punch them.

... I am not going to punch my books.)

And they liked my book. Tamora Pierce liked my book.

I am still super nervous about Unspoken, and awaiting what you all, and hopefully other people who do not read my blog and currently have no idea who I am, think of it!

But oh my goodness this is wonderful. And makes me feel--not that I am a Real Author--but that Real Authors think that I am one? An okay one?

And that someone enormously regular, such as myself, the kid who didn't know about ordering books but just kind of doggedly hung around bookshops hoping for Tamora Pierce books to materialise, the teenager who ran into the movie late with a Kelley Armstrong book, can have moments of feeling almost Real-Authory?

It is a gorgeous and amazing thing. It seems like magic, the same way books still do.