Bluestocking Impressions

December Books

2012-01-24T19:19:00.000-08:00

BETHLEHEM ROAD MURDER/Batya Gur/B
Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon is called to investigate the brutal murder of a Yemeni woman in Jerusalem and finds more than just murder to deal with. The neighborhood itself is suspicious of all outsiders and there is an intifada to contend with, as well as the mystery of kidnapped Yemeni children fifty years before. There are tensions everywhere Ohayon turns and the murderer may not stop at one death. Interesting for its setting and sense of place and time.

CLOCKWORK PRINCE/Cassandra Clare/A
I absolutely ADORED the second in Clare's Infernal Devices series about Shadowhunters in Victorian London. Tessa Gray can't quite stop thinking about Will Herondale, although he made it perfectly clear he wasn't interested. But Will has his secrets and this book reveals them. But while he's trying to find a way out of his dark past, Tessa is falling for his best friend, Jem. Oh, there's also demons and traitors and clockwork automatons that want only to destroy the Shadowhunters. Brilliant characters with lots of peril and love thrown in. Brilliant.

STATE OF WONDER/Ann Patchett/A+
If I worshipped any writer, I'm beginning to think it would be Ann Patchett. Pharmaceutical researcher Marina Singh is sent to the Amazon when a colleague dies while tracking down an elusive doctor. The doctor is Marina's former teacher and she is studying the apparently lifelong fertility of a particular tribe of native women. The only other thing you need to know is this: that not only can Patchett write the literary socks off anyone working today, she can tell a compelling story. I was shocked more than once, but shouldn't have been, and her descriptions are breathtakingly good. Pick up any book by Patchett and start reading.

THE INFORMATIONIST/Taylor Stevens/B-
Vanessa Michael Monroe provides information for anyone who can pay her exorbitant fees. She is prepared to turn down her next offer, as she has no wish to return to the Africa of her childhood, but ends up taking the case of a young woman who vanished and was presumably killed several years before in West Africa. Not only will Monroe be facing her own ghosts, but she's stepping into a minefield of political and personal traps. Full of guns and bad guys and cool gadgets--I thought the weakness was Monroe herself. I could not warm to her and I don't know if I'll read more of Stevens' books. However, it was a great choice for reading by the pool in Hawaii.

BLACKOUT and ALL CLEARConnie Willis/A
These two books--which tell one story--are nearly as good as Willis' DOOMSDAY BOOK. In this version of her time-traveling Oxford future, several students are in England at various points and places in early WWII when the net that connects them with their future suddenly and inexplicably shuts down. With no idea what has happened in the future--and terrified that their own actions have or will tip the balance of this critical war so that England loses--the students are left to cope in a wartime world they are only partially prepared for. Willis is brilliant and if you think you don't like time travel or science fiction, I beg you to try these books. I've never read anything half so good about the Blitz and the cost of the war to Londoners in particular. Absolutely perfect (except I would have liked a little more Mr. Dunworthy along the way--and Colin--but there parts are also perfect.)

November Books (Yes, seriously)

2012-01-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

SHADOWS IN THE STREET/Susan Hill/B+
Another in the Simon Serailler mystery series. In this episode, Simon is on a far-flung Scottish island after a high-profile case when he's called back to the cathedral town of Lafferton to solve the murders of two prostitutes. The strength of this series is not, for me, Simon himself--who I'm never quite certain that I even like. But I adore his sister, Cat, who in this book is dealing with the aftermath of tragedy and who herself is caught up unexpectedly in the murder investiagtion. I will keep reading, so I must not dislike Simon too much.

CEMETERY GIRL/David Bell/D+
Ten years after his 12-year-old daughter went missing, Tom is overjoyed to have her home. But she is not so happy and when she refuses to testify against the man who took her, Tom throws himself into finding out why. I liked the premise but hated much of the execution. For a treatise on how a long-term abductee copes with returning to a previous world, I much preferred ROOM by Emma Donoghue.

JUDAS CHILD/Carol O'Connell/A
Fifteen years ago, a local priest was convicted of kidnapping and killing Rouge Kendall's twin sister. Now Kendall, a local cop, is caught up in the kidnapping of two local girls--Gwen and Sadie. Is it the same killer? Could the priest be actually innocent? And if so, who has the girls and can they find them before at least one of them is killed in a ritual slaying? Dumbfoundingly beautiful, especially when O'Connell goes inside Gwen's point of view. I loved this book, but it isn't easy.

A KINGDOM BY THE SEA/Paul Theroux/B-
The travel writer walks the coastline of Great Britain in the 1980s, musing on how the sea has defined the nation and how the coastlines have changed in both shape and usage over centuries. Theroux is a little too superior for my taste--a little too caustic--and I would definitely recommend Bill Bryson's NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND over this book as a look at Great Britain. The most interesting parts of this book were the time-specific elements--he walked the coasts during the Falkland Islands War and his time in Northern Ireland, at the height of the Troubles, was particularly searing.

DESIGNATED FAT GIRL/Jennifer Joyner/B+
Once upon a time, Jennifer Joyner was married, working in television, and miserably hiding her eating addiction. Her memoir eventually leads up to her decision to have gastric-bypass, but the bulk of the book deals with the internal pain and outer humiliations of obesity. I think almost every woman has felt at least part of what she has, and thus can relate.

FLOWERING JUDAS/Jane Haddam/B+
For twelve years, Chester Morton has been gone and presumed dead--presumed, that is, by everyone except his mother who has used her money and connections to keep the case in the public eye. Except now Chester's body has been found hanging from a billboard--and he hasn't been dead as long as twelve years. Gregor Demarkian resents being called to this case because of personal problems at home, but he conducts his usual concise and closed-mouthed investigation. Haddam's strength is not only Demarkian, but her use of multiple viewpoints. A good entry in the series.

A FEAST FOR CROWS/George R.R. Martin/A-
Fourth in Martin's GAME OF THRONES series, this book follows half of the usual characters (the other half show up in the just-published Book Five, covering much of the same time period). Westeros is nearing ruin as Cersei Lannister plots against everyone in sight, except her child-king song. Sam, a brother of the Nightwatch, is sent across the sea to escort a baby and an old man out of danger. Arya is also across the sea, trying to pretend she no longer exists. And her sister, Sansa, is still being used by men who tell her almost nothing. Martin can't go wrong---except in taking too long between books.

THERE'S A (SLIGHT) CHANCE I MAY BE GOING TO HELL/Laurie Notaro/B
Maye is delighted to leave the Phoenix heat behind for the lushness of a small college town in Washington. What she didn't anticipate was how hard it would be to make friends. With the subtitle: "A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble", you know what to expect from Notaro's first novel. Ridiculous situations, misunderstandings galore, and lots and lots of laughter. I read this through the night of our storn when the trees were falling across our driveway and it took my mind right off of all that. It also warned me to watch out for new friends who want to give me a bath and then chant with me around a bonfire.

TURN OF MIND/Alice LaPlante/B-
Retired orthopedic surgeon Jennifer White is in the grip of early-onset dementia. Her husband is dead, she doesn't always recognize her children, and her best friend has just been murdered. The police have questions for Jennifer, but how is she supposed to answer when she can't even remember Amanda is dead? I wanted to like this more than I did. The reason I didn't is Jennifer herself--I didn't like her. I felt sorry for her, but the more I learned about her, the less I cared about her deterioration.

What I'm doing in January . . .

2012-01-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

Revisions. My very first-ever round of editorial revisions. Kind of exciting :) Especially since I have a fabulous editor who, amongst all the mark-ups showing what needs to be changed/fixed/deleted/laughed out of existence, takes care to also point out things she really likes. It's amazing how far a "Nice!" or "Great tension" goes in keeping me motivated. Because let's face it, I know better than anyone how imperfect this story is--sometimes I need to be reminded that I may have gotten one or two things right along the way.

Of course this is all just a way to say, "Sorry for not posting!" At least it sounds cooler than "I'm just too lazy to get around to it."

But since my friends are not as lazy as me, there are two recent posts at Cabinet of Curiosities that you should check out, particularly if you're interested in the business side of getting published. Our theme this month is Agents--how to find them, how to stalk--er, I mean contact--them, what to do when you catch one and/or lose one . . . between the five of us on the blog we've covered pretty wide ground over the last five or six years when it comes to agents. Read, laugh, cry, and ask any questions. Let our pain be your wisdom.

New Christmas Post

2011-12-12T17:10:00.000-08:00

Up at Cabinet of Curiosities.

What do certain imaginary and/or dead people in my head want for Christmas? Check it out. And keep a wary eye on me. Those people in my head are ever unpredictable :)

Good Books of Autumn

2011-12-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

Covering the last three months of missed book reviews, here are my favorites from the lot:

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP/S.J. Watson/A-
What would you do if your memories vanished everytime you fell asleep? This is Christine's world--each morning waking up with a strange man as her husband when she might think herself only twenty, or sixteen, or newly-married rather than middle-aged. Every day she must reacquaint herself with facts that will only vanish during the night. Or will they? Can the journal Christine has been hiding help her recover the truths of who she is and why she can't remember? Absolutely chilling.

STORM OF SWORDS/George R.R. Martin/B+
The third in the Game of Thrones series. It gets a B+ for one single event in the book: the Red Wedding. I don't know that I've forgiven Martin for turning the series on end with that event, but it's true that it was a masterful stroke and the story of the kingdom of Westeros coming undone continues to be magical and complicated and thrilling. Just when you're sure of a villain's blackness, he shows a hint or more of light. And just when you get complacent about a character, he or she will reveal a new facet of their personalities. Sure, there are dragons and swordfights and sudden death and weddings and king-making every which way, but the true strength of this fantasy series is the people in it.

DRUMS OF AUTUMN/Diana Gabaldon/A-
Every now and then nothing will satisfy my hankering for a good, fat historical novel like the seemingly-endless love story of Claire and Jamie. Reunited and now in the American colonies, they set about making a new home in the Carolina backcountry. But their daughter, Brianna, is not content to let history take its course and follows her mother through the stone circle that transports her back two hundred years in a quest to save her parents' lives. Oh, and the Revolutionary War is coming, something which Claire well knows. Gabaldon is a wonderful storyteller. I plan to take the next volume of the series to Hawaii this month.

A TRICK OF THE LIGHT/Louise Penny/A
Louise Penny is my hero. Truly, no one is writing traditional mysteries as good as these today. After the traumatic backstory of the last two novels, this one returns Armand Gamache to the village of Three Pines. His artist friend, Clara Morrow, has finally landed a major solo show. But opening night is spoiled by the body of an old enemy in her garden. There were lots of reasons to kill the victim, and Gamache knows just because he likes someone doesn't mean they can't be the killer. Another amazing entry in a series that a reader should start at the beginning, with STILL LIFE.

PROFILES IN COURAGE/John F. Kennedy/A
Wow--whatever one thinks of politics, it's hard to ignore the brilliance of this short book about particularly courageous U.S. senators. While recovering from back surgery in the 1950s, Kennedy wrote about men from all sides of the political aisle who dared to turn from partisan bickering to take a courageous stand. Some of them lost their political lives, and some were redeemed. But each of them exhibited a rare degree of courage and a willingness to stand on principle when they felt that to do otherwise would cost them more than they could ever gain back.

TRAVELING MERCIES/Anne LaMott/A+
A writer's thoughts on faith--and what thoughts! LaMott is often irreverent in her language and details, but never in the essence of her search for spiritual meaning. Some of her moments were laugh out loud funny (her resistance to born-again Christianity--which is where she ended up--being one of them) and some made me weep. Like God being found in the ladies' room. Or the concept of barn-raising by friends of those who are in trouble. If you respect the honest thoughts (and strong language) of a woman who has not found faith easily but greatly respects and admires many along her path, I recommend this book.

PIRATE KING/Laurie R. King/A-
I adores Mary Russell Holmes and this series about her marriage to the much older Sherlock. After several intense entries in the series, this was pure, frothy joy and I loved every minute of it. Mary is cornered into becoming a production assistant for a silent film company that might be engaged in illegal activities. No one told her the job would include shepherding around a dozen young actresses and their mothers, keeping various young men away from said young actresses, and getting caught at sea by actual pirates. But she deals with it all in rare form. Of course her husband pops up and I do love watching them in action. But make no mistake--Mary is the true hero of these stories. As it should be :)

Happy Anniversary to Me!

2011-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. My daily writing reports vanished. I'll get to that. Or not. I keep thinking, "Oh, it's been that kind of year." But after how many years do I need to just throw up my hands and admit that chaos is my new life?

However, it is an important day for my husband and me. Not our wedding anniversary--that's in April. But without two very important December 3rds before then, there would not have been a wedding.

On December 3, 1986--twenty-five years ago today--we had our first date. It wasn't actually at the balloon-infested school dance that's pictured above (that one came a couple months later), but at a college basketball game. We were 17-year-old high school seniors and Chris took pity on me because our Academic Decathlon team (yes, we were both geeks) had that very day had our Region Title stripped from us because of a GPA miscalculation of my grades. (It was all very byzantine.) In any case, he called me after school and asked me out that night. Don't we look young? And depressingly 1980's coiffed?

Twenty years ago today--December 3, 1991--he asked me to marry him. For those doing the math, yes, we were still very young, though I for one thought I knew almost everything essential at the age of twenty-two. I didn't, of course, anymore than I do at forty-two--except for the one most essential piece of knowledge I would ever need: that Chris was my past, present, and future.

Happy December 3 to Chris and our four children (none of whom would exist without those dates--so where are my thank you gifts?)

It's worth getting old to count all the years with you :)

November 8

2011-11-08T17:32:00.000-08:00

Today's word count: 1985

Total word count: 7026

Tomorrow's scene: still at Christmas. This is what happens when you're not an outliner--things always fill in longer than I think they will. Which is good, or my books would only be 100 pages long :)

November 7

2011-11-07T19:36:00.001-08:00

Today's word count: 760

Total word count: 5226

Tomorrow's scene: finish privy council and Christmas celebrations

November 6

2011-11-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

Today's word count: a mind-blowing 252! (I prefer to hang out with my family on Sundays after church)

Total word count: 4466

Tomorrow's scene: finish the privy council meeting and, if feeling good, tackle the issue of Dominic's Christmas gift to Minuette

November 5

2011-11-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today's word count: 727

Total word count: 4209

Tomorrow's scene: Christmas 1554 (since I had too much fun doing the lunar eclipse scene--it's a conveniently dark and crowded time in which two secret lovers can touch)

November 4

2011-11-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Moving to Boston has not been easy. Hurricanes, earthquakes, bomb threats, and an October nor'easter that left us without power for four days this week. There were moments--inside my 45 degree house--that I decided I am one disaster away from running for my life.

But then there are people--good and kind and generous Boston people--who come along and disarm my resentment. Who take us into their warm home and let us shower. Who feed us and let us drain their electricity with our many dying devices. And young people who invite my kids trick-or-treating on this strangely rescheduled holiday. So maybe I'm more like four or five disasters away from retreat.

But let's not push it.

I have snuck back into my blog, tail between my legs for being so negligent, to announce my personal November writing challenge. It's not NaNoWriMo (writing a 50,000 word novel in a month) but it is inspired by it. Not last year, but for the two years before that, I used that inspiration to kick-start my own stalled projects and it worked well. This year, although my 13-year-old daughter is signed up for the official NaNoWriMo, I have decided that what I really need is outside accountability for working on the second book in my already-sold trilogy.

I sold that trilogy in June, if you recall. I have a deadline for final revisions on the first (completed) book but since I have not yet received my editorial letter, I am supposed to be using this time to write the first draft of book two. As of November 1st, I had written approximately 1500 words. In five months. To be fair, I did move across country. I lived with my family in an apartment for a month. I moved into a new house. I got three kids started in school in Boston. I flew with my oldest to Seattle and helped him settle in at the UW for his freshman year of college. And, that's right, hurricanes and earthquakes and all the aforementioned disasters.

But no more! If I don't write book two, no one will. Plus, I will have to return a bunch of money which has already been largely spent on new appliances for my new house. So, despite what I hear is the not-uncommon fear that the the first book was a fluke which I will never be able to duplicate--despite the certainty that I am the most ungifted writer who ever lived--despite my nightmares of never being able to finish the second book . . .

I must put one word after another. That's it. One word at a time. I will report daily on that day's writing amount, as well as keep a running tally of where I'm at in the novel. The goal for this challenge is to reach 40,000 words by month's end, which would put me roughly halfway.

And you all are responsible to yell at me if I don't. Deal?

Today's word count: 1922
Total word count: 3495
Tomorrow's scene: Lunar eclipse and Christmas 1554

July Books

2011-08-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

INTO THE WILD/Jon Krakauer/A
In August 1992, Alaskan hunters found the body of Christopher McCandless in the wilderness outside Denali National Park. The Emory University graduate had starved to death after months spent wandering the U.S. with no car, few possesions, and no contact with his family. Fabulously powerful, and heart-wrenching for a mother in particular to read, I absolutely recommend this book.

MY LOBOTOMY/Howard Dully/B-
In 1960, 12-year-old Howard Dully was given a transorbital lobotomy--in which an ice-pick type of instrument was inserted through his eye socket and swirled around to sever connections in the frontal lobe. More than forty years later he tries to understand what led his stepmother to insist on the procedure for a boy who exhibited little more than typical misbehavior. Chilling and somewhat sad.

THE FACE OF TRESPASS/Ruth Rendell/A-
An earlier, short novel of Rendell's that somehow I had managed to miss. Gray Lanceton was once a promising novelist but then he began an affair with a bored, rich married woman. The affair ended when Gray refused to murder Drusilla's husband but he remains haunted by her. And while he's preoccupied with his mother's illness in France, Gray doesn't realize that the clouds of revenge are gathering. Beautifully Rendell.

DARKEST MERCY/Melissa Marr/B-
The finale of Marr's Novels of Faerie, this fifth book in her series mostly ties up the stories of Ash, the once-mortal Summer Queen, and her collection of friends and lovers in both worlds. I still feel that the strongest book of Marr's is Ink Exchange, and I thought the emotional payoff of this book was rushed and not perfectly fulfilling.

THREE CUPS OF DECEIT/Jon Krakauer/A-
Greg Mortensen is the bestselling author of Three Cups of Tea recounting how he came to build schools in Afghanistan. But are key parts of his story fabricated? Krakauer investigates Mortensen's story of falling ill in an isolated village, of being kidnapped by militants, of vows made to locals to return and help and finds more than just inconsistencies. And there's also trouble in the finances of Mortensen's foundation that stem directly from his refusal to account for his own spending. Penetrating account of good intentions gone very wrong.

REJIGGERING THE THINGAMAJIG/Eric James Stone/A-
A collection of speculative short fiction by a writer's group friend who just--get this--won the Nebula Award for Best Novella this year! He was also nominated for a Hugo for the same story, which anchors this collection, titled "That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made." Eric's (sorry, it's awfully hard for me to call a friend by his last name) stories span a wonderful range from hard sci-fi to fantasy and they're all marked by a precise use of language and a well-honed sense of plot and structure. Now if a publisher would just pick up on his novels!

THE RED QUEEN/Philippa Gregory/B+
Margaret of Lancaster is cousins to England's Henry VI and very aware of her position and her responsibility to her family. This novelization of Margaret's life takes the reader from her early first marriage to Edmund Tudor and the birth of their son, Henry, to the rebellion and crowning of the Yorkist king Edward and the turbulence of court life when two families vie for the throne. Margaret works tirelessly to bring her exiled son back to England, which is perhaps the only sympathetic strand in her nature. Not as emotionally deep as my favorite historical fiction, but a good look at the end of the Wars of the Roses.

A CLASH OF KINGS/George R.R. Martin/A-
The second in Martin's epic fantasy, this book throws us into the heart of the war for a divided kingdom. Robb Stark, the Young Wolf of Winterfell after his father's death, takes the battle south against the Lannisters who he belives hold both his sisters hostage in the capitol. But there are other kings fighting for their claims and across the sea a young queen with three dragons at her command. Pick up the first book and immerse yourself in this world.

NOW YOU SEE ME/S.J. Bolton/A-
No one does psychological mystery like Bolton and this book is no exception. Young detective Lacey Flint stumbles across a woman who was stabbed just moments before and winds up the center of an investigation of a possible 21st-century Jack the Ripper copycat. Taunted by name, Lacey races to help the lead investigator anticipate what's coming next, but women continue to die. And Lacey may know more about the killer than anyone can guess.

HELL IS EMPTY/Craig Johnson/A+
The newest Walt Longmire mystery sends Walt into the blizzard wilderness of the Wyoming mountains on the trail of escaped convicts. Along the way he has the help of a former acquaintance, but there are mysteries upon mysteries here, including the motive of the lead convict who is wilfully walking into a place he can't get out of. Although I missed Johnson's expanded cast of characters, this is an outstanding book that goes as deep into the mysteries of life and death as it does into murder. A&E has filmed a pilot for series, but don't wait until it airs--pick up The Cold Dish and start at the beginning.

PORTOBELLO ROAD/Ruth Rendell/B+
Eugene Wren is an art dealer on the famed Portobello Road in London who one day discovers an envelope filled with money. Advertising in order to return it brings Eugene into contact with various characters, most of whom have ulterior motives. Rendell's tale is less a mystery and more a beautifully drawn character study; every characters shouts off the page from Wren's wealthy but secretive nature to those living one check away from homelessness to those trapped in a world of old hurts and turmoiled minds.
OXFORD GIRL/Plum Sykes/B
Novelist Sykes writes a brief personal account of a childhood spent longing to attend Oxford and meet a Brideshead Revisited sort of lord, through to her days in her spare and nearly-medieval college rooms. A charming look at the impoverished but connected British upper-class and an inside peek at the allure of Oxford. My grade reflects my desire to read more of her years there then she gives us.

ARSONIST'S GUIDE TO WRITERS' HOME IN NEW ENGLAND/Brock Clarke/C+
At age 18, Sam Pulsifer accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson's house and killed two people. The story gives a short overview of his time in prison, then picks up as the now-suburban husband and father is tracked down by the son of those he killed. See, Sam has never told his wife about his past. And even worse, more writers' homes are going up in flames. Forced to return to the parents he's stayed away him, Sam finds them utterly changed. Without any sort of inner compass, Sam doesn't know what to do next. I couldn't really like Sam--or any of them--but the story idea was unique.

June Books

2011-08-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY/Mary Ann Shaffer/A-
In 1946 London, Juliet Ashton is searching for her next writing project when she receives a letter from a man who bought a secondhand book with her name in it. He lives on the Channel Island of Guernsey, which was under German occupation during the war. Through a series of letters to and from various characters, we follow a powerful story about friends, enemies, imagination, and loyalty. Both historically fascinating and beautiful.

A MURDEROUS PROCESSION/Ariana Franklin/B+
In 12-century England, Adelia Aguilar is ordered by Henry II to accompany his daughter to Sicily for her marriage. What follows is a thrilling story of heretics, revenge, and danger as the royal procession is stalked by death. I love this series of a Jewish pathologist tied to England by her priestly lover and their daughter. Begin with Mistress of the Art of Death.

RUSSIAN WINTER/Daphne Kalotay/B-
Nina Revskaya was once a star in the Bolshoi Ballet. Now, as an old woman, she is auctioning her jewelry collection but one piece holds a mystery that one man desperately wants to unravel. Set in contemporary Boston and Communist Russia in the years before and after WWII, this story never quite came together the way I wanted it to. But still an interesting look at a desperate time and place.

MAD, BAD, AND SAD/Lisa Appignanesi/B+
This history of women and mental illness begins in the 19th century and examines how doctors and cultures collaborate to name specific disorders. From hysteria to schizophrenia, illness is often defined and named by more than just symptoms. Very interesting.

BLINDMAN'S BLUFF/Faye Kellerman/B-
It's been a long time since I've picked up a Peter Decker mystery, but this was a fun read for an afternoon. Decker's wife Rina has been called to jury duty and ends up involved in her husband's current murder investigation. Easy and quick.

TIGERLILY'S ORCHIDS/Ruth Rendell/B+
Not precisely a mystery, more like an intriguing character study. Stuart Font is throwing a housewarming party for his new flat, carrying on an affair with a married woman, and inordinately taken with his own good looks. When the beautiful Asian girl across the street asks him for help, Stuart can't believe his good luck. The final reveal of what's inside the mysterious house across the street fell a little flat for me, but otherwise I adore Rendell.

THE ATTENBURY EMERALDS/Jill Paton Walsh/A
The best yet of Walsh's continuation in Dorothy L. Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries. When an impoverised aristocrat needs money, he comes to Peter and Harriet, resurrecting memories of Peter's first case. But the mystery of the emeralds is a merely a skeleton for the true heart of this book, which lies in the ties of family and responsibility. I suspect Sayers would approve.

Author Interview

2011-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today at Cabinet of Curiosities we've posted an interview with YA author and self-publishing wunderkind Sarra Cannon. In less than a year since her first book, BEAUTIFUL DEMONS, appeared as an ebook on Amazon, Cannon's novels appear in the Top 100 list for Kindle and she sold more than 9000 ebooks in July alone.

Suzanne Warr interviewed Cannon and she's also popping in and out today to answer questions readers leave for her in the comments section. Don't be left out! Come on over and see what our first guest has to say about her characters, witchy cheerleaders, India, and picking berries in Georgia.

Sarra Cannon Interview

Sarra Cannon Website

New(-ish) Group Blog

2011-08-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

I am delinquent. Lazy. Slow. Pile on the adjectives . . . I've already applied them to myself.

But I cannot waste another second in promoting a fabulous new blog written by a group of the best writers in the world. And also me.

Cabinet of Curiosities is the joint project of published picture-book author Ginger Churchill, mid-grade fantasy writer Suzanne Warr, YA urban fantasy writer Pat Esden, and NY Times bestseller of the Hush, Hush series Becca Fitzpatrick. The five of us met through an online writing class that, once it was finished, we didn't want to end. So we evolved into an online writers' group and have spent years cheering each other on, providing long-distance shoulders to cry on, and rejoicing in each others' successes.

If you like funny, sassy, committed, and insightful women, go on over to the Cabinet and see what we have to say. We blog about writing, but also ideas, the nature of creativity, favorite reads, complicated lives, and pop culture. What's not to love?

Now off to take my teens to their first social outing in Boston. Yes, we're here. Living in temporary housing (a 3-bedroom apartment) until we close on our new house in two weeks. Thus far our social lives have consisted of the grocery store, mall, and a historical visit to the famous Concord bridge where the Revoluationary War began. (Okay, that last one is pretty cool. But the rest are so not.) Suffice it to say that Jake and Emma are looking forward to an activity that involves pizza, sugar, other teenagers, and not their parents.

May Books

2011-08-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

Sigh. Woefully behind. So much so that I'm typing this on my iPhone as penance. Just try to remember that I'm moving across country in three days and promise to become more prolific once I am in Boston and have no friends.

Edited to Add: I've now been in Boston for nearly a week. 'Behind' doesn't begin to cover it.

ICE PRINCESS/Camilla Lackberg/B+
Murder and mystery in a Swedish journalist's hometown. A bit disjointed in places, but overall I liked the setting in a seaside town and the combination of old secrets and current threats.

MAP OF TRUE PLACES/Brunonia Barry/A-
Strong story of a psychiatrist having her own breakdown and returning to Salem, Massachusetts to care for her father as his dementia worsens. Why did her mother die years ago? Who is the man she's beginning to love? And what really drove her patient to suicide

THE WAY OF KINGS/Brandon Sanderson/A+
I adore everything of Sandersons's, but this first novel in a planned ten-book epic is more than stunning. Every POV is interesting and every character is complex. And nobody can beat Sanderson at plotting and twists. The only downside is having to wait for more.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN/Mark Twain/B+
Long, but not so long if you skip all the extra info. The actual words of Twain are fabulous and made me laugh at nearly every turn. But also at times unexpectedly poignant, as when he shares pieces of the biography his daughter wrote about him when she was young. I will definitely read the next part when it's released and recommend it for fans of Twain's fiction.

THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES/Siddartha Mukherjee/A+
The subtitle to this book is A Biography of Cancer and that pretty much sums it up. An outstanding account of cancer and the shadows it has cast for so many years. Covers topics from the pioneers of chemotherapy and radical surgery to the nature of a cancer cell in general as well as the astonishingly complex mutations that define cancer as perhaps medicine's greatest challenge ever. Fabulous.

DARKNESS VISIBLE/William Styron/A
A brief but powerful account of the writer's descent into deep depression and subsequent treatment. Recommended for those who suffer and/or those who love those who suffer from depression if only to know that you are not alone.

I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE/Laura Lippman/B+
Eliza Benedict is living a picture perfect life in suburban Washington D.C. with her husband and two children when a letter from her past shatters the image. The summer Eliza was fifteen, she was kidnapped and held captive for several weeks by a man who is now about to be executed as a serial killer. Why was Eliza the only girl he left alive? Why did he let her go? And what does he want from her now that he's about to die? Intriguing, unexpected, and Eliza is a strong character beneath her initial fear.

THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE/Kathleen Howe/B
Connie Goodwin is supposed to be spending the summer doing research for her dissertation, but finds herself clearing out her grandmother's ancient New England cottage instead. But could the perfect topic be right under her nose? When Connie finds a key hidden in a family Bible, she also finds a name--Deliverance Dane. And the race is on to find a rare book that others would kill to possess. A little underwritten for my taste, and the paranormal elements didn't seem to fit, but otherwise a strong story.

HOW WE DIE/Sherwin Nuland/A
Sounds depressing, I know, but I am rather morbid. And I enjoyed this doctor's matter-of-fact account of the different ways in which our bodies age and die. From heart failure to cancer, strokes to Alzheimer's, I perversely found comfort in the knowledge that our bodies are created in order to age and break down. Very interesting.

RUN/Ann Patchett/A
Patchett is an amazing writer and by that I mean I liked this one even better than Bel Canto which is no mean feat. Bernard Doyle lost his wife years ago, but on this snowy night in Boston he's enjoying a lecture with his two younger boys, Tip and Teddy. They think they know all about their lives, but when Tip is injured in a car crash in the snow, family secrets are up for grabs. The most compelling character in the book is young Kenya, a girl with a gift for running who will change the Doyle family forever.

THE HELP/Kathryn Stockett/A-
Loved this book; can't wait to see the film. Skeeter has come back to Mississippi from college and wants to write. But the 1960s' South isn't kind to women with ambition, and Skeeter is uncomfortable with the now-married friends she grew up with. Aibileen is a black housekeeper who is growing tired of caring for white children who will be taught to think less of her as they grow older. And Minnie is a spitfire who has a hard time keeping her mouth shut to her employers and winds up keeping house for the strangest backcountry white woman who no one will accept. When Skeeter hits on the idea of writing a book about what it's like for the black help in white households, unexpected friendships emerge as well as a compelling book.

All Quiet on the Home Front

2011-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

First--for those who aren't friends on Facebook and/or found me through Twitter--why not? No, seriously, for those who read my news only here . . .

I have a book deal. Actually, a three-book deal. I'm waiting to release details until the contract is signed, but I could not be more thrilled at how the auction went and the editor I ended up with. This is going to be fun!!!!

That said, one would think that I would be all over my writing this week. Especially with my husband in Boston interviewing (long story, surely to be shared later) and my two younger children at camp. That leaves me and the two teenage boys and--voila! A quiet house in summertime.

My mom called today. I am afraid I was not (entirely) truthful. That is a problem for me, living as I do in a family with the motto Just Don't Lie.

Mom: "Are you working on your writing?"
Me: "Sort of."

To be entirely honest, I was only "sort of" working on my writing if I figure out some way to include Angry Birds in my next book. The odds are slim, considering it's set in Tudor England. An alternate-history version of it to be sure, but Tudor England nonetheless. I can't even claim that I was letting my mind wander to possible plots and characters while playing Angry Birds, because I was so frustrated with those smug little green pigs that I kept shaking my iPhone to see if that would make the walls tumble down on them. (It didn't.)

So there's my true confession. I am the proud and somewhat bewildered possessor of a brand-new three-book deal and I'm playing Angry Birds.

Time to get to work . . .

Sleep Tonight?

2011-06-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Somehow I doubt it. My auction opens tomorrow morning. It will take some time, so it might even be after the weekend before I have news. Meanwhile, I've been on the phone with several editors who wanted to talk to me about the first book and where I see the next two books heading (which is interesting, because I originally wrote this story as one long book and only this winter chopped it up to make a trilogy.) Despite the undeniable fact that I am not hallucinating--my iPhone assures me that these calls have happened, as well as quite a few with my agent--I still have the disquieting sense that I'm going to blink one morning and it will all have vanished.

So let's just say my anxiety level is rising.

And oh yes, did I mention that my oldest son is graduating from high school tomorrow morning??!!!

No sleep in sight.

April Books

2011-06-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am aware it is now June. These will not be long reviews. They may not even be reviews--just grades. But since they're bugging me sitting in my drafts, I want to put them out there. If anyone wants more details on why I liked or didn't like a book, ask me in the comments and I'll elaborate. Probably.

GAME OF THRONES/George R.R. Martin/A+
Great opening book to a fabulous epic fantasy series.

UNEARTHLY/Cynthia Hand/B
Paranormal YA, but this time it's the girl who's got the gifts. Nice twist.

THE NINE TAILORS/Dorothy L. Sayers/B+
I adore Lord Peter Wimsey, but my favorite Sayers' books have to have Harriet in them.

THE RED DOOR/Charles Todd/A-
A better outing than some of the most recent in this post-WWI British mystery series.

CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS/Cassandra Clare/A
Love the series, enjoyed this book, really impatient to get the sequel to CLOCKWORK ANGEL.

HAITI NOIR/ed. by Edwige Danticat/B+
Collection of short stories in the noir genre, which Haiti practically oozes from its name alone. Several made me feel like I was right back in Port-au-Prince.

Sayings

2011-05-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

We have some sayings in our family. Mottoes, if you will. Just Don't Lie is one. And Always Turn Right. Also Don't Screw Up and That Doesn't Suck.

From these one might deduce certain things about our family. Like an attention span that can't be trusted to last more than three words, perhaps, or that we pride ourselves on lowering the bar. (Trust me, after OCD, major depression, death, and childhood cancer, our bar for happiness is pretty low.)

I went on submission last week. Yes, I'm still a writer. A writer with an agent and an unsold manuscript after fourteen months. I spent the winter doing a major rewrite on a previous novel and that novel was finally flung into the publishing world. I veered between excitement and a numb certainty that this novel, too, would sink without a trace.

But even the eternal pessimist in me could not but be excited when my agent called this morning. It was hard to believe that more than a dozen editors could have said no just in the space of a weekend. Indeed, they hadn't.

Good News: I have an offer.

Better News: Other editors had their interest piqued by this fact of an offer.

Bestest, most outstanding, it's-not-supposed-to-happen-to-me news: My book is going to auction on June 2nd.

Did you catch that? June 2nd. The day my oldest graduates from high school. I never expected the "book as child" metaphor to be stretched quite that far, but I'll take it.

I am apparently more superstitious than I ever thought, because I am actually afraid that posting this will make it all vanish. I will wake up. Or the editors will come to their senses. Or the prophesied end of the world will turn out to have been off by just a few days and the apocalypse will hit before June 2nd.

But still, as we say in our family: That Doesn't Suck.

March Books

2011-04-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

THE DISTANT HOURS/Kate Morton/A-
A wonderful Gothic tale of a mother's secrets and her daughter's unexpected chance to heal their relationship. Edie Burchill is stunned to discover that her mother spent part of WWII evacuated to a castle owned by the writer of Edie's favorite childhood book. Chance and circumstance allow Edie to begin to unravel the secrets not only of her mother, but of the three elderly spinsters who have never left the castle. Full of shadows and romance and dreams.

UNHOLY GHOST: WRITERS ON DEPRESSION/ed. Nell Casey/A
Exactly what the title says: Writers writing about depression. Not for the faint of heart and probably not for someone who has never experienced depression in themselves and/or someone they love, but for me every page seemed to contain a moment of exquisite understanding, a light of hope that my craziness at least does not consist of experiencing things that aren't real. They're very real, and very painful, and yet look at all the beauty in my own and others' lives despite that pain.

THE SCENT OF RAIN AND LIGHTNING/Nancy Pickard/B+
When Jody Linder was 3 years old, her father was murdered and her mother vanished. Twenty-three years later, the novel opens with the news that the killer has been paroled and is returning to the small town where Jody still lives. The killer's son was once a friend of sorts, but now that he's helped his father out of jail, what will Jody think? And what really happened on that night so long ago? I love Pickard's writing and evocation of place and character.

INTERPRETATION OF MURDER/Jed Rubenfeld/B
In 1909, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung arrive in New York City for a lecture series. But when a socialite is murdered and a second young woman attacked, young psychologist Stratham younger asks Freud for advice in helping the second woman recover her memory of the incident. Full of twisted characters and twistier motives, this is a cross between mystery and literary with my favorite parts being the turn of the century stories about New York society and politics.

BLOOD HARVEST/S.J. Bolton/B+
Ten-year-old Tom Fletcher and his family have just moved to remote Helptonclough next to the ancient church. Everyone thinks Tom is imagining when he says he's being watched from the trees--but then his little sister is nearly killed by what may or may not have been a prank. The vicar, Harry Laycock, and child psychiatrist Evi Oliver are both involved with the family and also find the townspeople oddly silent about a string of child deaths in the past. Is Tom crazy? Is he dangerous? Or is it the church and town that have secrets to answer for? Very creepy.

THE TUDOR SECRET/C.W. Gortner/B-
Brendan Prescott is sent sent to London in the service of Robert Dudley. But the orphan is soon caught in the very heart of Tudor poltiics--the boy-king Edward VI is on his deathbed and rival factions are positioning Mary and Elizabeth against one another. Prescott wonders what he's doing in the midst of all this spying and death--but the truth of his parentage may be more than he bargained for.

SAVING CEE-CEE HONEYCUTT/Beth Hoffman/B+
CeeCee has grown up with a mentally ill mother and a mostly-absent father. When her mother dies, CeeCee is taken in by her great-aunt Tallulah and rescued from the cold north to the warm and flowery south. It's 1967 and 12-year-old CeeCee is soon awash in southern eccentriticies, from the nasty gossip next door to the fading beauty who bathes in an outdoor bathtub to Oleta, the black housekeeper who gives CeeCee more love than she's ever had. Sweet and frothy and easy--and sometimes that's just what you need.

ROOM/Emma Donoghue/A-
The exact opposite of sweet, frothy, and easy, ROOM is told by Jack, who has just turned five as the book opens. Jack and Ma live in Room, the only place Jack has ever known, with Old Nick their only visitor. Ma isn't as happy in Room as Jack, and soon she enlists his help to leave forever. But will the world outside be worth it--or will Jack wish to have stayed in Room forever? I would never have guessed that a story about a young woman held captive for years and the child she gave birth to in that time could be so redemptive and beautiful. Don't let the subject matter keep you from this story--Jack's innocence and literality infuse the book with hope and awe at the creative and driving power of a mother's love.

February Books

2011-03-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG/Alan Bradley/A-
The second Flavia de Luce mystery, featuring the intrepid 11-year-old sleuth who lives in a crumbling English estate in the 1950s. This time around, Flavia lands in the middle of mystery when she meets a puppetmaster and his travelling companion in their broken-down van. Persuaded to stay and put on a show, the puppetmaster ends up dead and the motives stretch back to a child's death some years earlier. Flavia is bewitchingly endearing, particularly for a child who spends her spare time studying and creating poisons, and she carries the book with humor, cleverness, and a hint of vulnerability.

WOMEN, FOOD, AND GOD/Geneen Roth/A-
As I don't reveal too much of my psyche, I'll simply say that this non-fiction book about the often-fraught relationship between women and their bodies held lots of recognition for me. Recommended.

SEER OF SEVENWATERS/Juliet Marillier/A
Sibeal is the youngest of the Sevenwaters girls, and a powerful seer. Though only sixteen, she is preparing to take her final vows as a druid and is irritated by her mentor's command that she spend one final summer with family and friends. Sibeal is certain of what she wants--until several mysterious survivors of a shipwreck are washed up on the island. When she saves Felix's life, she entangles herself in a story of treachery and lost memory and a love that threatens her own future. How is she to know what is right when the gods themselves are quiet?

PASSAGE/Connie Willis/B+
Joanna Lander is a psychologist researching Near Death Experiences (NDE) and how the brain constructs them. When she partners with Dr. Richard Wright (who induces NDE in healthy volunteers) she doesn't know what she's getting into. For the first while, I kept thinking "This is so weird"; then I thought "What does the writer think she's doing?!"; and finally I wept through the last few chapters. It's funny and poignant and suspenseful and tragic. Recommended.

A RELIABLE WIFE/Robert Goolrick/C-
More literary than I expected, which for me means the story was overwhelmed by the language and tone. Ralph Truitt is rich and lonely in turn-of-the-last century Minnesota. When he advertises for 'a reliable wife', he gets more than he bargained for. Catherine Land is not who she says she is, and her agreement to help him find his lost son is prelude to attempted murder. I read it to see how it ended, but the writing was too self-conscious and pretentious for my taste.

AT HOME/Bill Bryson/A+
What don't I love by Bill Bryson? Certainly not this book, which is billed as "A History of Private Life". Using his own 19th-century vicarage as a jumping-off point, Bryson explores how humans came to live in houses and the development of everything from indoor plumbing to kitchens to the clothing we put on. I know when I read Bryson that I will come away knowing things I never expected to. In this book, that included how British sailors came to be called 'limeys' and the importance of Beau Brummel to fashion.

Update

2011-03-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

Though I have not yet been in direct contact with my parents, I have had official word from the missionary department that they are accounted for and safe.

The photos coming out of Sendai are horrific and I can only imagine at this point how tired and grieved my parents are; but I also know surely that they are helping however they can.

Sendai

2011-03-11T11:14:00.000-08:00

Seventeen months ago, I would have grieved for the earthquake and tsnumani striking Sendai, Japan. But in a generalized, sorrow-for-all sort of way.

Seventeen months ago, my parents weren't living in Sendai.

They are in the final month of an 18-month mission, serving in the city of Sendai. I have not heard from them yet. Communications are horrific at the moment--plus it's the middle of the night. I'm mostly worried about their own sorrow for the city and the people they love. I am quite sure they are fine.

Except I won't be really sure until I hear from them.

January Books

2011-02-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

HECK: WHERE BAD KIDS GO/Dale Basye/A-
Milton Fauster knows his sister, Marlo, is no saint. But when a marshmallow-bear explosion kills them both, he's horrified to wind up in Heck right next to her. An eternally horrible prep school, Heck has teachers like Lizzie Borden in cooking and Richard Nixon in ethics. Is there any way out? A younger YA full of classical allusions, black comedy, and details like toddlers being kept in gingerbread coffins and preschoolers forced to learn phonics.

EX LIBRIS/Anne Fadiman/A
A collection of essays on books and reading. I recognized myself in far too many of them: from grammar-policing menus to organizing personal libraries to daydreaming through catologues. Highly recommended for lovers of books.

DROOD/Dan Simmons/B+
It's been nearly a month since I finished this book, and I'm still not entirely certain how I feel about it. Simmons imagines an over-the-top inspiration for Dickens' last (and unfinished) novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The fantastic abounds--ritual killings, underground cities, secret murder and haunted houses. Or is it all in the twisted, envious, opium-addicted mind of narrator Wilkie Collins? Intriguing is the word I keep coming back to. Also creepy. And I never did find out what was behind the walls of the boarded-up staircase.

GENGHIS KHAN AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD/Jack Weatherford/A-
An excellent overview of how one man turned the steppe tribes of Mongolia into a feared and far-flung empire. The real interest in the book, though, is the details behind the armies. Genghis Khan was a visionary leader who practiced religious freedom, created outstanding trade routes, and fought to expand but never to wantonly destroy. His successors dwindled until the empire vanished, but not before leaving a legacy from Russia to India. Highly recommended.

SHIVER/Maggie Stiefvater/B+
Another YA paranormal romance, this one between Grace and 'her wolf' whom she has seen in the winter woods since she was a little girl. Now that wolf is a boy named Sam--but not for long. When the cold comes, he'll vanish into wolf form . . . this time, forever. The strengths of this book are the inner turmoil of Sam and his complicated relationship with Beck, the pack leader who raised him as both boy and wolf. I'll get around to reading the next in the series.

Hooray!

2011-02-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

Chapter 13 is finished.

That leaves me . . . let me count . . . four new scenes to write for the remaining two chapters, as well as altering several existing scenes to change POV or chronology. But the end is creeping its way into sight.

Chapter 13

2011-02-18T21:54:00.000-08:00

I have been working. Chapter 13 currently consists of 2492 words, about half of what I'm aiming for.

Not all of the words are in the proper order. There's a disturbing lack of transitions between scenes. And I'm pretty sure I'm referencing things that I haven't actually written into the storyline yet.

But it's about 2450 more words than I had two days ago, so there's that.

I'll be back.

Chapter 13 in its Entirety

2011-02-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MINUETTE WITH MARY; STEPFATHER? AND GILES

ELIZABETH AND ROBERT—HE FINDS OUT WHERE MINUETTE IS?

WHAT IS ROCHFORD DOING? HIS WIFE?

ENDS OCTOBER 31ST WITH NORFOLK’S DEATH, GILES’ ARREST, MARY’S CONFINEMENT

I would have warned you that it contained spoilers . . . but I think spoilers require full sentences. This is the only chapter in this entire rewrite that will be wholly new. Which I'm clearly having trouble with. That's the bad news.

The good news is that Chapters 14 and 15 will split twenty pages of story I already have. And then I'll be done.

Do you think I'd have better luck if I just skipped 13 altogether, like Las Vegas hotels? Maybe if I call it chapter 14 I'll get past the unintelligible thoughts.

Probably not.

Chapter Update

2011-02-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm declaring chapters eight, nine, and ten finished.

Which means they will do for now as I attempt to weave in the new storyline, some of which will probably land in pieces scattered through nine and ten at least as I decide how to structure things.

I am now on page 214. When I started pushing ten days ago, I was at 72. So though I haven't hit a chapter every day, I'm fairly happy with how far I've come so quickly. I'm guessing another hundred pages or so. Still aiming for February 15th.

Good night all :)

Chapter Update and 2010 in Books

2011-02-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't fallen off the earth and I haven't failed. However, reporting on a chapter-a-day has been slightly complicated by the fact that I'm not writing completely from scratch but weaving a new storyline into an already solid two hundred pages.

As of today, I have completed chapters 6 and 7 to my temporary satisfaction (read as: they will do for a first draft) and I need to write one new scene before chapter 8 is completed. At that point, I will be halfway through this revision at about 170 pages. I'm aiming to finish by February 15th.

And I know it's very bad form to praise one's own work, but this has always been my favorite book. I remember writing it in 2004 and thinking, "This is going to be the book that sells." Here's hoping that stays true--although if anyone would like to buy SORROWS before this one is ready, I will not refuse.

(By the way, if I'm sounding awfully British at the moment, it's because I just came from seeing. THE KING'S SPEECH. Loved it, and not just because of Colin Firth.)

I know this is not a logical pairing of subjects, but I have got to write up my report on books read in 2010 before my conscience drives me mad. (Oh dear, I really am sounding a lot like Helena Bonham Carter--try not to hold it against me!)

Statistics for 2010 Books

Total books read: 98 (I've already discussed the shameful fact that this is well below 2009's number of 120. I have neither excuse nor explanation.)

Non-fiction: 22

Historical: 23

Young Adult: 17

Fantasy: 13

Mystery: 39

From this I conclude that some day very soon, I'm going to have to return to learning to write a mystery novel. Clearly it is my favorite genre year in and year out. I've been wondering why this is and think I might have an answer.

Mystery novels--at least the sort I love--allow me to understand the desires and motives and temptations and heartaches and pain of all kinds of people. My favorite authors--such as P.D. James, Louise Penny, Ruth Rendell, Minette Walters, Elizabeth George, and Deborah Crombie--write from multiple points of view--murderer to detective and everyone in between--and they do so with skill and empathy. There is evil in their worlds, but it is not black and white and easily discerned. The good are never perfect and the truth is never simple. And in the end, I almost always can say of the killer: "I find it in my heart to be sorry for you, too."

I don't know what someone else would decide that says about me. My own opinion is that my everyday world is also not black and white, all good or all bad, happiness or pain, goodness or evil. My world is complicated--and acknowledging the humanity of the sinner and recognizing their pain does not diminish my appreciation for goodness and truth. It enhances it. No one is born solely to kill--and I like to read writers and stories that believe the same and wish to understand why.

Off my high horse, now--to give you my favorite books of 2010.

1. MISTBORN (Brandon Sanderson): I include all three books in the trilogy, but MISTBORN was my favorite. Meeting Vin and Kelsier and Elend and diving into the world of mistcloaks and tyrant overlords was like finding the Lord of the Rings when I was a teenager. And though not a mystery, Sanderson is a master of complicated worlds with no easy answers.

2. SHUTTER ISLAND (Dennis Lehane): This is a mystery and it is outstanding. The detective at the heart of this period-piece set on an island for the insane is one of the most amazing characters I've ever come across. I picked it up for the thriller aspects--but it stayed with me for its emotional depth.

3. WINTERGIRLS (Laurie Halse Anderson): I liked this even better than Anderson's famous SPEAK. The story of a teen girl caught in the mental and physical destruction of an eating disorder will tear at anyone's heart, but also offers hope.

4. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Lionel Shriver): This single book could be the definition of what I wrote above about complicated worlds and sometimes unanswerable questions. It is perhaps the most wrenchingly difficult book I've ever read, but I needed it and it is on my list of books never-to-be-given-away. Written from the point of a view of a mother whose son murdered high school classmates, as she tries to unravel what went wrong and when.

5. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE (Lucy Grealy): The memoir of a childhood cancer survivor who became a brilliant poet rang through me for obvious reasons.

6. BURY YOUR DEAD (Louise Penny): Penny has created one of my favorite detectives of all time, Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete. This book--#6 in the series--is all Gamache and Penny is a master at showing a damaged soul healing. Do yourself a favor--begin at the beginning, with STILL LIFE, and read them all.

Of course, now I'm a little worried that everyone's going to think I respond only to the dark and twisted. Don't get me wrong--I most certainly do--but I promise I'm not really a tortured soul. And there were other books I loved this year besides just the 'tragic and inevitable death' sort. How about my favorite in each category above (not repeating the six I've already listed):

Non-fiction: A WEEK AT THE AIRPORT (Alain de Boton) The writer was hired by Heathrow Airport to be a 'writer-in-residence' for one week in its new terminal. His stories are funny, philosophical, and recognizable. And I will never again go through security without wondering if I might have accidentally left any bomb-making material in my carry-on luggage.

Historical: CHILD 44 (Tom Rob Smith) Absolutely, terrifyingly good portrait of life in Soviet Russia at the end of Stalin's reign. Secret police, murdered children, and a man who wants to do what is right--without being killed for it.

Young Adult: CLOCKWORK ANGEL (Cassandra Clare) I'm cheating slightly here, because I would also list Clare's earlier books here as well (CITY OF BONES, CITY OF ASHES, CITY OF GLASS). But CLOCKWORK ANGEL was the one that introduced me to Clare and her world of Shadowhunters, demons, and adolescent love that rings right off the page. Between Jace and Will (if I were 17 again)? Don't make me choose :)

Fantasy: DOOMSDAY BOOK (Connie Willis) Reviewed last week in the post Three A+ Books.

Mystery: FAITHFUL PLACE (Tana French) French continues to deliver the most astounding and unexpected stories set in a common world (Dublin police) but taking a new, often secondary, character from one novel and building a compelling story for them. I start each new book thinking I won't like it as much because it doesn't have such-and-such character, but I finish a little stunned at what French has done to me.

And that is that--I will try to watch something very American before the next time I post.

Chapter-a-Day Report

2011-02-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

Finished Chapter Five at 10:00 last night.

It's 10:18 and I just finished Chapter Six.

And now I can let my migraine go to bed.

Three A+ Books

2011-02-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

Since I never got to my monthly book reviews in November or December, I offer as penance the three best books I read in those two months. (This is because I'm bizarrely obedient to my own self-imposed world view that it would be ethically wrong of me to review January's books without at least acknowledging my failure.(Yes, I do have a psychiatrist. Yes, I clearly need him.))

WARBREAKER/Brandon Sanderson
One of my best discoveries in 2010, Sanderson (who wrote THE MISTBORN TRILOGY) delivers a stand-alone tale of unpredictable loyalties, dark intrigue and dangerous magic. To keep a treaty made long ago, the king of Idris must send his daughter to marry Susebron, the God King of Hallandren. Loath to part with his eldest daughter, Vivenna, King Dedelin instead sends his youngest daughter, tomboyish 17-year-old Siri, who struggles to make sense of the schemers and spies in Susebron's court. Hoping to rescue her sister, Vivenna joins a group of Idrian operatives with questionable motives. As Vivenna comes to terms with her magical abilities, resurrected hero Lightsong questions the role of the undead Returned Gods, who command Hallandren's mighty army of zombie soldiers. Sanderson melds complex, believable characters, a marvelous world and thoughtful, ironic humor into an extraordinary and highly entertaining story. (Yes, I copied this from Amazon. I am also bizarrely honest. But it really was an outstanding book. And the next two reviews are all mine.)

DOOMSDAY BOOK/Connie Willis
A classic that can't quite be pinned down--part science-fiction (because the time travel), part historical (because the travel is to 14th-century England), and wholly fascinating. Kivrin is an Oxford student who has been preparing for years to travel to 1320. Her tutor, Mr. Dunworthy, is more than a little uneasy. And when the tech running the drop comes down with the first case of what becomes an epidemic flu, no one is quite sure where or when Kivrin is. I knew I was going to love this book from the first paragraph, because Willis' characters leaped off the page and put my imagination in a stranglehold I'm still not entirely free of.

TRUTH AND BEAUTY/Ann Patchett
Remember when I reviewed AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Greely a few months ago? That was a memoir of being a childhood cancer survivor. This is a memoir of being Lucy's friend. Ann Patchett (BEL CANTO, RUN, PATRON SAINT OF LIARS) wrote this amazing book in the months after Lucy's death at age 39. The two became friends straight out of college, and Lucy was the kind of friend you can never be free of--if you even want to. I loved everything about this book, and recommend you read it in companion to AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE.

Now, with the righteous sense of duty done, I can think about January's book reviews.

And also the fact that I have decided to write a chapter a day until the first draft of my Tudor rewrite is finished. It's not so bad as it sounds, since I am working with at least a couple hundred pages of text. It did, however, take me more than three months to write the first three chapters, which had to set up a new story arc just for Book One of this trilogy revision. But I want to finish! Hence my goal. Actually, hence my public announcing of said goal since I tend to work better when public disappointment is a threat.

Off to finish Chapter Five!

I Should Be . . .

2011-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

. . . picking up my bag at JFK airport right about now.

I'm not.

Snow, snow everywhere and not a flight to be had. When Ginger and I arrived at the Salt Lake City airport at 7:30 this morning, our flight to New York read Delayed. But only until 10:05. That actually changed to 9:40 for a few giddy moments that turned out to be the high point of the morning. Then it changed to 9:55. Then to 11:15.

At 9:30, they decided to let us board. Fortunately I was neither in first class nor in a rush--because when we were halfway down the jetway to our seats, we got turned around. JFK wouldn't let us take off and finally the cancellation ax fell.

Since we couldn't get into New York until tomorrow evening at the earliest, we've decided to rebook for a more propitious weekend--spring, perhaps. So much for New York pizza and New York cheesecake and Chinatown and the Met and the Cloisters and the independent bookstores. But the real loss is not seeing Patty and Suzanne.

I'm feeling glum.

Winter Unexpected

2011-01-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

Not the weather . . . winter weather in Utah is just what it should be ('should' meaning within the parameters of normal behavior not 'should' as in morally right).

Remember how my last post claimed "I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen" this year? Witness January. Actually, witness the first 12 days of January.

Exhibit A: a four day trip to Klamath Falls, Oregon for my grandmother's 90th birthday. Didn't know I was doing that until a week before I went. I learned some interesting things on this trip. For instance, Oregon has some interesting choices in place names. Jumpoff Joe Creek, for one. Dead Indian Memorial Road, for another. (Aren't you just wondering now if the memorial is in honor of all Dead Indians, or one specific Indian? I've set my son to researching to assuage my curiosity.)

Exhibit B: for a year in which I did not plan to travel until an April trip to Japan, I will be getting on a second airplane before the end of January. This one's heading east, to another city with some interesting choices in . . . well, just about everything. That would be New York City for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference. (I don't think I'm actually going to attend the conference--since I'm only marginally a YA author at best--but I'm flying with my dearest writer friend and we'll meet up with two more of our writer friends who live in Vermont and North Carolina. Hooray!) Plus I get to meet Tamar. I feel unbelievably sophisticated saying, "I'm going to meet my agent in New York.

I'd better get my hair colored.

Exhibit C: maybe there's not an exhibit C. Not yet. No doubt it's hovering just out of sight beyond the expected events of science fairs and spelling bees and high school theater auditions and college letters.

In the meantime, here's my writerly thought of the day:

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf

My addition: it won't matter for even a minute if it never gets written. And that's me off to revisions. Happy January!

Are You Kidding?

2011-01-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

2010 is over? But I wasn't done yet.

I didn't achieve world domination. I didn't even achieve familial domination. I didn't become J.K. Rowling. I didn't buy a house in London. I didn't Save the Whales. I'm not sure I saved my sanity. I only read 98 books. 98! Do you realize what that means? I read 16 fewer books than I did in 2008 when Jake had cancer. Either I am slowing down with age or I am just the world's worst mother of a sick child.

Still, 2010 wasn't a total loss. In no order at all, the highlights of my year (which will likely bear little relation to the highlights of your year):

-Signed with Tamar Rydzinski at the Laura Dail Literary Agency

-Got a revision request from an editor at a major publishing house (nope, still haven't heard)

-Endured the Forced March of the Monuments in Washington D.C. during 100 degree heat and in the midst of the Cherry Blossom Festival (note to self: cherry blossoms are the root of all evil)

-Added to our family stock of "you had to be there" phrases (The bagel! Winnipeg! The cat! Germany lost? Kind of cool and kind of creepy.)

-Got a psychiatrist. And a new medication. (Trust me--that is most definitely a highlight!)

-Two road trips with Katie, only one of which involved four hours in a mechanic's waiting room.

-Started sharing shoes with Emma. When she was still 11.

-Got to hear "Jake's scans are clear" three times this year.

-Editing Matt's college application essays. Even though I sometimes think I'll stick my head into his bedroom and find the little blonde three-year-old with Tawny Scrawny Lion tucked in next to him.

-Watched Spencer become a green belt in karate. The kid is seriously dangerous.

-Went to KISS.

-The above is not a typo. I actually consider watching Gene Simmons set fire to things as a highlight.

-Survived a long year of job uncertainty (Chris's, not mine. There's barely a job in writing, let alone certainty.) I'll let you in on a secret: Odds are good I will be posting from a different state before the year is out.

-Counted four healthy, happy children tonight and one husband who loves me in spite of the above-mentioned psychiatrist. (Seriously, I think Chris loves me because of my quirks, not in spite of them. But that may just be the medication talking.)

2011 is going to be great. I have no idea what's going to happen.

Happy New Year!

Laugh Out Loud for Writers

2010-12-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

It Is Me

2010-12-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

Today, I'm sharing a blog post that I could have written myself. Replace '15 months' with '8 months' and strike the part about making it all the way to acquistions, and Natalie Whipple is channeling me. In all the frustration and fear and apathy that stalk the writer-in-waiting.

What Happens When It Is You

(And for the record, when I signed with Tamar Rydzinski, she told me to be patient because she had sold a book as long as 6 months after sending it on submission. So it's not like I've done nothing for her--I'm at 8 months and still going, which gives her an even better number to persuade her writers into patience.)

Twelve Things To Know About Emma On Her Twelfth Birthday

2010-11-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

1. Emma would rather read than eat. Or sleep. Or possibly even breathe.

2. Emma is the most enthusiastic writer I know. (And I know a lot of writers.) She’s got motivation, she’s got persistence, she’s got a million ideas, and she’s got a voice that’s all hers.

3. Emma will tell you that she’s lived in the same house her entire life. That is not actually true. We didn’t move into this house until she was ten weeks old. So she’s lived here her entire life—minus ten weeks.

4. Emma embraces weirdness.

5. Don’t mess with Harry Potter around Emma.

6. Or Percy Jackson.

7. Or Artemis Fowl.

8. Every summer for the last three years, Emma has spent a week at Camp Hobe. It’s one of the good things that came out of her brother’s cancer . . . going to a camp where other kids her age either have cancer or have a sibling that has. Plus, the cute counselors don’t hurt.

9. Last I heard, Emma’s dream is to live in Portland when she grows up so she can go to Powell’s bookstore often. (Yes, she is definitely my daughter.) She also dreams of owning a multi-story restored building in which the first floor is a bakery, the second and third floors are living quarters, and the top floor is a writer’s retreat.

10. Emma is never, ever apathetic. She is fierce in her emotions. Sometimes that's fabulous . . . and sometimes her three brothers run for cover.

11. Emma used to ask when she would have a sister, but she doesn’t anymore. She has learned to appreciate the wardrobe benefits of being the only girl.

12. Emma is our only daughter for one simple reason: Because she’s the best there is. Opinionated and curious and passionate—a believer in dreams and an idealist who wants to do something real in the world.

Happy Birthday, Emma!

Love, Mom

Friday Five: Practically Perfect Portland Edition

2010-11-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

1. Food: Voodoo Donuts; The Melting Pot; Burgerville; Rose's. White chocolate creme brulee fondue, pumpkin milkshakes, fish and chips, matzo ball soup, chocolate cake. My favorite part of travel might be the eating.

2. Friends: driving with Katie (talking on the way up, listening to Clockwork Angel on the way back) and visiting with Becca. Just when I think she can't get cooler . . . she does. And you know Katie's my best friend when you realize that we can be together twenty-four hours a day for five days straight and still enjoy the company.

3. Shopping: Powell's City of Books. Even after a half-dozen trips, I still have to take a map when I go inside.

4. Shopping, part deux: Saks Off Fifth. Designer heels for a way discounted price. (Though mine weren't quite as discounted as Katie's--do you know anyone who paid 23 dollars for a 665 dollar pair of Manolo Blahniks? I do.) Still, here are my new black stilettos.

5. The Practically of Practically Perfect: I've become scattered. Easily distracted. (I'm looking here for words that don't sound quite so pejorative as ditzy.) Witness my driving in Portland. In my defense, I've driven in quite a few big cities, including L.A. last March, and I think Portland has the most counter-intuitive freeway on and off ramps I've ever seen. I had a downtown map in paper, a more detailed map from the hotel, Google maps on my computer, and a Hertz Neverlost in my car.

I got lost the very first night trying to get to Becca's booksigning in Clackamas. Instead of being at an enormous mall, Katie and I were driving some interesting mean streets lined with pawn shops, Chinese restaurants, and the kind of motels that Sam and Dean Winchester stay in. That one, alas, can only be blamed on pure ditziness . . . when I printed out a nice map, I'd left out a crucial 0 in the address.

So on went the Neverlost, which got us to Clackamas and got us back to Becca's hotel. It even got us back to the bridge to cross into downtown Portland . . . where it promptly tried to send us right on a one-way street going left.

I think Portland is in a black hole, one in which normal human directions are distorted.

Sadly, however, the last mistake was also solely my own. I have driven out of Portland heading east through the Columbia River Gorge at least eight times in the last five years. I know the drive so well that I can point out the blackberry bushes at an exit where my youngest son had to pee one year.

This time, I completely missed the split where I head east. I realized this about the time a bridge loomed before me--a bridge which, halfway across, bears a sign reading Welcome to Washington.

As you can't really turn around on a bridge, Katie and I made a nice little diversionary jaunt along the Washington side of the Columbia River until we hit another bridge that took us back to Oregon. No harm done.

Except to my ego.

October Books

2010-11-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

A great month for me--just look at all those A+ grades!

GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEXT/Stiegg Larsson/B+
The finale in the hot trilogy by the late Stiegg Larsson. It does the job of all good final books--giving us lots of the characters we've come to know, some unexpected choices, and a great trial scene. Journalist Mikael is determined to prove Lisbeth Salander's innocence by exposing the hidden security agency that has been playing with her life since she was born. I recommend the series for those who like their thrillers smart and their main characters balanced between being likable and uncomfortable.

CLOCKWORK ANGEL/Cassandra Clare/A+
Listened to this on CD while driving home from Portland. My first Cassandra Clare, but not--as you will see if you read further--my last. I loved the steampunk edge of the Victorian London setting mixed with demon fighters called Shadowhunters and the mixed race Downworlders. Smart, funny, tense, and the requisite YA forbidden love is handled originally and with characters that you actually think you could meet, not just ones that exist on the written page. The only downside is that this is the first in a new prequel series by Clare and I'm going to have wait to read more. Poor me.

CITY OF BONES/CITY OF ASHES/CITY OF GLASS/Cassandra Clare/A+
But not too poor, because Clare had three books just waiting for me to devour. And I did devour--all three in a week. This Shadowhunter series is set in contemporary New York (mostly) and features Clary Fray who is not the girl she thought she was. When her mother vanishes and Clary is introduced to the world of demons and Shadowhunters, she is surprised by what she learns--and shocked to find out that she is actually a key player in the breaking storm ahead. And then there's Jace . . . beautiful, deadly, and also not who he thought he was. I loved every second of these books.

BURY YOUR DEAD/Louise Penny/A+
Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete is back, but not in Three Pines and not in the best state of mind. Gamache is recuperating from injuries incurred in a devastating hostage situation and he has locked himself in the walled city of old Quebec to recover. But his recovery is disrupted when a body is found in the basement of the English library--the body of a man who thought the English were hiding the remains of Samuel de Champlain. While Gamache goes back in Canada's history to solve one murder, he sends Jean-Guy to Three Pines to reconsider their last murder, one which ended with a Three Pines resident in prison. Heartbreaking in many senses, but also a redemptive story. I adore Louise Penny and Armand Gamache in equal measures and I hope she keeps writing for many, many years.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE/Lucy Grealy/A+
I heard Anne Patchett speak this summer (author of BEL CANTO and RUN) and she talked about her friend, Lucy, who died seven years ago. Lucy, a respected and talented poet, wrote a memoir of her experience with childhood cancer. Diagnoed with Ewing's sarcoma at the age of 9, Lucy lost most of one side of her jaw and endured years of treatment afterward--not to mention the dozens of reconstructive surgeries later on. As the mother of a childhood cancer survivor, I found this book difficult to read but absolutely worth it. I wanted to know what it might have been like for my son . . . and though he's only fourteen, I going to ask him to read this. He needs someone who can give him a sense of shared experience. As much as I love him, I didn't walk his path. Grealy did, and she writes it about beautifully.

Fifteen Authors

2010-10-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

Who have changed my life . . .

Mary Doria Russell: for writing The Sparrow specifically for me. If I could only choose one novel to keep forever, it would be this one.

Elizabeth Peters: for giving me Amelia Peabody Emerson and her Victorian Egyptologist family (especially Ramses).

Agatha Christie: for introducing me to mysteries and being my salvation as a young teen when my options weren't as wide as they are for today's YA market.

Charlotte Bronte: for writing "in the red light of emotion, and not in the white light of truth." Virginia Woolf may have disapproved, but it's the passion that I find compelling in Jane Eyre and my favorite, Villette.

Virginia Woolf: because, though I diverged from her critique of Bronte, A Room of One's Own is beautiful and powerful and required reading for every female artist.

Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter: for Brother Cadfael, and that moment in my Mystery Novels course in college when I said, "I didn't know you could do this!" And for making me fall in love with Wales and its history in The Brothers of Gwynnedd Quartet.

Becca Fitzpatrick: for being my friend before she was famous--and after. And for her wisdom, generosity, and constant encouragement.

P.D. James: for Adam Dalgliesh. The poet/detective who would melt any woman's heart, even if he keeps his own locked away. And for the loveliest of mysteries and characters.

Craig Johnson: for not being what I expected. I wouldn't have thought I'd like a mystery series about a Wyoming sheriff, but I adore Walt Longmire. It's a good thing Johnson is one of the best authors in front of a group--it was his personality that made me buy his first book.

Thomas Cahill: for inspiring a major crush on the Irish. Every person who loves books should thank the Irish monks who almost singlehandedly preserved what little we still have of Greek and Roman literature while 90% of books were lost to the Dark Ages. And let's hear it for Saint Patrick--I will never again not honor you appropriately on March 17th!

Alison Weir: for writing my favorite biographies ever. Especially good with the women--Katherine Swynford, Queen Isabella (the she-wolf of France), Eleanor of Aquitaine. I buy every biography she writes and they have given me a multitude of interesting historical tidbits.

Juliet Marillier: for introducing me to historical fantasy (quite possibly she invented it as well). Because of her, I know what I love to write.

Laurie R. King: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. Enough said.

J.R.R. Tolkien: do I really have to elaborate? Call me a geek, call me a fangirl, call me a hopeless romantic in the broadest sense . . . but you can have my Lord of the Rings books when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands. And possibly not even then.

Why I Love My Kindle

2010-10-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

First, let me be clear . . .

I will never give up bound books. I need the feel of them, the weight of a volume and the seduction of the tactile experience.

However, a Kindle can be very useful. And not just when travelling.

Saturday at midnight, I finished City of Bones, the first in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. I had stopped by Wal-Mart earlier in the evening to buy the next two, but they only had the third. Which I didn't bother to buy, because I figured I'd order it from Amazon with my two-day free shipping and all would be fine.

Be warned: when you finish City of Bones, you will likely feel a compelling need to immediately begin book two, City of Ashes.

Before my head could explode from the absolute necessity of continuing RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT, I remembered my Kindle. Within thirty seconds, I was reading City of Ashes. At midnight. In my pajamas.

Crisis averted.

September Books

2010-10-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

I only finished four books this month. Obviously I must have accomplished other things. Like . . . hmmm, well there was . . . and maybe . . .

Nope. Just plain underachieving in September.

ROCKET BOYS/Homer Hickham/C-
Memoir of growing up in coal country and designing rockets in the 1950s. A popular book, turned into a movie titled OCTOBER SKY. Maybe I was just in a particularly bad mood when I read it, but Hickham irritated me no end. My favorite person was his father, who I thought got the worst possible interpretation by his son. But maybe that's because I've got teenage boys myself at the moment and I hope they give me the benefit of the doubt much more than Hickham gave his father.

THE ANGEL'S GAME/Carlos Ruis Zafon/B+
" . . .if Shadow of the Wind is the nice, good girl in the family, The Angel’s Game would be the wicked gothic stepsister"
That is how the author compares his two novels. Apparently I am the good girl in the family, because I liked SHADOW a little better than this one. But it is hauntingly gothic, set in Barcelona between the two world wars, following David Martin who writes pulp fiction in large and silent house whose secrets are slowly poisoning him. It's got devils and scripture and mysterious death and dangerous love. Zafon's books can easily be read alone, but there is power in the subtle connections he makes between different characters inhabiting the same world.

THE DISTANT ECHO/Val McDermid/A-
In 1978, four university students in Scotland stumble over the dying Rosie Duff in the snow. The four young men are the only suspects, but the police cannot find evidence. The original investigation ends in a tragedy--and then the book jumps to 2003 and the creation of a Cold Case Squad. Rosie's murder is one of those resurrected cases, and not just by the police. Two of the four students are soon murdered themselves and the remaining two must do their own digging into the past before they're next. Excellent story.

CRESCENDO/Becca Fitzpatrick/A-
Full Disclosure: Becca is my friend. She sent me a signed ARC of CRESCENDO which allowed me to read it before it was released in the U.S. She signed a hardcover for me at Wordstock, also before the U.S. release. I find it difficult to review a book within that context. So I will say simply this: Becca's a NY Times bestseller for a reason. She writes for her audience and delivers what they want in unexpected ways. In this sequel to HUSH, HUSH, Nora can't understand why bad boy Patch (now her guardian angel) is pulling away. But there is, of course, a reason. It's a pretty twisty-turny reason that unwinds throughout the story, and it has everything to do with the murder of Nora's father one year ago. Of course I'm going to tell you to read it. And of course I'm going to tell you to start with HUSH, HUSH. And I'm also going to say: "Becca, have fun on your two-week book tour of the UK. You deserve it."

I Love Autumn

2010-10-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

1. Cooler weather. After the last week of September in the 90s, we've finally fallen into the appropriate temperature range for autumn. (And though it may sound heretical, I love that it's rained off and on. What can I say? I belong to Seattle/Portland/London at heart.)

2. Holiday anticipation. Christmas is love and family, Thanksgiving is friends and food, but Halloween is imagination and creativity. And for the first time in four years I have the energy and enthusiasm to make some beautiful costumes. Let me be clear--I love to sew, but only if it's impractical. I have a lovely collection of costumes in all sizes from years past, all of which I made: Elven dresses, Jedi knights, medieval kings and queens, pirates. This year? A velvet dress for my daughter (the Fallen Star) and a linen skirt and brocade top for me (as Inara from Firefly).

3. Road trip. Last October I drove to Colorado to surprise my friend, Becca Fitzpatrick, at the book release party for her debut novel--HUSH, HUSH. Next weekend, I'm off to Portland to see Becca at Wordstock (since I can't make it to her two-week tour of the UK later this month for the release of her sequel, CRESCENDO). As much as I'm looking forward to Powell's and Burgerville and a city I love, I'm equally excited to the 12-hour drive each way with my best friend. Katie and I share a love for Diet Coke and wax donuts when we're on the road. And when our voices begin to fail from hours of talking, we have an audiobook to look forward to: Cassandra Clare's CLOCKWORK ANGEL. What's not to love?

4. College Applications: For my oldest son. I'm not sure this falls into the category of Things I Love, but I'm trying :) What I do love is my heightened awareness of how precious our time is together. I've warned my family that I will likely weep at unexpected moments this holiday season when I remember that after this year, though we will often have Matt with us in the years to come, it will be as a visitor who will have to return to his own life apart from us.

I can't leave it on that maudlin note, so allow my mother pride to flourish for a moment: It is exhilirating to go to the mailbox or email inbox and find such names as Wake Forest and the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt and MIT. MIT! You know darn well that MIT letter wasn't coming to Matt because any genetic material I provided, but still . . .

I am now forcing my pride back into its proper societal restraints. You may read on.

5. Writing: It's been six months since SORROWS went out on submission. Still waiting. But not just sitting around--I'm nearing completion on my latest draft of my mind-reading medieval Welsh heroine. And with my agent's encouragement and help, I'm taking my favorite book and turning it into a trilogy. It's an alternate history of Tudor times, in which Anne Boleyn gave birth to a healthy son and that son comes to the throne after Henry VIII's death. I was gratified that my instincts were sound about this being my strongest story and writing, and delighted that Tamar loved it as much as I do.

But I'm most grateful that Tamar is in this for more than just a quick sale--something I've clearly not delivered.

I only hope one day I justify her faith in my stories.

(Okay, I also hope that I justify that faith really, really soon.)

Happy Autumn!

August Books (Part 2)

2010-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

A VENGEFUL LONGING/R.N. Morris/ B-
Featuring Inspector Porfiry Petrovitch (borrowed from CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), this mystery set in St. Petersburg in the 1860s has good setting and atmosphere but didn't really ring my bells for character. Well-plotted and ably written, but maybe Russian mysteries will have to join Scandinavian mysteries as just not for me.

WANTING SHEILA DEAD/Jane Haddam/A
Gregor Demarkian is back in fine form in this latest mystery from Haddam, who has a gift for mixing great characters with biting social satire. In this installment, a reality show is being filmed at Engine House, the estate where Gregor met his wife and solved his first private case. The host of the show has already been shot at once during filming (the eponoymous Sheila) and tensions run high between the contestants. Then a girl is murdered and Gregor begins to think this isn't about the show at all, but something from the past. This is Haddam's best in recent years.

RADIANT SHADOWS/Melissa Marr/A-
The fourth in the Wicked Lovely series, RADIANT SHADOWS once again takes a minor character from previous books and gives us that story. Ani is part Hound and belongs to the Dark Court of faeries. Devlin is of the High Court, Sorcha's assassin in the mortal realm. Their paths cross when Bananach, faerie of chaos and war, comes after Ani. Can Devlin protect her without betraying Sorcha? And what will happen to all the faerie courts if Bananch wins? Although these were interesting characters, I'll admit I can't wait to get back to some of the other characters who have only been minimally touched on the last couple books.

MATHILDA SAVITCH/Victor Lodato/B
Almost a year ago, Mathilda's older sister died on the train tracks. Mathilda herself is left to come to terms with grief in her own way, as her mother is too devastated to help and her father is too remote. The strength of this novel is Mathilda's voice--blunt as a child but perceptive as a wise adult. The weakness (for me) is that Lodato is a playwright/poet, two mediums in which every word counts. I prefer story to style, and this story petered out on me before the style did.

LAST TALK WITH LOLA FAYE/Thomas Cook/B+
Lucas Page is in St. Louis to give a reading of his latest history. In attendance is Lola Faye, the other woman in his father's life who Luke believes triggered a tragedy that has blighted his life since adolescence. Over a night of drinking and talking with Lola Faye, Lucas revisits the past and comes to terms with mistaken viewpoints and unchangeable decisions. An unexpected ending lifted this story.

MOCKINGJAY/Suzanne Collins/A-
Katniss Everdeen is in District 13, the one long thought to be a myth. But it's all too alive, and ready to wage war on the Capitol. Katniss is the war's symbol, but she isn't happy about. A brutal book that doesn't spare the reader the horrors and ethical complexities of rebellion, the weakest part is actually Kat herself. She spends far too long being around like a chess piece before taking matters into her own hands. When she does, it's not pleasant or easy. I found it a satisfying end to the Hunger Games trilogy, but I won't let my 11-year-old daughter start the stories yet. This ending is for an older audience.

Did You Know That . . .

2010-09-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Neither did I until two years ago.

Why is the ribbon (now on the top right of my blog) gold? Because gold is a precious metal . . . and what is more precious than our children?

I plan to post some thoughts through the month, but for today here are some numbers:

1. Every day in the U.S., an average of 35 children (between the ages of birth and 19) are diagnosed with cancer.

2. That's more than 12,000 children a year.

3. By far the most common form of childhood cancer is leukemia (40%), followed by brain and nervous system cancers (27%).

4. In 1977, the 5-year survival across childhood cancers was 50%. Today it's 80%

5. The increased success of treatment means there are now an estimated 270,000 survivors of childhood cancer.

6. Survivorship has a cost. Because treatment is given at a time when the body and brain are meant to be growing rapidly, two-thirds of survivors will face serious late effects later on (such as growth deficits, infertility, cognitive impairment, heart and lung damage, and even secondary cancers caused usually by radiation.)

7. Childhood cancers are different from adult cancers. Childhood cancers need to be researched independently. Depending on how you crunch the numbers, annual federal funding for childhood cancer research is between 30 and 180 million dollars.

8. Federal funding for breast cancer research is approximately 850 million dollars annually. In addition, the well-organized advocacy behind breast cancer research brought in an additional 250 million dollars.

9. The average age of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer is 61. PYLL (persons years life lost) for that woman is 16. The average age at cancer diagnosis for childen is 10. PYLL for a child who dies is 67.

10. Breast cancer is the sixth-leading cause of death-by-disease among women (behind heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, respiratory disease, and Alzheimer's). Childhood cancer is the number one cause of death-by-disease in children.

Behind the Numbers:

I'm not saying a child is more valuable than a woman. I'm not saying breast cancer research funding should be cut. I'm not saying anything but this: Give me breast cancer any day of the week . . . take my approximate PYLL of 37 . . . and let my son live to marry and be a father and everything else he dreams of being.

Perhaps instead of gold ribbons, advocates for childhood cancer research should post pictures, and stories.

Here are the numbers of my Jacob's story:

1. Diagnosed on January 2, 2008 with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.

2. Approximately 250 children a year in the U.S. get some form of rhabdomyosarcoma. (In comparison, 3,000 children a year are diagnosed with leukemia.)

3. Jacob was given a Stage III, intermediate risk diagnosis. That gave him a 5-year survival rate of 70%.

4. No child should ever be given a survival rate. Survival should never have to be on the table.

5. Jacob's age at diagnosis: 11.

6. Months of weekly chemotherapy: 10.

7. Weeks of daily radiation treatments: 6

8. Weight lost in the first three months of treatment: 16 pounds (more than 15% of his weight.)

9. Hair lost: every last one.

10. First clear scan: April 21, 2008.

11. Number of clear scans since November 2008: 7.

12. Total nights in the hospital: 20.

13. Number of shots given by mom at home: 100.

14. Number of visits to ER with fevers: 2.

15. Number of days and nights spent worrying about every single person in my family because there was only so much I could do and so much more I couldn't and I knew I was missing things right and left: I'm still counting.

To read more about Jacob's personal story, go to Jacob's Journey.

And remember those children and their families whose lives will change forever today because a doctor tells them that child has cancer.

August Books (Part 1)

2010-09-08T11:21:00.001-07:00

THE WATER'S EDGE/Karin Fossum/C+
I think I am not the audience for Scandinavian crime fiction. Every time I try, I come away feeling emotionally dissatisfied. The story opens with a married couple discovering the body of a 7-year-old boy. We weave in and out of the murder investigation, the nature of pedophilia, the crumbling of a marriage, and the mind of a first-time killer. There's nothing specific to point out as not working for me except the entire tone of the book. There's a bleakness to the Scandinavian fiction I've read that just isn't for me.

SONG OF THE SPARROW/Lisa Ann Sandell/C
A free verse novel-length version of the Lady of Shalott's story. Elaine of Ascalot has spent most of her life in the war camp of Arthur and his men. The story centers on her hero-worship of Lancelot and her jealousy of Gwynhefar as Arthur faces the battle of his life. The story was fine--I couldn't get past the form, which felt pretentious to me. Your mileage may vary.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN/Lionel Shriver/A+
I can't do justice to this book in a few sentences but here's at least a grasp of the subject matter: In a series of searing letters to her former husband, Eva Katchadourian tells the story of their son Kevin--a story that peaks in the mass murder of seven students and two adults at Kevin's high school. Unsparing and often extraordinarily emotionally difficult to read, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a teenager and/or parents who wonder how many of their children's sins belong on their own heads. Not to be read lightly.

FINAL ACCOUNT/Peter Robinson/B-
A quick and easy mystery about a dead accountant whose family discovers he had a secret life. Inspector Banks is troubled by the loose ends of the case and continues digging, a move that results in a savage attack on a witness. Throw in a Caribbean dictator and drug money and you have the ingredients for a few hours of undemanding entertainment.

BEL CANTO/Ann Patchett/A
I have a lot to say about Ann Patchett after meeting her and hearing her speak last month. Of Bel Canto, which I read in preparation for that event, I can only echo what other's have said about this prize-winning novel set in a hostage situation in South America: Luminous. Unexpected. Thoughtful. Beautiful in the most ordinary ways. Heartbreaking. Absolutely worth reading.

FAITHFUL PLACE/Tana French/A
The third in French's Dublin-set mysteries and another winner. Frank Mackey (an Undercover cop who appeared in French's second book, THE LIKENESS) has his past blown open when a suitcase is found in an abandoned house. The suitcase belonged to his girlfriend, Rosie, who never showed up twenty-two years ago to run away as planned with Frank. Does this mean Rosie didn't leave him? If not, where is she? And how is Frank going to cope heading back into the twisted family dynamics he walked away from the same night Rosie vanished? I'd still say THE LIKENESS is my favorite, but each of French's books are gems.

First Day of School

2010-08-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have my house back.

Good day for me.

Maybe I'll post more now.

Or maybe I'll just revel in the silence.

July Books

2010-08-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

JUNKYARD DOGS/Craig Johnson/B+
Enjoyable entry in the Sheriff Walt Longmire series, in which Walt has to deal with a family who has grandpa tied to a car, an illicit affair, his daughter's upcoming wedding, and two crazed junkyard dogs. I love Walt and his friends and hope he goes on for a long time to come.

THE WEDNESDAY WARS/Gary Schmidt/A
Holling Hoodhood is the only kid in his 7th grade class who doesn't go to Hebrew class or catechism on Wednesday afternoons--which means he's left to face his teacher alone. He's convinced his teacher hates him (especially when she assigns him Shakespeare) but it's the 1960s and there are bigger problems looming. A wonderfully warm and unsentimental look at early adolescence as well as an era. Highly recommended.

EXECUTION DOCK/Anne Perry/B
Perry is always good for Victorian atmosphere and she excels in her descriptions of the Thames and its inhabitants in this William Monk novel. The story opens with a criminal going free thanks to Oliver Rathbone's clever defense, but Monk and his wife, Hester, are determined to retrace their steps and catch the bad guy for good. Lots of clever plot twists and interesting characters.

THE KING'S ENGLISH/Betsy Burton/B-
The story of the Salt Lake City independent bookstore told by its creator. The book excelled when Burton focused on the personal element--visiting authors, last-minute attempts to track down promised Harry Potter books, and the always tricky business of keeping an independent afloat both financially and emotionally. I didn't care for the last third, which turned into a social lecture.

THE MAN WHO ATE EVERYTHING/Jeffrey Steingarten/B+
A former New York food critic, Steingarten's book is an essay collection of some of his best writing. Steingarten covers everything from perfecting his own bread-making to playing with Olestra in a lab to how nostalgia affects our dining experiences today. Not as snarky (or as funny) as Jay Rayner's THE MAN WHO ATE THE WORLD.

WINTERGIRLS/Laurie Halse Anderson/A+
If you have any teenage girls in your life . . . read, read, read this book. Today. A brutally honest account of anorexia, perfection, and despair. Hard to read, but absolutely worth it. I may even like this one more than Anderson's most famous book, SPEAK.

THE BROKEN TEAGLASS/Emily Arsenault/C
A lexicographer working for a prestigious dictionary firm discovers a story told in pieces through the historical files. Mildly interesting . . . but not more than mildly. Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was the main character's secret that drew me out of the story, or maybe it was the lack of any real tension. I like my mysteries to have something at stake, and this one didn't do it for me.

IN THE SHADOW OF GOTHAM/Stefanie Pintoff/B-
In the early 20th-century, Detective Simon Ziele has abandoned New York City for a job in a quiet town upstate. But the quiet is shattered with a brutal murder. And then Ziele receives a call from a psychiatrist in the city, telling him he knows who committed the murder. Again, nothing much wrong with the book, but it just didn't work for me.

INVISIBLE BOY/Cornelia Read/B
I like Maddie Dare and her mysteries set in the 1980s, but this book had too little mystery and too much social commentary for my taste. When Maddie discovers the skeleton of a child in an old slave graveyard, she is pushed to the center of an all too common tale of domestic violence. I did like the characters, especially the female police detective who works the case, but I still have to say that Read's first novel is my favorite.

THE MAPPING OF LOVE AND DEATH/Jacqueline Winspear/A
Maisie Dobbs is hired by parents still grieving for their son's death in WWI. His remains have recently been recovered, with evidence that his death may have been personal rather than simply battlefield. The young man was a surveyor and mapmaker and Maisie tracks down his past through his diary and faded letters from a woman. Maisie also has to face personal loss with the illness of her teacher and mentor and she begins a new romance that simply felt right. This was a great entry in the series.

A DARKER DOMAIN/Val McDermid/A
Twenty-five years ago in Scotland, a wealthy heiress was killed in a botched kidnapping ransom and her infant son vanished. Today a young mother reports her father missing--a miner who everyone thought had skipped to the south during a strike. But he hasn't actually been seen since. Detective Karen Pririe of the Cold Case Squad lands in the middle of a huge case, but everyone is keeping secrets. From a journalist who pried in Italy to a reclusive, grieving father who wants things done his way, Karen has to pick through the rubble to find out what really happened twenty-five years ago.

THE WITCH DOCTOR'S WIFE/Tamar Meyers/B+
In 1958, missionary Amanda Brown arrives in the Belgian Congo via a plane crash. Sent to run a guest house, Amanda is immediately brought into local tensions when a large uncut diamond is discovered. I was hoping for something with the feel of THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, but this was a cozy in exotic dress. Not bad, but not my favorite.

Happy Birthday, Spencer!

2010-07-24T15:29:00.001-07:00

Nine Things I Love About Spencer:

1. You're my baby. Always and forever. No matter how old you get.

2. Your smile (check out that grin below.)

3. The unexpectedly clever things you say. Like, when someone commented on our Sunday clothes by saying, "You're looking pretty sharp tonight, Andersens," you replied without missing a beat, "Yes, we are very pointy tonight."

4. Your passion for learning things like the equation for Delta G. Or how many pounds the earth weighs. Or how to spell the second-longest word in the English language.

5. Your love for your oldest, coolest brother. (I'm sure you'll learn to love your second-oldest, second-coolest brother any day now. And maybe you'll love your sister someday.)

6. Your ability to concentrate on something you like. Such as putting together extraordinarily complicated Lego sets.

7. Your tender heart. (You're only nine--I can still say things like that without ruining your social life.)

8. Your attempts to look on the bright side. For instance, you once told me that the best part of being the baby was that, "You'll all die before me and then I can live here by myself."

9. I love that no one else could have been our youngest but you--whatever would I do without my Spencer?

June Books

2010-07-05T16:37:00.001-07:00

THE SECRET SPEECH/Tom Rob Smith/A
Leo Demidov returns in this second in a series about the 1950s Soviet Union. Demidov leads a murder investigation unit in Moscow when Kruschev's 'secret speech' denouncing Stalin is delivered. Now those who worked for Stalin's security agencies are being killed one by one--and Leo is next on the list. A wide-ranging story that goes from Moscow to Siberian gulags to the Hungarian revolt, it's also a personal story about families and what we'll do to save them. Wonderful--and I even enjoyed reading it on my new Kindle.

ARCADIA FALLS/Carol Goodman/A
Goodman is on solid ground here: a remote New York state boarding school, a widow whose relationship with her teen daughter is unraveling, a mysterious death and a long-buried history that doesn't want to stay buried. Fairy tales are important to this piece--especially changeling fairy tales--and so is the concept of women artists and how they do (or even if they can) mix family and work. I recommend all of Goodman's books for lovers of Gothic, creepy and emotionally resounding stories.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY/Agatha Christie/B+
Exactly what it's title claims--Agatha Christie's life story in her own words. From her late-Victorian childhood in a large country house through her first marriage in WWI and her second marriage to an archaeologist, Christie writes with humor and the fine storytelling skills that made her one of the most famous writers of all time. Definitely recommended for fans.

A STAIN ON THE SILENCE/Andrew Taylor/C+
What if a 40-something childless man finds out he has a daughter? And what if that daughter is wanted for murder? James thinks he's shut out the tragic events of his teen affair with a friend's mother, but when the dying woman begs him to help the daughter he didn't know he had, James is drawn into both a present trouble and past history. Not Taylor's best work--and I did not like the ending--but as the biological daughter of a father who has never deigned to communicate with me, there were some interesting insights. Still, if you're going to read Taylor, read The Roth Trilogy instead, one of my favorite mystery trilogies ever.

THE MAN WHO ATE THE WORLD/Jay Rayner/A
A wonderful non-fiction book by the Top Chef judge who recounts his journey to find "the perfect meal" somewhere in the world. Travelling from Las Vegas to Tokyo, Dubai to Paris, Rayner is extremely funny and blunt about his meals, good and bad. I don't know why I like food writing so much when I refuse to take cooking seriously, but there you go. Rayner's book was wonderful.

VOWS OF SILENCE/Susan Hill/B
Gun crimes aren't common in rural England, but the cathedral town of Lafferton is under siege by a sniper. Simon Serailler is tasked with the investigation, but there's precious little evidence and no apparent motive. I'd almost sworn off the Serailler novels after the last one, but this one was more satisfying story-wise (except for one plot thread that didn't bear any relation to the rest of the story.) I still find Serailler far and away the least sympathetic of any character in the novel, which is a problem being he's the protagonist, but Hill uses enough other viewpoints to make me glad that I at least checked this book out of the library.

DEAD OF WINTER/Rennie Airth/A-
Now this is the way to write a mystery I love: evocative setting, complex characters, great story, and a thriller ending. In 1944 London, a Polish landgirl is murdered in a random act of violence. Or was it random? John Madden, who employed the girl, is a former Scotland Yard detective and he begins to tie together threads of a more complicated death. Madden is a wonderful character, but I didn't feel cheated when switching to other POVs because Airth has a plethora of wonderful characters. Start with the first Madden book: RIVER OF DARKNESS.

AWAKENING/S.J. Bolton/A Clara Benning is a reclusive wildlife veterinarian who chose her profession and her cottage to keep out of the way of people. But she can't avoid involvement when her village is targeted by someone with a long-held grudge and access to lots of snakes. There's a high creepiness factor in the snakes alone, but Bolton is also a master at writing suspenseful scenes. I loved everything about this story--but I wouldn't read it at night. And I definitely checked my beds for crawling things before getting in.

Happy Birthday, Matt

2010-06-25T15:59:00.001-07:00

Where did my blonde-headed baby go? (I thought grandma and grandpa would appreciate this picture.)

Why does a day sometimes feel like an eternity, but 17 years seems like a matter of months?

How on earth will I ever let you go to college next year?

What do I still need to teach you about cooking and cleaning and being resilient? (Because I can just about manage the level of cooking expected of a teenage boy.)

Who will I hover over while you're in Europe the next three weeks?

Will you miss me?

Happy birthday, Matt. No matter how old you get or how far you travel, you will always be the child that made me a mother. I love you . . .

Finally . . .

2010-06-24T21:32:00.003-07:00

Posted my May book reviews. They're just below the post that's just below this one :)

Know What I'm Doing This Next Week?

2010-06-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

A. Celebrating a belated Father's Day with my husband after he returns mid-week from a business trip.

B. Suffering through the fact that my oldest will be 17 on Friday.

C. Preparing said-oldest son to leave Saturday on an 18-day trip to Europe. And swallowing my jealousy that he will get to Rome and Paris before I've even been there.

D. Rewriting two chapters of my submitted novel.

E. All of the above! (I'll give you a hint--the exclamation point gives away the answer.)

That's right, rewrites have caught up with me once more. But I'm not complaining--this rewrite is at the request of an editor at an actual New York publishing house that the general public has heard of. Woo-hoo! My agent, Tamar, pointed out I'm under no obligation to rewrite, as there is not an offer contingent upon it, but what do I have to lose? Besides, I liked the sound of this editor (and not just because she reportedly thinks I'm a fabulous writer). You all know I have a deep and abiding love for psychological mysteries and the editor would like to see me ramp up the mystery element in those two chapters.

Besides, I've always felt ambivalent at best about those chapters. I knew perfectly well they were no more than serviceable in getting from point A to point B (albeit with some good scenes thrown into the mix of long narrative transitions). How can I complain about the chance to make them shine?

And it will give me something to do other than fret about my husband not being home and my son going to another continent without me.

May Books

2010-06-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

THE DIRTY SECRETS CLUB/Meg Gardiner/B+
Forensic psychiatrict Jo Beckett is asked to do a psychological autopsy when a high-profile district attorney drives her car off a bridge in a very public suicide. Jo discovers that the attorney isn't the only recent death, and they all seem to be linked to a shadowy group called the Dirty Secrets Club. What secrets were the members keeping--and who is using those secrets to drive members to their deaths? And what will Jo do when her investigation leads someone to dig into her own deepest secret? Great thriller, fast read, recommended for summertime.

THIS BODY OF DEATH/Elizabeth George/A

Inspector Lynley is back in London after the death of his wife and Acting Superintendent Isabelle Ardery wants him on her team when a woman is found murdered in a London cemetery. The kind of story I love, with multiple strands that seem unrelated at first but begin to weave together into a powerful sense of unavoidable tragedy. There isn't a character in here that is simplistic or wasted and I would have paid the full price of the book just for the scene of Lynley's former partner, Barbara Havers, turning to a pre-teen for fashion advice. The only reason this A doesn't have a plus sign on the end is that I was disappointed in Lynley at the end of the book. Don't start here--give yourself a treat and pick up the first Lynley book and work your way through the series.

WHEN SHE WAS WHITE/Judith Stone/B+
In 1966, Sandra Laing made international news as a nine-year-old schoolgirl in South Africa. Although born to white Boer parents, Sandra at nine was classified by the apartheid government as colored and forced to leave her segregated school. Her father fought back, but by the time he got the government to reconsider the case, the teenage Sandra had made her own choice for her future by eloping with a black man. The book follows Sandra's life from her early memories of playing with black children to the pain of ostracism, both public and private. Showcases the absolute insanity of the apartheid government, but also hits upon the personal mistakes that divide families.

THE GOD OF THE HIVE/Laurie R. King/A+
Picking up just minutes after the close of last year's THE LANGUAGE OF BEES, this is Mary Russell at her absolute best. With her husband, Sherlock Holmes, protecting an injured man who's wanted by the police, Mary is left to safeguard a child who seems to be the target of a madman. But Mary could never have guessed the helpers she would collect--a WWI daredevil pilot and a woodsman who has more in common with a fairytale legend than a man of the 1920s. King delivers surprise after shock after twist and hands over an ending that is not only satisfying but raises some interesting questions for relationships in future books. Start with THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE and work your way forward. You won't regret it.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE/Stieg Larsson/A-
I liked this better than the first in the trilogy (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO), probably because I knew to expect the language the occasional throw-away sex scene. Beyond that, this is a tight and intriguing mystery set in the upper classes of Swedish society. Lisbeth Salander is accused of murder, but her magazine publisher friend, Mikael Blomkvist, isn't convinced. They come at the investigation from different angles, but both are surprised by what they find. The book ends with a classic cliffhanger that makes it next to impossible not to dive for the third book at once.

MISTRESS OF THE MONARCHY/Alison Weir/A
Katherine Swynford came to popular culture in the 1960s romance by Anya Seton, KATHERINE. But Weir, my favorite biographer, gives the real story, or at least as much as can be reasonably construed for a woman of the 14th century. Katherine Swynford was raised at the English court and married well to a knight of John of Gaunt's household. But when her husband died young, Katherine embarked on a notorious and long-lived affair with Prince John that eventually ended in their marriage. Princes did not marry their mistresses. Ever. But not only did John marry Katherine, but he went all the way to the Pope to have their children legitimized. Thus was born the Beaufort clan, that would lead England into the War of the Roses. Not a bad legacy for a woman of no particular name or family.

MY ABANDONMENT/Peter Rock/A-
An odd book, very literary, about 13-year-old Caroline who lives in a forested Portland park with her father. At first I thought it would be simply a narrative about their lives in the semi-wilderness, but there is a story here and it gets stranger and more poignant the farther you read. What happens when you take a child away from her home? What happens when her father doesn't prove as trustworthy and invincible as she's always thought him? What choices will the girl have? It's worth reading to find out, even if (like me) you disagree with a choice or two along the way.

April Books

2010-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

CHILD 44/Tom Rob Smith/A+
In the Soviet Union of the 1950s, Stalin's secret police is both feared and rewarded. Leo Demidov, a war hero, is a true believer in the ideals of his government. . . until the day he faces a family whose child has been killed and Leo realizes the truth of that death is being covered up. Now Leo is forced to choose between facts and lies, between his family and a serial killer hunting Soviet children. And the truth will shake him more than he can guess. Not only a brilliant mystery with powerful and complex characters, but a chilling portrait of life under Stalin. It can be gruesome, so be warned, but I highly recommend this first in a series. (The second in the series is the first book I've downloaded to my new Kindle--review coming soon. Or not.)

CHINA LAKE/Meg Gardiner/B+
Evan Delaney is caring for her young nephew when the boy's mother returns suddenly to Santa Barbara as part of a creepy and possibly apocalyptic cult called The Remnant. Now she wants her son--or is it The Remnant who wants him? Whatever, Evan's fighter pilot brother, Brian, isn't about to let his ex-wife get her hands on their son. When the cult leader is found murdered and Brian is arrested, Evan has to do more than protect her nephew. She has to prove her brother's innocence, stop The Remnant from releasing a biological weapon, and find out who's kidnapped her boyfriend. Gardiner knows how to write thrillers and this one kept me turning the pages quickly.

REVELATION/C.J. Sansom/A-
Lawyer Matthew Shardlake is back, this time facing off against a killer who seems to be acting out the book of Revelations. In the midst of a London torn by religious dissent, Matthew also tries to help a young man who has been confined in Bedlam. If he's mad, he'll be locked away forever. If he's not, he might be killed for heresy. Matthew is a sympathetic, intelligent, and honorable man in a government that doesn't always reward such qualities. I love Sansom's Tudor series and hope it continues past the reign of Henry VIII, who is rapidly approaching his death in this novel.

A RIVER IN THE SKY/Elizabeth Peters/A-
The newest in the Amelia Peabody Emerson Egyptology series, this one goes back to fill in one of the time gaps in the earlier books. Shortly before WWI, the Emersons take a job for British Intelligence in Israel trying to track down a possible German spy. Emerson agrees to the job because it means he can protect an archaeological site from an amateur and Amelia agrees to get her closer to son Ramses who's excavating in Samaria. But then Ramses goes missing and the race is on to find out what the Germans want--and who they're willing to kill to get it. There is no possible way I could not love a Peabody book . . . but it didn't have quite enough Ramses for me, hence the minus sign.

I LIE FOR A LIVING/Peter Earnest/B
I picked this in Washington D.C. in the gift shop of the International Spy Museum. It's a collection of famous and infamous spie through history. I like the overviews of the forty or so spies, but thought them a little short for my tastes. But there is a wide swath of espionage here--from Elizabeth Tudor's spymaster, Walshingham, to Nathan Hale and Mata Hari and Aldrich Ames. Some of the best stories, though, are the ones I'd never heard of--let's face it, the most successful spies are the ones who stay anonymous.

THE DARK DIVINE/Bree Despain/B+
Grace Divine is the daughter of a perfect pastoral family (always feeling inferior to her older brother, Jude) when Daniel Kalbi, Jude's former best friend and Grace's childhood crush, returns after a mysterious years'-long absence. Grace can't help falling in love with him, but nor can she help questioning what happened the night Daniel disappeared--the same night that Jude was violently attacked. I wasn't so keen on the paranormal aspects, and I did anticipate the twist, but there is a strong element of forgiveness and sacrifice that I found appealing. I'll surely read the next in the series when it's released in December. (Disclaimer: I took a novel-writing class with Bree in 2007 and I actually recognized a scene in the book that she read in that class.)

THE STRANGER BESIDE ME/Ann Rule/A-
After reading about the Green River Killer, I followed up with Rule's first and most famous true-crime book, about a man who was her friend for years before she found out he was also a serial killer: Ted Bundy. This book is brilliant and unique and incredibly disturbing. But it also leads to questions worth asking about evil and personality disorders and responsibility. Mostly, I was left feeling profoundly sad for the women and girls killed by Bundy.

HEART'S BLOOD/Juliet Marillier/A
I adore Marillier, by far my favorite fantasy writer because her fantasies are always firmly rooted in a specific historical time and place. In this case it's Connacht, Ireland as the Normans are starting to sweep through in the 12th century. Connacht remains free, but perhaps not for long. Caitrin is fleeing an abusive relationship when she ends up at Whistling Tor, hired as a scribe by a reclusive chieftain named Anluan. He sets her looking through family records and Caitrin soon finds herself caught up in a story of dark magic, hundred-year curses, and a group of friends who are not what they appear to be. No one does eerie settings, complicated characters, and true love better than Marillier. I really want to be her when I grow up :)

Friday Five

2010-05-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday. I am aware.

I am also aware that it's the 22nd of May and I have yet to post my April book reviews.

Darn last month of school (grumble, grumble.)

1. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, than I am definitionally insane when it comes to my weight. For the last four years I've counted calories (burned and ingested), obsessed about how much I'm working out, and worried about the fact that my weight has a mind of its own that does not correspond to any known formula of healthy diet, cardio, and serious weight training with a professional. (Seriously, who spend three months working out with a trainer two hours a week and eating impeccably--I swear it!--and gains not just weight but inches and body fat? Oh, that would be me.)

No more. No more counting. No more working out sums in my head whenever I eat. No more weighing myself every day. I will eat well because I like to, I will work out because it makes me happy (and because I've only just started the second season of Lost, which I watch while I'm on the elliptical), I will enjoy the fact that I do have clothes that fit and even some that are too big. I cannot promise never to think about my weight, but I promise not to talk about it.

Starting . . . now.

2. Speaking of Lost, for a deserted island there sure are a lot of people on it. Everywhere you turn you're tripping over somebody new. I love that.

(And do not tell me anything that happens after the fourth episode of Season 2! Or I will have to kill you!)

3. For someone who does not camp (me), I'm going to be spending a lot of nights in a sleeping bag the first two weeks of June. When there's still a high chance of snow in the mountains. I'm not sure how that happened. But I'm pretty sure I'm owed a night or two in a nice hotel afterward.

4. Still waiting.

5. And reading. Lots of new entries this spring in some of my favorite series. Elizabeth George's Lynley (I'm not too happy with him after finishing the latest) and Laurie R. King's Russell/Holmes (did she really just do that?!) I love good storytellers. I can think of no higher praise I'd like to have for my writing then, "I love your story."

Any editors ready to say that yet?

Not that I'm impatient.

Happy Birthday, Jake

2010-05-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Jacob,

Fourteen years went awfully fast.

Except when it didn't. (I could swear six weeks of radiation lasted longer than your first six years of school . . .)

I wonder what the next fourteen will be like. Or even the next four. Can't wait to see what comes.

Love, Mom

P.S. For a kid whose favorite band is Iron Maiden, you looked good with a cowboy hat in Joseph.

And The Winner Is . . .

2010-05-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Carrie!

Her favorite fictional mother was Caroline Ingalls because "she is kind and non-judgmental and would do anything to help someone in need just like my sweet mommy :)"

Carrie, you can email me at lauraandersen84043@yahoo.com and let me know which book you want and where to send it. Congratulations!

And there will be future contests. I'm thinking later this month I'll be talking about favorite summer reads, so stay tuned for that and get thinking about your own favorite summer books to recommend.

Last Call

2010-05-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

For the Mother's Day contest.

Leave me a comment on one of this week's Fictional Mothers' posts and you'll be entered to win a book. I'll draw the winner at midnight (okay, more like 8:00 a.m. my time) and that winner will have the choice of one of the three books I featured this week:

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Good luck :)

Fictional Mother #3

2010-05-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Amelia Peabody Emerson.

There she is, my ideal fictional mother. I adore her. Intelligence, ambition, spunk, a lover of useful parasols and crimson dresses, Egyptologist in the late 1800s and early 1900s--all wrapped up in the package of a Victorian gentlewoman. A not-so-typical gentlewoman, granted, but that's why she has her own mystery series.

Elizabeth Peters introduced Amelia to the world in 1975's Crocodile on the Sandbank in which Amelia travels to Egypt and meets a dashing British Egyptologist. By the second book, she had acquired a husband and the most precocious, endearing, infuriating child (who grew up into the most clever, loyal, and somewhat dangerous man one can imagine) that I've ever encountered. And Amelia tells all (for nearly twenty books now) in her very own straightforward, no-nonsense, Mother-I-Might-Have-Been-If-I'd-Been-Born-Victorian and Rich, voice.

Did I mention I adore her? On this Mother's Day, let me give you a few of Amelia's comments about her son Ramses (so nicknamed because of his dark coloring and imperious attitude):

1. "Emerson stood by me staring, with a singularly hangdog look. The infant released its stranglehold, glanced at its father, and--with what I can only regard, in the light of later experience, as cold-blooded calculation--tore itself from my arms and launched itself through the air toward my husband."

2. "I left the child more reluctantly than I had expected to be the case, but after all he had not been around long enough to make much of an impression . . . It was a most productive season and I will candidly admit that the thought of my abandoned child seldom passed through my mind."

3. "The voyage from Brindisi to Alexandria was without incident. (I do not consider the halting of the ship, at Emerson's frenzied insistence, as truly an incident in Ramses' career; as I told Emerson at the time, there was almost no possibility that the boy could have fallen overboard. Indeed he was soon found, in the hold, examining the cargo--for reasons which I did not care then, or at a later time, to inquire into.)

4. "Ramses had never been a normal little boy, but there had been times (usually when he was asleep) when he had appeared normal. The sleeping cherub with his mop of sable curls and his little bare feet protruding innocently from under the hem of his white nightgown had become this--this male person with a mustache!"

But in spite of the difficulty of getting Rames through his childhood without being maimed by a lion or kidnapped by more than one or two enemies of his father or his constant ability to linguistically outmaneuver his mother's strict list of Do-Nots, Amelia adores her son and she sometimes even shows it. Like the time when Ramses' kidnappers threaten to send her the boy's ear if she does not comply with their demands. Amelia admits that she cannot remember the five minutes that followed that statement. But when she came to herself again, the kidnappers were in retreat and the sharp point of her parasol was somewhat bloody.

Or my favorite example, when Amelia comes upon Ramses with a young woman he has long known and Amelia realizes that Ramses is in love. Furious with herself at having missed all the signs, Amelia is also furious with the young lady in question. "I knew I had to conquer it before I saw [her] again, or I would take her by the shoulders and shake her, and demand that she love my son . . . Another challenge! I was up to it! I would see those two wed if I had to lock [her] up on bread and water until she agreed. But first there was the little matter of making certain Ramses lived long enough to marry her."

If you have not yet encountered Amelia Peabody Emerson, let me urge you to remedy that oversight. Humor, dead bodies ("Every year another dead body!" their Egyptian reis laments), history, Egyptology, and characters I would give almost anything to meet in real life . . . Peters' series has it all.

Especially Amelia.

Fictional Mothers #2

2010-05-07T20:37:00.001-07:00

I meant to get this up yesterday. But I'm afraid actual motherhood trumps fictional motherhood. Now I'm sneaking a break from AP tests and service projects and the making of a Civil War dress (don't ask) to get my second book inspiration posted.

I issue a challenge with it: Name a book in which a mother tells her own story.

If you can name more than four off the top of your head, than you're obviously reading different books than me. I imagine there's a sub-genre--probably of literary fiction--that has mothers as POV characters. But that sub-genre and I haven't crossed paths much. Mostly, mothers are secondary characters and seen through the eyes of others.

But one of my favorite books of the last ten years is a little different. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver actually opens with the voice of Orleanna Price. (Of course, apart from five or six brief sections, Orleanna takes a back seat in the story to the POVs of her four daughters.) Still, here's a mother setting the scene for a powerful and heartbreaking story.

In 1959, Baptist preacher Nathan Price takes his wife and daughters to the Belgian Congo. He's there to spread the word. The rest of them are tag-alongs, but with wicked insights into their father and their own compelling stories. Against the backdrop of the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of their first elected prime minister and the CIA's back-curtain deals that circumvent democracy, the Price family works out their own place in a foreign society and in the complications of their family relationships. Like I said, one of my top, oh, twenty books of the hundreds I've read in the last ten years.

Here's why it came to mind when I was thinking about fictional motherhood: there's a scene in the book where a tragedy has happened. (No, I'm not going to tell you--my point is to encourage you to read the book.) In the aftermath, the African women of the village come to the Price household. Kingsolver writes: "They fell down at the edge of our yard when they came, and walked on their knees to the table . . . Our suffering now was no greater than theirs had been, no more real or tragic. No different."

Women, in my opinion, are predisposed to find common ground with other women. And nowhere is that more evident than in the tribe of mothers. When my son was sick two years ago, on the nights we spent in the hospital while he had chemotherapy, I would walk the halls late at night. Once he was asleep and likely to stay that way for a bit, I would escape the room and wander the quiet corridors of the children's hospital. I remember one night in particular passing two women in short succession. One was clearly, from her dress and hairstyle, from a polygamous community. One was Muslim, also clear from her dress and hair covering.

My first thought was, "How different they are from me." My second thought was, "They are also mothers." And that's when it hit me--a flood of common ground, of common suffering, of common love. It didn't matter in that moment the differences in our dress or beliefs or lifestyles. What mattered was that we each had a child ill or in pain and there was precious little we could do about it. But we could understand one another on that point.

And that is why I love books in general: because they give me an experience and an insight in other lives that I would not otherwise have. Guess what? Being a mother, ideally, also gives insight into other lives. I, for one, could not be nearly the writer I am if I weren't also a mother.

Now a promise--my final post on fictional motherhood will not have cancer, or death, or suffering in any form. It's all about one of my favorite mothers in all fiction, one who most decidedly tells her own story. And no, I'm not going to hint. You'll just have to come back to find out.

Fictional Mothers #1

2010-05-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Wow! Who knew a contest could draw out so many good ideas. From now on, I'm getting all my blog ideas from questions I ask my wise readers :)

I'm trying to not let all my random thoughts of the past few days spill out at once. So I'll stick to this one for the moment: Age and Experience Have Changed What I'm Looking for in a Fictional Mother.

I'm no longer looking for the kind of mom I want to have, or even one who reflects my own (beyond fabulous) mom. I'm 41 now, I have four kids--two of them teenagers--and what I want in a Fictional Mother is someone I could be. Or want to be. A mom who speaks to all the complicated parts of myself.

Frankly, I'd prefer to be neither dead nor destructive, which is too often the kind of mom found in fiction. Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? As fun as she is to mock (love the comment about watching a car wreck in progress), please oh please tell me I am not her. Molly Weasley? Totally the mom I would want to have. But do I want to be the one who worries in the background and knits sweaters? (Though in all fairness, I thought JK Rowling was brilliant in letting Molly finish off Bellatrix.)

And it's true that YA is going to have most adults (not just moms) in the background. My manuscript currently going the rounds of editors has a mother who's both destructive and absent (one good thing about time travel--it removes you far from your drunken mother's requests for money.)

But that doesn't mean that YA can't have a mom who, though a secondary character, is rounded and real.

Which brings me to my first inspiration: Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick.

Though written for a younger YA audience than I usually read, I recommend this book without reservation to anyone who wants to know what's it really like to be part of a cancer family.

Steven Alpert is in 8th-grade, dealing with all the usual troubles of school, girls, and parents, when his 5-year-old brother is diagnosed with leukemia. What's a boy to do? Quit doing homework, lie to his parents about it, and try desperately to keep his friends from finding out about his brother.

I can relate. Because when my 11-year-old was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma two and a half years ago, I had three other children as well. And guess what? They didn't go anywhere for the duration of that year. They all still needed me. And I failed the other three many more times than I ever wanted to. The oldest had to give up plans with his friends when his brother needed a transfusion and there was no one else to watch the younger ones. My daughter turned into a control freak at school because there was nothing she could do about what was happening at home. My first-grader never knew when Mom would be home or at the hospital overnight.

Cancer sucks.

But here's the thing--we were still ourselves. We were not drama divas. We didn't live in a constant cloud of fear and tragedy. (We were not, in short, the family from My Sister's Keeper. Which I do not recommend.) We made jokes. We laughed at ourselves. I got mad when they didn't do their homework and they still had to brush their teeth and be nice to each other. Even the one with cancer.

And that's why I love Drums. Because Steven Alpert's mother was a woman I could relate to. When Steven, justifiably angry about being ignored for months at a time, looks at his mom and realizes that everything she's doing for his brother, she would do for Steven in a heartbeat, I cried. Because I hoped my children saw the same thing in me. When his mom shows up at his first junior high night dance in her slippers and drags him out because his brother has a fever and they have to go to the ER, I was right there with her fear and her fashion sense. When she later tells Steven that she'll try to make it up to him someday, maybe by wearing curlers and pajamas to his high-school graduation, I laughed when Steven did, hoping that he really felt his mom's apology.

But when I knew this was a mother who could stride out of fiction into everyday life without a second thought was when she got the flu. Here's the thing about getting sick when your child has cancer--you can't. Unless you do. And then everything turns upside down. Because if your child has an appointment in clinic for chemo and you're running a fever, you can't go. These are immune-compromised kids, which means viruses that are a minor inconvenience to most of us, could kill them. I laughed and cried at the same time as I read the scene of Mom giving instructions to Dad about the appointment while throwing up in the bathroom. "White blood count . . . gag . . . liver function test . . . gag . . . test reflexes for neuropathy . . . gag, gag, gag."

The first day I knew I was a real mother was the day I held my nine-month-old in one arm while a nurse drew blood from my other arm. While the baby was spitting up on me.

Real moms do real stuff. It doesn't often get written about, because fiction shows truth, not the details of reality. Harry Potter is about Harry's quest, not Molly's background knitting. But you know what? One of my favorite moments in Harry Potter is when Molly hugs Harry in the hospital wing. Because all that background stuff that she does is what makes Harry's quest possible.

But still, I don't ever want to be Mrs. Bennett.

My First Contest!

2010-05-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

And one of you might be the winner.

With Mother's Day looming next weekend, I'm going to do some posts this week about fictional mothers. (Point 1: why is is so hard to think of any?)

What's the contest portion of this week?

Simple: Leave me a comment naming your Favorite Mom in Fiction before midnight next Sunday. Everyone who leaves a comment is entered (but only once, no matter the number of comments you have. Unless I change my mind. Which is always a distinct possibility.)

I'll draw a winner from among the commenters.

The winner will receive one of the 3 books I will use as launching points for my posts this week.

Isn't this exciting?

My Life as an Agented Author

2010-04-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

In the month since I signed with agent Tamar Rydzinski, I have done the following:

1. Waited patiently.

2. Visited Washington, D.C. with my family. Who knew there was such a thing as the Cherry Blossom Festival the same week as our spring break?

3. Concluded, reluctantly, that we will indeed have to pay twice for our granite countertops. (Note to others: always check that your contractor has an up-to-date license.)

4. Waited patiently.

5. Reinforced our family motto--"Just Don't Lie." Because if your husband decides to lie about where you live while in a U.S. congressman's office and then stands there like a deer in the headlights and leaves you to do all the actual lying, your 11-year-old daughter will, for the first time in months, listen to what you're saying and blurt out, "We're moving?!" at the worst possible moment. Just Don't Lie.

6. And Always Turn Right. We like three-word mottoes in our family.

7. Decided that I am, indeed, at heart a big city girl. I'm looking forward to the day when I can leave suburbia behind and live in a city loft with no yard and public transit at my doorway.

8. Waited.

9. Patiently.

10. Looked up the word "patience" in the dictionary.

11. Worked on another YA manuscript that I love but stalled out on during the cancer year.

12. Started basic timeline research for a possible (hopeful) sequel to SORROWS.

13. Waited.

14. Wondered why I bothered to put my boots and heavy sweaters away when it snowed. Today. The last day of April.

15. Paid more than 200 dollars for my 16-year-old son to take 3 AP tests in May.

16. Paid a lot more than that to pay off the same son's 3-week trip to Europe this summer.

17. Sigh.

18. Did I mention that the publishing business moves slowly?

19. Remembered that, when I asked what I could do to be a good writer client, Tamar's first answer was, "Be patient."

20. Waiting . . .

It's a Good Day Because . . .

2010-04-20T16:57:00.001-07:00

1. It's 80 degrees outside.

2. My house is quiet at 6:00 in the evening.

3. My house is clean (bless you, Lupita!)

4. I'm going to Zumba tonight.

5. I'm halfway through my second round of hcg. Down eight pounds and 4 1/2 inches.

6. My husband is taking the afternoon off Thursday so we can go out.

7. It's my 18th wedding anniversary Thursday (hence the afternoon off and going out.)

8. Tomorrow is the 2-year anniversary of Jake's first set of clean scans. It was three weeks after the end of his six weeks of daily radiation treatments and I'll never forget being told that the tumor was gone. We had hoped for significant shrinking, but I hadn't dared hope for it to be wholly gone. But it was. And though Jake had another six months of chemo ahead of him, that tumor has not made the slightest reappearance since.

9. Including yesterday. Jake had his 16-month off-treatment scans and I believe Dr Afify used the word 'perfect' to describe the results.

10. If I've learned anything in the last two-plus years, it's to cherish the good days with my whole heart. So I'm cherishing today. Tomorrow can take thought for itself.

March Books

2010-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

SHUTTER ISLAND/Dennis Lehane/A+
It's 1954 and U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island and the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane to find a missing patient. With his partner, Daniels runs into a difficult hospital staff, a doctor who can't be reached, and a storm that's cut off the island from the mainland. This is not the book I thought it would be, and I mean that in the very best sense. Incredibly powerful, incredibly tragic, incredibly moving. Not easy to read, but a fabulous look at the human mind and the secrets it keeps even from itself.

GREEN RIVER, RUNNING RED/Ann Rule/B
The famous true-crime writer gets another case in her backyard--the vicious murders of prostitutes in Seattle that peaked in the eighties and led to a manhunt that dragged over decades. It wasn't until forensic science caught up with the evidence in the late 90s that Gary Ridgway was finally caught. Rule is good at what she does, including getting into the shoes of the killer, but I read this book for two reasons: one, because I lived near these places for five years and two, I wanted to know about the girls. At the end of troubled and sorrowful lives, they deserved better than the deaths they got and someone besides their families should mourn for them.

REMEMBER ME, IRENE/Jan Burke/A-
When journalist Irene Kelly is accosted by a homeless man, she doesn't realize it's a former professor of hers. But he remembers her, and that sets in motion a string of deaths among the city's elite that lands Irene in a story she wants to break for the man the professor was. An early one in Burke's Irene Kelly series, I was less interested in the city planning/corruption aspect than I was in the backstory of the professor and I was pleased by the way Burke humanized it all at the end.

FEARFUL SYMMETRY/Morag Joss/C
The second in the Sara Selkirk mystery series, and maybe my last. The setting is strong--contemporary Bath, England. The set-up is promising--the death of a woman by letter-bomb that was not meant for her. The charaters are intriguing--an arrogant composer of modern music, his down-and-out protege, an aging opera star and her autistic daughter with the voice of an angel. The mystery is innovative and believable. The drawback? Sara Selkirk herself. I just can't stand her after two books. And not primarily because she's involved with a married man. Mostly it's because she's such a whiner. I wanted to shake her and tell her to grow up at least once every chapter. I'll stick to Morag Joss's superb stand-alone novels in future.

THE LOST MEMOIRS OF JANE AUSTEN/Syrie James/B+
What if Jane Austen wrote a memoir of a secret love that ended badly? James writes a witty and endearing novel in an Austen-voice that never falters. She covers the first few years after the death of Austen's father, when she and her mother and sister moved from place to place as family and limited circumstances made possible. James is an impeccable scholar who fits the fictional romance into the known facts of Austen's life, though the romance itself is crafted from bits and pieces of Austen's novels. There came a point where I felt it was a little forced and almost too-cute in its references, but overall it was a story I could believe and what more is wanted than that? Recommended for Austen fans.

THE SWAN THIEVES/Elizabeth Kostova/B
Andrew Marlowe is a psychiatrist at a private facility in Washington D.C. As the story begins, he accepts a new patient: Robert Oliver, a talented artist who has just been arrested for trying to destroy a painting in the National Gallery. Marlowe's biggest problem in treating Oliver is that, after that first day, Oliver refuses to speak at all. So Marlowe goes backward, to the women in Oliver's life, and also trying to track down the provenance of a pack of old French letters in Oliver's possession. The novel goes back and forth in time, as THE HISTORIAN did, but less successfully in this case. Where THE HISTORIAN had an urgent, time-sensitive, dangerous race across Europe at its heart, this book has nothing urgent on the line for Marlowe or even Oliver. I got lots (and lots) of information about artists and the way they work and the Impressionists and the restrictions on women artists in the 19th-century and the minutiae of Robert's mental breakdowns and the collapse of his marriage . . . but I just couldn't care that much because there was nothing critical on the line except Marlowe's curiosity. I hope that in her next book Kostova returns to marrying her beautiful storytelling with a powerful and compelling plot.

Signs of Spring

2010-03-30T16:30:00.001-07:00

Reasons I love Spring . . .

1. Baskets full of things I shouldn't eat.

2. Painted toenails and pretty sandals. Don't get me wrong--I love my leather boots. But there's something youth-inducing about a good pedicure and sandals to show it off. I plan on both for my trip to Washington D.C. next week.

3. Spring dresses on little girls. Sadly for me, my only daughter is now 11 and moving out of this phase. I still have the first Easter dress I bought her when she was four months old. Now I have to buy her shoes the same size as mine. When did that happen? Oh, well, there are still lots of little girls in my circle to love in their spring dresses.

4. My daffodils are blooming. I love daffodils and tulips and crocus and hyacinth . . .I'm very much a spring bulb flower lover.

Reason why I particularly love the spring of 2010 and always will . . .

5. Because I signed a contract with an agent this week. A non-figment-of-my-imagination, works in New York city, likes my book literary agent. Her name is Tamar Rydzinski from the Laura Dail Literary Agency. You can read about the agency and their clients at this link.

So what happens now?

Trick question. Because the answer is the same one it always is in the writing business . . . waiting. Waiting for responses to the pitch letter and manuscript Tamar has sent out. Waiting (hoping) for an offer to buy my book. And in the midst of waiting . . .well, there's always writing. I'm working on the manuscript I was revising when my son got sick two years ago and feeling good about it.

But also, I walk around my house and at odd moments burst out, "I have an agent!" (I have to admit that I actually, mostly sing that phrase. Is anyone surprised?)

What a beautiful spring!

March 25th

2010-03-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

Know what I did two years ago today?

Took my 11-year-old son to a follow-up with his radiation oncologist. He was two weeks off a six-week radiation treatment, three months into a ten-month chemotheraphy regimen, and had lost 15 pounds in a month.

Know what I did today?

Watched my 13-year-old son make his stage debut in JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT at the junior high. He sang a solo as Issachar, one of the brothers.

Know else what I did today?

Cried.

For joy.

Which makes a nice change from the last couple years.

LCC Part 2: Crime Scenes, Groupies, and Accidental Fashion

2010-03-25T12:57:00.001-07:00

Can I just leave it at the title? Because it's pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I don't know if any post can live up to it.

Sigh. I guess I'll try.

Crime Scenes: not in person, thankfully. You know how you read about murder scenes in books or even watch them on CSI or Law and Order? It's nothing like having a crime scene investigator walk you matter-of-factly through a quadruple homicide he worked. Doesn't matter that it was a slideshow. It was real, in a way TV can never be because I was horribly aware that the people weren't getting up when the scene was finished. But I didn't feel like a voyeur. Maybe because the presenter was so clearly a professional and because, ironically, he didn't spend time bemoaning the crime itself or belaboring the obvious point that it was horrible. His very professionalism brought home to me the reality of what these people do and why: To catch a killer and give the prosecution the evidence it needs for conviction, investigators can't afford to make a mistake. They must be detached. They must do their job precisely. They must minimize any chance of a mistake that would allow a killer to remain free.

I will say, however, that there were several slides I could not bring myself to look at--those of the 7-year-old girl who was the primary target of these killings. Adults are one thing . . . children are something else. It comforted me slightly to know that the killer was caught and convicted and is in prison for his crimes. But even that didn't make it possible for me to look at the body of a little girl.

Other Forensic Science Day tidbits: the Firearms specialist wore pink heels and could be a model. Who knew? She had the best line of the day, as well: "There are many ways to render safe a firearm. Standing around and looking at it isn't one of them."

The Trace Evidence specialist spent four days in court during the Phil Spector murder trial. She said she knew all along he was wearing wigs (as proven when he was convicted at his second trial and had to give up the wigs for prison.)

The Questioned Documents specialist made us try to forge our neighbor's signatures. Mine was a very sad attempt. He had lots of cool slides of forgeries and a great story about having to piece together a note that a gang leader chewed up in his mouth so the police wouldn't get it. Their work on that note helped tie the gang leader to a murder.

The DNA specialist proved that I am simply not smart enough for some careers. Enough said.

My overall impression afterward was awe at what these scientists do every day and awareness that their funding and resources aren't nearly enough to give results as fast as police want them. What they manage is both impressive and critical to our justice system.

Groupies: Mystery conventions aren't your normal arena for finding groupies. The average age is, well, older than mine (which is saying something). The average attendee is a reader and/or writer (neither of which springs to mind when you think wild fans and stalking). The average panel has titles such as: "Two Ladies from London" or "Marketing in Your Pajamas" (I might have made that last one up--I did attend a panel on that subject, but I'm too lazy to find my program and check the actual title.) But I'm here to tell you, groupies can be found in many guises.

I am one of them, apparently.

At the opening night reception hosted by Mystery Writers of America (which featured a bloody guillotine slicing a watermelon--who says mystery writers don't know how to have fun?) my friend and I were trying to blend in and figure out where to go for dinner later when my eyes got very, very wide (I could feel them) and I squeaked under my breath, "Is that Laurie King?"

Laurie R. King herself, creator of Mary Russell Holmes, a heroine I would dearly love to be. Storyteller extraordinaire. Standing ten feet away from me.

Actual text I sent to my husband: "Saw Laurie R. King. Feeling like a book groupie."

I will say in my defense that I did not stalk her (sitting quietly at a table which gave us a good vantage point of her does not constitute stalking). I did not gush at her. (I did make her laugh when I asked her to sign a book for me--and she doesn't look like she's worried about my mental health in the photo my friend took of us.) I had absolutely no desire to fling any articles of clothing her way. But I was as starstruck as the teenage music fans I live with. I mean, right there in front of me was a woman who could tell me what's going to happen in the book being released next month! (I didn't ask. I knew she wouldn't tell and I don't really want to know, anyway. That would just ruin the delicious experience of reading it.)

Groupies come in all shapes, sizes, and ages apparently. My husband's just glad it was Laurie King I made laugh and not Ewan McGregor.

Accidental Fashion: The Omni Hotel was gorgeous, but in the heart of the financial district. Which made for fun lunchtimes during the week, but meant the weekend was dead quiet. Not to fear, however--because the LA Fashion District was less than a mile away. And Katie and I are both good walkers.

It was a wonderfully fun experience, although not quite in the way I'd anticipated. The Fashion District is primarily for wholesalers and designer workspace, but there were several blocks of stores selling remnants and oddities and such. Like two whole streets featuring nothing but "Italian Wool Suits" that are, near as I could tell, remnants from a 1950's gangster movie. As persuasive as some of the hawkers were, I simply could not envision my husband ever needing a bright orange three piece suit. With matching two tone shoes. And a hat. Also matching.

The less said about the lingerie shop the better, and a word to any retailers who might be reading this: The odds that I will try on a dress and possibly purchase it go up exponentially the less you follow me around the store snatching things off the rack and thrusting them at me.

The accidental part of all this fashion is that the item I actually bought and loved did not come from the Fashion District. It came from a quiet little storefront near a secondhand bookstore we discovered our second night in LA. We went in because the window displays looked vintage, and where in suburban Utah would I find another such store?

It wasn't vintage--it was custom work by a woman named Stella Dottir. It was her "handcrafted, tailor made Vintage and Gothic creations" that had caught my eye. She was the most interesting person I met in LA. A bit too fond of cats (I sneezed all night after her store) but with the sort of clothing that made want to play dress up and wish there was some occasion in my life that called for dresses with names like Black Dahlia or Isadora Duncan. What I really fell in love with was a coat in black velvet that fit me like a glove.

It was, alas, seven hundred dollars. So I settled for a hat. I have a weakness for hats, especially since I cut my hair last year. I like the 1920s and early 1930s hats, close-fitting and most of the time completely impractical. But since it cost less than 10% of the coveted coat, I settled on the hat known as Greta Garbo--a gold silk cloche style with a twist of fabric and feathers on one side. I wore it that night to the MWA reception (where I did not stalk Laurie King) and got compliments on it. Which makes up for the fact that my husband laughed when he saw what I'd bought.

I told him he was just lucky I didn't buy the coat.

Check out Stella's website here for an idea of how I would dress if my life were a daydream. And just to impress you--I can now say I own a hat from a designer who has made two for Michelle Obama.

Now there's a woman who gets to wear cool hats.

LCC Part 1: or Getting There ISN'T Half the Fun

2010-03-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

But before I launch into that story, I have to confess. My To-Be-Read Shelf, which had begun to decline in the last two months and to which I had vowed not to add another book until I was below 25 titles, has grown exponentially over the weekend. It's now at 51. Good thing I don't have any cats or small babies that could be crushed by toppling unread books.

To drive, to talk, to eat, perchance to have fun . . . That was my vision of this road trip to Los Angeles. After all, since my friend Katie had to abandon me for a full-time teaching job, we don't often get an uninterrupted hour to talk, let alone ten hours. She even took half a day off on Tuesday so we could arrive in LA at a decent hour.

What is it they say about best-laid plans?

Three hours into the drive, we stopped for gas. I might point out that we had my husband's car, a 2008 Honda CRV that I am much more particular about than my eight-year-old minivan. I filled it up, bought some Doritos and wax donuts for the road, and hit play on Buffy: The Musical to sing along with.

We had just made it into the second song when the car started coughing. It's the only way I can describe it--a sort of stuttering, catching-its-breath, not sure if it's going to choose to keep going or give up all together sort of cough.

I had a very bad feeling.

There was a sequence of good events right here: the fact that I was nearly at an exit (the last exit before a 30-mile stretch of desert emptiness), the fact that the car never entirely quit on me, and the fact that there were two auto shops at aforementioned exit.

Bad event? We chose the wrong one.

Worse event? They were slow and not particularly helpful when we told them we had to be in LA at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. About the third time someone said we might have to spend the night, I wanted to scream.

Most laughable event? After more than two hours, the last bit spent on speaker phone with my husband, our personal mechanic, and the shop-from-molassesville trying to decipher the code they'd pulled off the car's computer (while my husband googled the code, I said in a foreboding tone, "I think that's exactly what the mechanics here were doing half an hour ago." Not calculated to inspire confidence)--and after agreeing to let them change the oil (primarily because they couldn't think of anything else)--watching someone who, for all I know, was from the Wal-Mart across the street bring in a can of oil THAT THE SHOP HAD TO SEND OUT FOR! I would have run screaming into the night at that point except my friend was wearing flip-flops and it had snowed three inches where we had stopped.

Bless my husband, the organizer-extraordinaire. Within an hour of getting him on the phone we were being picked up by an extremely nice girl from a local car-rental agency who helped us transfer our belongings (many of them shoes) into a cute little silver two-door and sent us on our way (three hours late, but relieved to be out of that town.) The next morning, thanks to my husband's skills, the closest Honda dealer (30 miles away) sent up a tow truck to take in the CRV and fix it under cover of warranty. Katie and I were reunited with the car on Sunday afternoon as we drove home from LA. I forced myself to listen once more to Buffy: The Musical and drew a deep breath once we passed the fateful song where we'd stalled out five days earlier.

Getting there was not half the fun. But at least it gave a good story. What else could I ask for?

Hmmmm, maybe that AN AUTO SERVICE SHOP WOULD ACTUALLY CARRY OIL?!

Grumble, grumble.

January and February Books

2010-03-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

Because, apparently, I forgot that January existed. But it must have, because I have a list of books I read during that month. In my own handwriting. Whether I remember any of them to review . . . well, here goes nothing.

QUEEN ISABELLA/Alison Weir/A
The infamous 'She-wolf ' of France. Daughter and sister to several French kings, Isabella was married at age 12 to Edward II, heir to the legendary Edward Longshanks who subdued Wales and was known as The Hammer of the Scots. His son was less impressive, consistently preferring his gay lover(s) to his wife. Weir, one of my favorite biographers, gives a balanced, fair look at Isabella's life before she escaped her husband by going to France and returning at the head of an invasion army. Isabella is less sympathetic in the years when her lover ruled both her and England (after killing her husband and setting up a regency in the name of Edward III) but Weir weaves the period into the life so one can understand how these things happened.

NECESSARY AS BLOOD/Deborah Crombie/A-
A missing mother, a murdered father, a little girl who's tugging at Gemma's heartstrings . . . a great story of artists, secrets, and other stuff I can't enumerate at the moment because I'm looking out the hotel window at fabulous Los Angeles weather and I can't bring myself to write it all out. I love Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James and this is a particularly good entry in a fine series.

STARGIRL/Jerry Spinelli/B-
A popular book to recommend to pre-teens, I found Spinelli's story about an unusual high school student told through the eyes of her boyfriend to be a little too moralistic for my taste. Want me to agree that being yourself is more important than fitting in? Don't hit me over the head with it. To be fair, my 11-year-old daughter adored this book and it's sequel, so I'm probably just not the audience for it.

SHADOW OF THE WIND/Carlos Ruis Zafon/A
Hidden libraries, a mysterious stranger, and a writer whose books are systematically vanishing through violence. When a young boy finds one of the few remaining copies of the author's work, he gets caught in a violent past that's reaching out to the present. Highly recommended.

SACRIFICE/S.J. Bolton/A-
Torah is an ob/gyn on a remote Scottish island, adapting to a new home, new job, new boss, and a husband who's become secretive since the move. When bones are discovered in the fields behind Torah's house, she gets caught up in hunting a bizarre Norse-folklore sect that may be killing pregnant women. Extremely tense, great storytelling, and twists that kept me guessing. Recommended.

MIDNIGHT FUGUE/Reginald Hill/A
A wonderful entry in the Dalziel/Pascoe series, taking place in just 24 hours. Dalziel, about to return from convalesence after a bombing left him comatose, is a bit worried about how his underlings will treat him. But not worry--he manages to find himself a case of a woman whose 7-years' missing husband may not be dead at all and wants Dalziel to find out for certain before she marries again. Woven with the story of an up-and-coming politician with a difficult family past and Pascoe's attempts to work with Dalziel without either coddling him or controlling him. Love this series.

FALLEN/Lauren Kate/B+
An addition to the YA paranormal romance market, and a fairly strong one at that. Except that I can't remember the girl's name . . . but when she's sent to a reform school, she meets Daniel Grigori and can't shake the feeling that she's met him before. Only she can't begin to imagine where or how, and by the time she learns she's in way over her head. The dialogue was a little weak and the ending slightly petered out, but I'll look happily for the second in the series.

THE BLACK TOWER/Louis Bayard/A-
Having given us Poe as a detective in THE PALE BLUE EYE, Bayard now brings to life real Paris detective Vidocq in a story set in the years after Napoleon's fall when the royalty has been restored. But is a missing prince about to rise from the dead? Based on the enduring legends about the young Louis XVIII, who supposedly died of mistreatment in the year after his mother's execution (Marie Antoinette), Bayard does more than give a thrilling tale of hidden identity and political manipulation. The narrator is a doctor with an unsatisfcatory family history of his own, and my favorite character was the Princess Royal, the oldest daughter and only acknowledged survivor of the years of Terror that stole her family. Her interaction with her alleged brother is powerful and real and I loved the choices she made. Recommended.

THE MISTBORN TRILOGY (FINAL EMPIRE; WELL OF ASCENSION; HERO OF AGES)/Brandon Sanderson/A+
My favorite fantasy trilogy since Lord of the Rings, I highly recommend this. Vin is a street thief with unexpected talents when she's recruited by Kelsier to join his crew and overthrow the Lord Ruler. Only problem? He's been ruling a thousand years and is immortal. But Kelsier has a plan, and a crew and, always, another secret. If you have the slightest interest in fantasy or epic heroics or caper stories or fabulous characters, intricate plotting, and a storyteller who can work his way into your heart without harldy trying, pick up The Mistborn Trilogy.

Friday Five

2010-02-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

5. Kauai was wonderful. Why wouldn't it be? When asked by the Hawaiian Airlines baggage handler if we enjoyed our stay, my husband asked, "How many people say no?" One thing I learned: forget massages. I'd rather spend my money on a private beach cabana for the day. Cushioned loungers, no neighbors, unobstructed views of the ocean . . . Now that was relaxing.

4. In the throes of registration for my soon-to-be high school senior. How did it come to this--AP Psychology and AP Calculus and AP Physics? That's not mentioning the 3 AP classes he's currently taking as a junior. And I've decided I need an entirely new brain just to cope with college applications and scholarships. All this for a boy who was 3 years old, like, five minutes ago.

3. Left Coast Crime!

2. Okay, a few more details on #3. Ten days from now my best friend and I leave for LA for five days of mystery convention fabulosity. (Yes, I know that's not a word. I prefer to think of it as a state of mind.) Two years ago in Denver, Left Coast Crime reignited my passion for writing and confirmed that the writing world was where I belonged. That motivation and hope kept me going through the months when writing took a far-distant back seat to my son's chemo and radiation. So LCC will always hold a place in my heart. Besides--Road Trip! That means all the things I never let myself eat: wax donuts, chips, sour patch watermelons. I'm feeling sick already :)

1. While in Kauai, I picked up a little book called If . . .Questions for the Game of Life. I thought it would give me great prompts for blog posts (thought I doubt I'll ever answer the question "If you could have seduced any one person in your life that you didn't, who would it be?") I'm thinking I'll dedicate a day to If Posts. Maybe Tuesday. Maybe not. But I thought to give a taste of it today.

Question: If you were instantly able to play one musical instrument perfecty that you never have played before, what would it be?

Answer: The violin. I play the piano, the organ and, once-upon-an-adolescent-time, the flute. But I have a fascination with string instruments and I think there's such personality and passion to the violin. Besides, I have a character in mind for a future novel who plays the violin. It would be helpful to know what I'm writing about.

Last Week

2010-02-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Moved everything out of kitchen cupboards and drawers to various spots in the house

Tore out kitchen

Painted kitchen and family room

Welcomed new cabinets

Really welcomed new cabinet installers

Wondered why it takes almost 9 hours to install granite countertops

Wondered if the granite installers would be taking part in book club (they left five minutes before people started showing up)

Welcomed electrician to fix outlet in new island

Welcomed plumber to install new faucet, new garbage disposal, and hook dishwasher back up

Moved everything back into kitchen cupboards (except those things I can't remember where I put them--one of these months I'm going to stumble across some glasses or oatmeal stashed under a bed somewhere)

Woke up at 1:00 in the morning to sound of second son dragging microwave across the floor so he could plug it in

Wondered where to go to get microwave remounted above stove

Got an email from literary agent "encouraged" by my rewrite and asking to send me line edits

Tried not to frighten cabinet installers with my giddy joy at being . . . so . . . achingly . . . close to having an agent

Downloaded line edits to my netbook so I can fix them on the plane to Hawaii

Because this week, I'm spending Valentine's in Kauai

Yes, I am spoiled.

Happy Valentine's, everyone! Especially my children whom I will miss hugging on that day :)

Best Books of '09

2010-01-26T14:09:00.000-08:00

"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it." Bertrand Russell

I know I write about the books I read each month, but being the listmaker I am, I like passing on my statistics at the end of each year. Yes, partly in the spirit of boasting (I never said I was perfect) but also in the spirit of the following quote by Gustave Flaubert: "Read in order to live."

There is a deal of truth about my life in the lists I keep about my reading. Not that I necessarily know myself what that truth is, but here it is for those smarter than me.

Total books read in 2009: 120
Non-fiction: 36
Young Adult: 12
Fantasy: 18
Historical: 26
Mystery: 41

There is on glaringly obvious truth that I see: for someone who's waiting to hear from an agent about a YA historical I wrote, I could certainly have read more in both categories. And let's face it, mysteries are apparently always and forever going to be my first love. Maybe I should take that into consideration before starting my next project . . .

Rather than simply list my favorite books of last year, let's see how helpful I can be for someone who wants to know why I loved each book.

Best book about a character I thought I knew all about: THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT/Reginald Hill/In this (19th? 20th?) in the Dalziel/Pascoe mystery series, Hill turns the focus on Andy Dalziel and his recovery from a bombing that left him in a coma. Being Andy, he's not so happy about being confined to a nursing home, but fortunately for him a murder happens nearby and his formidable brain is engaged not only by the killing but by the characters surrounding it. I may even like Dalziel better than Pascoe after this book.

Absolutely stunning case of a second book being better than the first: THE LIKENESS/Tana French/I teetered on the edge of loving or hating French's first book (IN THE WOODS) but this one had no teetering at all. I loved everything about it. Cassie Maddox, a detective from the first novel, takes center stage as the narrator when a body is found that looks exactly like her. Even more disturbing, the body's identity is one that Cassie herself created years ago as an undercover officer. This book has everything, but mostly a complex, empathetic, wonderful narrator in Cassie.

Best New YA series: THE HUNGER GAMES & CATCHING FIRE/Suzanne Collins/A brilliant view of a dystopian near-future in which teenagers are forced to fight to the death on TV for the entertainment of the Capitol and in hopes of bringing extra food to their own impoverished districts. When Katniss Everdeen takes her little sister's place in the games, she and Peeta, the boy from her district, set in motion a movement for rebellion that they can't control. Can't wait for the third one this fall!

Best Non-fiction Book of the Year and Possibly the Decade: HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION/Thomas Cahill/It's short, readable, and downright brilliant. If you care at all about books and the history of western literature, you must read this book about how the Irish monks and nuns, converted wholeheartedly and passionately to Christianity, first preserved western literature by copying feverishly while continental libraries vanished almost overnight and then spread that literature back to Europe by their ministry far from home. It will make you wish you were Irish.

Best New Historical Mystery Series: MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH/Ariana Franklin/When Christian children are murdered in Cambridge, the Jews of the town stand accused. King Henry II brings a coroner from Salerno to solve the crimes--a woman named Adelia. I didn't always like Adelia, but her faults make her all the more appealing as a long-term character. And the medieval setting and sense of place is faultless.

Best Cliff-hanging Continuation of one of My Favorite Series: THE LANGUAGE OF BEES/Laurie R. King/Mary Russell Holmes is a character I would like to be. Mary is front and center in this book when Holmes' past rears up and presents him a case that might be too close to home for him to see clearly. Can't wait for the next book this spring.

Best YA book of the Year: INK EXCHANGE/Melissa Marr/In this companion book to her novels of the Summer King and his once-mortal queen, Marr gives a brilliant story about violence, belonging, and independence. Not for younger teens or the easily squeamish, but highly recommended.

Best book for Making me Feel I've Climbed Mount Everest Without Dying in the Process: INTO THIN AIR/Jon Krakauer/In a case of being in the wrong place at the right time, Krakauer signed onto an Everest expedition to write about it for a magazine and ended up being a survivor of the May 1996 tragedies on the mountain. A wonderful book about those who survived and those who didn't. And I have no desire to ever climb Everest myself.

Best Book About Twins, Identity, and Family Secrets: THE LACE READER/Brunonia Barry/Towner Whitney tells you from the first page that she lies. But only when I reached the end did I understand how and why her lies are woven into the story. Powerful themes wrapped in an amazing story.

Best Mystery of the Year: THE BRUTAL TELLING/Louise Penny/ I just started reading her Armand Gamache novels last year and I still can't believe that she did what she did in this fifth book. Haunting, real, cannot-shake-it-from-my-head. Start at the beginning of the series with STILL LIFE and read on.

So what have you discerned about my life from my reading? That I'm disturbed? A little (more than a little) dark? That I have a plethora of secrets haunting me? Or that my life is so achingly normal that I have to escape into drama?

I'll tell you the one thing I know for certain . . . I love stories. Not just books--stories. Give me a story over pretty language any day and I'll be happy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish reading my latest can't-wait-to-see-how-it-comes-out story: SEPULCHRE by Kate Mosse.

Happy Stories, everyone!

Friday Five

2010-01-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

1. My 13-year-old son auditioned for the junior high musical this week and made it! He even has a small solo part. Not bad for a kid who's never had drama until this year and who kept it practically a state secret that he can actually sing. Can't wait to see him on stage.

2. My husband is home. Well, he's not exactly in the house at this precise moment, but after nearly two weeks in Asia, it's nice to have him around. And I'm not saying that just because he brought me a cashmere scarf from Mongolia.

3. The things that makes a mother's heart happy: a family room with a new leather sectional, a Wii, and ten kids ranging in age from eight to eighteen. I love having my teenagers and their friends around . . . and that they're sometimes willing to play with my youngest is a bonus.

4. Still waiting for news from New York. We had a short email exchange this week--she has the manuscript, will get to it soon, and it's been as frigid there as it's been here. Does that qualify as bonding?

5. If I'm a little cranky, it's because I'm eight days into a 21-day hcg diet. The good news--it's working. I'm down eight pounds and several inches in my waist and hips. That's pretty good motivation, especially with a trip to Hawaii next month. The neutral news--I'm not hungry. The hcg does what it's supposed to, directing my body to burn its fat stores while I restrict my calorie intake fairly low. The bad news--I'm hyper aware of what I can't eat. And it there's plenty of it in this house with four kids and one husband who couldn't get fat if he tried. Cinnamon bread. Baked macaroni and cheese. Pretzels. Cold cereal. Yogurt. But then I remind myself that I can do anything for 21 days and at this rate of weight loss, I'll finally make it within nodding distance of what I weighed when I got pregnant with my youngest.

Just don't go waving cookies in my face.

Haiti

2010-01-13T18:27:00.001-08:00

I'm having a hard time actually writing this post. People keep asking me how I'm feeling since the earthquake in Haiti. I think I won't know how I feel until I write it down. Maybe that's why I'm procrastinating.

I tend to assume that everyone who reads my blog knows all about me. But maybe there are one or two of you who don't know this: I lived in Haiti for a year, 1990 to the first few weeks of 1991. I was a missionary and it was the best decision I could have made at that point in my life. I was 21 and I'd never been anywhere like Haiti. I'd hardly imagined anywhere like Haiti.

We're hearing it all now, ad nauseam: poorest country in the western hemisphere; two hundred years of oppressive governments; unemployment and illiteracy rates well over 50%; scarce clean water on a good day; no public schools; an unacceptable number of children who don't make it to their 5th birthday (though I'm not sure what an acceptable number would be).

You know what I remember? People. Lovely, happy, kind, generous people. Not all of them, to be sure. But most of them. People who fed me when their own families would go hungry for it. People who encouraged my halting language skills in the beginning, and applauded me as I got better. People who loved me simply because I was there, and I tried to appreciate them and their country and culture. People I love.

Take a look at the wall of the house behind us. It's not even unreinforced cement blocks. It's sheets of metal. I'm pretty sure I could have knocked down that wall with my own two hands. Odds that it is still standing today? Dismal.

My children are familiar with this phrase: Life isn't fair. They hear it all the time from me, in reference to allowances and concerts and homework and anything else that doesn't match exactly what their wishes are at a given moment.

Sometimes, Life isn't Fair doesn't begin to cover it.

As I saw the pictures begin to come in, I wished passionately that I could get on a plane and be there. Never mind that my Creole isn't as fluent as it was twenty years ago. Never mind that my husband is currently on a business trip in Asia. Never mind that I have four kids that can't stay home by themselves.

Since I couldn't, I sent money. I always have mixed feelings about money in these situations: it seems almost a cop-out. It seems too simple. It seems like a sop to my conscience.

But then my 11-year-old daughter put out two ten-dollar bills that she's been saving from Christmas and left me a note with it: "For the people in Haiti."

Suddenly, adding my own money to hers didn't seem like a cop-out.

And the truth is, at the moment cash is desperately needed. Cash makes the world go round. Cash will give those on the ground resources.

And it's not like the opportunities to help are going to vanish quickly. Months from now, there will still be needs. Maybe I'll get to travel then. Maybe not. But I know that I, for one, will not forget the people of Haiti when the TV cameras disappear. Because I have never forgotten them.

Bondieu, papa-nou nan ciel-la, aidez tout-moun-yo nan Ayiti.

And because I've had a few people ask where they can donate, I'll add this. The American Red Cross is always a good place to begin. Click here for the donation page, which gives you many options. Choose the one that speaks loudest to your heart.

If you want a smaller, more intimate organization, consider Healing Hands for Haiti. They provide multiple medical teams each year to help with physical rehabilitation and other medical needs. Five of their seven buildings in their complex were destroyed by the earthquake, but they have opened their space to several nearby orphanages that lost everything. Dr. Jeffrey Randle, who started Healing Hands, left last night for Haiti with a team of 20 medical professionals. Click here to donate where my daughter's allowance money went.

But can I give one piece of advice, straight from my heart? All around you, wherever you live and whatever your situation, there are people in need of help. I believe in helping wherever your heart moves you. Call a friend who's struggling. Write a note to someone you appreciate. Pick up trash. Be kind. Heaven knows, kindness is in short supply in our world. We can all use a little more it.

December Books

2010-01-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS/John Connolly/B-
When a young boy loses his mother and gains a stepmother and baby brother a short time later, he retreats to a world of make believe that becomes distressingly real. In a twisted fairy tale land, he must make a perilous journey in the company of occasionally recognizable characters to find the king and ask to be sent home. But the king is not that different from the boy, and he has his own plans to abandon his kingdom. Not for children, despite the premise.

SHAKESPEARE/Bill Bryson/A+
Bryson takes his trademark wit from travel writing to time travel as he explores what (very) little we know about William Shakespeare. And why he matters. And why Shakespeare really is Shakespeare and not Kit Marlow or another writer. Brilliant, funny--and that's just Bryson. With this subject, he couldn't possibly write a bad book.

THE BRUTAL TELLING/Louise Penny/A+
Just when I thought I had Penny and her detective, Armand Gamache, figured out--she goes and writes a book like this. Stunning and disturbing are two words that come to mind. So are powerful and haunting. Gamache returns to Three Pines when a hermit's body is discovered in the restaurant he loves. Why was it left there? Who is the man and why does he have a priceless collection of antiques in his cabin? And what secrets is the innkeeper holding? Penny kicked it up about seventeen notches with this story and I'm still breathless.

HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY/Audrey Niffenegger/D
I so wanted to like this book by the author of THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE (which I adored). But sadly, I did not. I did at least finish it, to see if the interesting premise (twin sisters inherit a London flat from an aunt they never knew and are haunted by her ghost) ever led to an interesting story. It never did. The only character I liked was the agoraphobe-OCD upstairs neighbor and I have a hard time liking books with a slew of unlikable characters. If you want a great book about twins, identity, and mysterious pasts, check out Brunonia Barry's THE LACE READER instead.

ON BEULAH HEIGHT/Reginald Hill/A
A re-read of one of my favorite mystery novels. Superintendent Dalziel's first case as a cop involved the disappearance of three girls that was never solved. Twenty years later, the reservoir that swallowed up the town where the girls lived is evaporating in a drought and another little girl has gone missing. Woven through the mystery is the serious illness of Inspector Pascoe's daughter; not a random plotline, since Rosie actually helps solve the mystery. I obviously love it if I'm willing to re-read it with so many other books demanding my attention.

TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION/P.D. James/A-
When I grow up to be 89, I hope I'm P.D. James. The author of the Dalgliesh mysteries wrote a short volume covering the creation of detective fiction and it's most famous practitioners. The core of the book is the evolution of detective fiction and how previous writers have influenced where the genre is today. A must for fans of either James or mysteries in general.

THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN/A-
In 1913, a little girl shows up on an Australian dock with a white suitcase, no memory of her name, and no parents. Raised by adoptive parents, Nell discovers only when she's grown how she came to their family. She goes to Cornwall, trying to find the truth of her first four years of life, but the journey is interrupted when she takes in her 10-year-old granddaughter, Cassandra, to raise. When Nell dies, Cassandra inherits a Cornish cottage and a quest. The story moves back and forth through time, but is well-labeled to minimize confusion. From a young woman fleeing her family to a best friend asked for a favor she cannot refuse to a lonely woman trying to remember her own place in the world, this is a beautiful and engaging book.

A YEAR IN PROVENCE/Peter Mayle/B
A short book covering the author's move to Provence from England and a year in the life. From dreadful mistrals that destroy the roof in winter to baking sun and hordes of tourists in summer, it was a lovely, gentle way to visit somewhere I've never been and appreciate the foibles of people everywhere (not to mention the mouthwatering discussions of food!)

December Dozen

2009-12-31T15:11:00.000-08:00

1. Best present came on the first day of the month . . . clean scans for Jake! That makes one year off treatment and we're now moving from scans every 3 months to every 4 months. I plan to enjoy those extra four weeks in between each set :) You can read more about the day for Jake and I HERE.

2. I am happy to report that I am definitely finished having children. This may (but most likely will not) come as a shock to you, since my current baby is 8 and I've never been shy about stating my enjoyment at having all my children in school. It was, however, apparently a shock to said 8-year-old, who asked me earlier this month, "When am I going to not be the youngest anymore?" After some back and forth, beginning to be suspicious, I said, "Have you been waiting around all this time for mom to have another baby?" With an expression of the deepest disdain, as though he couldn't believe I had to ask, he said, "Yeah!"

Sorry, babe, not going to happen.

3. On the bright side, I think he's coming around to the pleasures of being the youngest. We're halfway through a week-long stay by my 3-three-year old niece and Spencer is beginning to notice that attention that was once rightfully his is now being shared. He can do the math. I think when she goes home we won't hear anymore about having a younger child.

4. My oldest son took both the SAT and ACT tests in December. Call us suckers for punishment. Our reasoning (and he was right there with us) was just to give us a benchmark and give him the choice of which test to focus on. After due consideration (which lasted all of thirty seconds) he announced that he'll take the ACT again. The good news for him is that with the scores he got on these no-prep, taken cold, stayed out sort of late the night before tests, he scored well enough to be well within the mid-range of current freshmen at each of the schools he's considering. Now we'll do the prep, warm-up, no-staying-out late version to see if he can bump up the ACT a couple points and give him a good shot at a scholarship. Because otherwise I might have to sell a kidney.

5. Or a book. Which would be more fun for me.

6. Speaking of which, my revisions are done and in New York. I doubt the agent has seen them yet, because I didn't send them until the Friday before Christmas. But I have medium hopes for the outcome. At the least, I know I've written a stronger book because of her comments and this chance has given me renewed energy and motivation to stick with the long and mostly painful business of querying.

7. Christmas was lovely at our house--four kids old enough to be reasoned with (we weren't disturbed until 8:00 a.m., per mom and dad's orders), lots of laughter and shrieks of joy (and not just from the 11-year-old girl), good food (thanks, Aunt Annette!) and a Christmas Eve phone call to my parents who are living in Japan for eighteen months. I love Christmas.

8. Of course, we told our children that they have one more good Christmas next year (when the oldest is a senior in high school) and after that it's "Merry Christmas! You're brother gets to go college."

9. One family tradition is to spend the night in Salt Lake seeing the Christmas lights, taking a carriage ride, having a good dinner, and spending the night in a hotel where we can make all the mess we want and don't have to clean up in the morning. This year we nearly lost a few toes and ear tips to frostbite, and jean bottoms and some Vans shoes were soaked from the snow, but we did have a fabulous dinner with a waiter who told me, "You have very polite children. It's rare to see that these days." I, being a clever woman, smiled and said thank you and was secretly glad that they were hungry and worn out from the cold and not displaying their all-too-typical at-home behavior.

10. And tonight is New Year's Eve. We have friends coming over, as we usually do, with food and games and lots of kids mostly old enough to not need more than token supervision and teenagers dropping by from the neighborhood to graze on whatever they can find. I love my neighborhood. I love my friends. Oh, dear, I'm getting awfully maudlin. I'd better think of something sarcastic to say . . .

11. But I can't, because New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are always and forever going to be linked with my son's cancer. As we played Uno all together on New Year's Eve 2007, I could see the worry in my friend's eyes as she looked at Jake's swollen cheek and eye. And I knew, that night I knew for sure, that something was wrong. It took me until the sun set on New Year's Day before my fear was strong enough to force me to the emergency room. It seemed silly at the time--he had an appointment with the dentist who had pulled his teeth the next day, I could easily have called his pediatrician first thing on January 2nd and had him seen . . . but as my husband pointed out these options on New Year's Day, he said, "What do you think?" My answer was, "I don't know any more than you do." And bless him for his wisdom in saying precisely what I needed (and was secretly praying) to hear: "Yes, you do. You're his mother." So I took him to the ER. And nothing was ever the same.

Except this: Tonight he'll be here with us. Like he's been at every New Year's for 13 years.

If I'd waited, if I'd dithered, if I'd given the extremely aggressive and fast-growing rhabdo even a week or two longer while waiting for doctors and schedules, the tumor, which was just beginning to encroach on lymph nodes and heading down a sinus cavity to his brain on January 1st, would have been classified stage IV and the odds would have been dismal.

So no sarcasm from me tonight. Get back to me next week.

12. Which is when I'll be ordering the new cabinets and countertops for my kitchen. Besides being wise, my husband is also generous. The kitchen budget I was supposed to use two years ago, just before Jake got sick, has been restored to me and this morning I got to look at new drawer fronts and stain options and granite . . . Sigh. Of pure pleasure.

Now if I could just sell that book, maybe I could afford new appliances as well. Before I have to unload my refrigerator one more time because it's stopped cooling. After eleven years, it's complaining and may need to be put out of its misery.

Coming up in January: a review of last year's book club, my favorite books of 2009, and the ones I'm most looking forward to in 2010.

Happy New Year!

November Books

2009-12-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG/Muriel Barbery/A
A beautiful book and wonderful story translated from the original French. Rene Michel is the middle-aged concierge of a high-class Paris apartment building. Paloma is a 12-year-old girl who is looking for reasons to support killing herself (it's actually funnier and more poignant than that sounds). I would have read it for the perfectly-rendered depiction of the upstairs/downstairs life in the building, but when a Japanese gentleman moves in, a riveting story breaks forth. Highly recommended.

ANTHEM/Ayn Rand/D
My first and last book by Rand. The story opened strong, with a depiction of a communal society that was much more Borg than communist, but by the time the hero is reading his wonderful collection of found books and then, instead of inviting his girlfriend/wife/partner to read them too, summarizing the important points for her, I was done. Never going to be a fan of stories for the sake of a philosophy, and this philosophy was particularly hard for me to swallow.

THE LONGEST REBELLION/Chris Lawlor/B
Picked up in Dublin and necessary for my latest revisions, this thin history is the account of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland that culminated in the Act of Union in 1800, tying Ireland to England with bonds that were meant to be unbreakable. Much of the book follows the guerilla leader, Michael Dwyer, and his five-year holdout in the Wicklow mountains. Interesting to me, but probably not for general consumption.

A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY/Libba Bray/C
Since I'm writing a historical YA with paranormal overtones, I've had this on my shelf for a long time as comparison. After reading it, I've concluded that to be successful I need only trot out Victorian etiquette, pair it with rebellious teen girls, and throw in a dash of somewhat vague Other Realms where a dead woman may or may not be speaking to our heroine. It wasn't terrible, but for true historical fantasy, I'll stick to master writers like Juliet Marillier.

THE WHITE GARDEN/Stephanie Barron/A
Ah, this was a gem of a story by the writer of the Jane Austen mysteries. When an American gardener finds a lost manuscript by Virginia Woolf, she gets more adventure than she bargained for. Reminiscent of POSSESSION (one of my favorite novels of all time), the story moves back and forth in time and asks the question: What if Virginia Woolf left a diary dated the day after she committed suicide?

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE/Seamus McManus/B+
I started this 800 page book back in April when I went to Ireland. It's a huge history that ends with the creation of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but it's strength is in its early history, using stories and poems and traces in old manuscripts to give a look at the Irish long before the English and the Normans and the Vikings. Recommended as a general history, but again, probably not for casual reading.

THE LOST SYMBOL/Dan Brown/C-
Good tension, kept me reading, had the dumbest secret ever that the CIA was trying to protect. Really, really dumb. This thriller abandons the Catholic Church as its subject and takes on the Masons (significantly, in a much more evenhanded and openminded manner). I'll be in Washington D.C. with my family in April, so I'll be on the lookout for the symbols.

HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL/Mittlemark & Newman/B
Pretty much what the title declares--a collection of mistakes by two editors who would be happy to never see any of them again. It's also very funny in its examples and I like being able to say, "Nope, don't do that." (The book I really need is one titled: "How To Write a Book That Every Editor On This Planet Will Want To Publish.")

MONSTER IN THE BOX/Ruth Rendell/A-
A new Inspector Wexford is always to be treasured. I particularly liked this story because we get a look back at Wexford in his early years. One of his first cases involved a man whom he was sure had strangled his neighbor. But there was no evidence. Over the years, there have been other deaths. Now the man has reappeared and Wexford wonders where the next murder will come and if he can ever stop the killer. Tied in with a subplot about a Muslim girl who may or may not be forced into marriage by her family.

HOLY FOOLS/Joanne Harris/B+
Juliet was once an acrobat in 17th-century France who performed before the king. Now she is Soeur Auguste, given refuge in a nunnery five years before when her daughter was born. She has been content in her refuge, but now it is stripped away when her former lover, Guy LeMerle, shows up impersonating a priest. It's a disturbing book in that no one character is wholly to be admired, but Harris paints a vivid picture of mass hysteria and the ways talented men and women can play to the crowds. I kept thinking I didn't like it that much, but I couldn't stop reading.

THE SAVAGE GARDEN/Mark Mills/A
In the 1950s, English student Adam Strickland comes to the Villa Docci to study its sunken garden for his thesis. He's soon caught by the emotions of two deaths--that of Flora 400 years ago, whose husband created the garden in her memory; and that of Emilio, the son of the elderly owner, who was shot in the villa as the Nazis were pulling out of Italy. Adam is entangled by the family and its secrets and that pull exerts on the reader as well. I loved this book and its writing.

THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON/Lauren Groff/A-
Willie Upton (female) comes back to her small town of Templeton in disgrace. Then her mother hands her a challenge--Willie's father is not some unknown hippie, he's a resident of Templeton. Her mother gives her one clue, which leads Willie into an exploration of the town's history and her own family's past. Very intriguing, especially the weaving in of old stories. And the disgrace twist turned out unexpectedly, which is always nice. I will definitely look for Groff's next book.

MICHAEL COLLINS/Margery Forester/A+
A biography of the man who helped bring the Irish Free State into being and was assassinated by his own people because of it. Forester wrote it in the 1960s when there were still plenty of people living who remembered, even worked with, Michael Collins. The book begins with his country childhood, through his years in London, to his return to Ireland and participation in the 1916 Easter Week rising. It was afterward that Collins came to the front of the Irish independence movement. His intelligence network was unbeatable and he engineered the assassination of more than a dozen English intelligent agents on the same day. But he was also a man willing to make peace and recognize when the English had given all they were willing to give. He chose an imperfect treaty rather than continuing war and was killed by Irish Republicans at the age of 32. I have a better understanding now of the Northern Ireland problems, the history of the IRA, and the role of personality in politics.

Friday Five: Thanksgiving Edition

2009-11-27T15:29:00.001-08:00

I don't write much about my family on this blog, because that's not its purpose. But on this Thanksgiving Friday, I have to give thanks for the five most important people in my life.

5. SPENCER

Who wouldn't love that grin? Throw in the fact that he's my baby and you've got a kid calculated to melt Mom's heart. And he comes up with one-liners like this: We were dressed up the other night and a neighbor said, "Wow, Andersens, you're looking sharp tonight." And without a pause, Spencer said, "Yes, we are very pointy tonight."

4. EMMA

My one and only daughter, she's got enough spunk and personality and sheer life force for a half dozen girls. My friends tell me that she's just like me, but I reply that I didn't become brave and self-confident and willing to go my own way until I was in my 30s. Imagine what she'll be doing in twenty years with the huge headstart she's got on knowing herself.

3. JACOB

The picture says it all--classic rock, an independent spirit, and a head full of hair (that we weren't sure we'd ever see again after he spent last year bald from chemotherapy). Jake is the definition of grace under pressure and he will never let anyone tell him who or what he should like. And heaven help you if you insult Taylor Swift in his presence.

2. MATTHEW

The kid who made me a mom. I swear he was starting kindergarten last week and 7th grade two days ago. But the picture gives it away: my oldest is six feet tall, driving, dating, taking college entrance exams and making me proud at the most unexpected moments. There's nothing like watching your child grow towards being an adult and knowing that you're going to like that adult--and not just because he's yours.

1. CHRIS

"If I could choose from every man who breathes on this earth . . . it would all be you." If you know us, you know that Chris is my rock and joy and my still center in the midst of chaos. If you don't know us, you'll have to take it from me on trust: he's the best man I've ever known and I've loved him since I was seventeen.

If I never publish, if I never travel again, if I never even get to read another book in my life . . . just leave me my family and I'll find a way forward.

Love you all.

Good Parenting

2009-11-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

WARNING: if you are under 18, you might disagree with the opinion below. Not that I consider that a good reason not to read--if we only read things we agree with, how boring would that be?

Reasons to watch Castle Monday nights on ABC:

1. It stars Nathan Fillion, formerly Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly (also known as Captain Tightpants.)

2. Nathan Fillion plays a mystery writer, Richard Castle. Why wouldn't I love him?

3. Nathan Fillion, as Richard Castle, is a good dad.

Not because he's single or hip or rich or famous or, well, formerly Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Not solely because his daughter is both endearing and wonderfully grounded (although that does say something about his fictional parenting.)

I'm going to admit something very embarrassing here--I'll understand if you feel the need to turn away and retch.

When I was young and poor and lived with my husband in an apartment in Seattle, staying home with no car and my first baby, I was hooked on Beverly Hills 90210. I would videotape episodes on Monday night and savor them during naptimes later in the week. This only lasted a year or so but nowadays they're on constant re-run on satellite so I've seen pieces here and there when I'm, say, sick or otherwise disinclined to watch anything that requires the use of my brain.

Do you know what really stands out to me now? How self-righteous and arrogant and downright rude the teenagers are to their parents. And the parents take it! Okay, sometimes they lay down the law (like forbidding Brenda to see Dylan after finding out she lied to them and went to Mexico with her boyfriend for the weekend.) And then you get the obnoxious and defiant Brenda who finally brings them to a bargaining position by her tantrums. (Not that I'm denying having to bargain with teenagers--there does come a point when you are no longer physically capable of making your child obey.)

It's not the bargaining that gets to me--it's the attitudes of the teens. Because they are oh, so smart and oh, so rational while their parents are overreacting and need to be brought to see reason. The teens, mind you, never have to be brought to see their parents' point of view. It's a given that the parents are the ones whose minds need to change.

Not pleasant viewing for the mother of teenagers.

Back to Castle: the last weekend in October they aired a Halloween episode (which started with the funniest two minutes ever for fans of Firefly, but I digress) in which Castle's teen daughter, Alexis, gets permission to attend a senior party, with the caveat that she will call her dad if anything at all makes her uncomfortable.

Call she does, when her friend gets very drunk. Castles dashes out and then follows a brief scene that totally made me feel like maybe I'm not the only one who thinks that parents might know a thing or two more than their teens.

Castle: "We've got to call her parents. Give me the number."
Drunk friend: indecipherable muttering
Castle: "What did she say?"
Alexis (his daughter): "It's drunk talk. She says don't call her parents, they'll murder her, let her sleep over. Do we have to call her parents?"
Castle: "We do."
Alexis: "She'll get in so much trouble."
Castle: "Less than if you'd left her there."
Alexis: shoots him a pleading look, the kind that would make most TV dads melt
Castle: "Now."
Alexis finds the number, hands him her phone and he calls.

I hope all my children's friends have parents like that. Because while I have been known to want to--well, not murder my children--but maybe incarcerate for a long period in an empty room with no electronic devices of any sort, I love them desperately and there is nothing they can do that I don't want to know about. Not that I wouldn't get mad if I were the drunk friend's parents--but how on earth am I supposed to help my child if I'm kept in the dark?

Captain Tightpants, you can give me parenting tips anytime.

Friday Five

2009-11-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

Five things I like about being a Writer

5. Writers are always working. Sure, it might look like I'm taking a walk or folding laundry or sitting in a chair looking at a catalog . . . but all of that is mere background to my fictional worlds. Case in point: while flipping through the Acorn Catalog in bed the other night, I came across English witch balls. And suddenly I had a wonderful detail to add to my revisions.

4. I get to spend the majority of my days with people who are confined to my computer and/or my head. Though they might frustrate me no end, there's a limit to the real-world damage they can do. Unlike, say, teenagers.

3. I get to daydream and call it a job.

2. I get to read and call it research.

1. I get to create something that has never before existed. Yes, there are thousands of love stories. Yes, there are thousands of time travel stories. But never before in the history of the world has a girl named Kierra met a spy named Colin in the world of Sorrows Court. That's something to be proud of, no matter what the outcome.

Have a Happy U.S. Thanksgiving!

The Good News . . .

2009-11-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

. . . is that I've finished the first ten chapters of my agent revision.

The bad news is that it's the next fifteen chapters that need the most work.

Good thing it's snowy and cold and perfect for huddling indoors over a computer.

Friday Five

2009-11-13T17:35:00.001-08:00

5. Boo for snow and freezing temperatures. Hooray for boots and sweaters.

4. Is one of my favorite numbers. I have four children. I've completed four novel manuscripts. And Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush is currently #4 on the New York Times bestseller list. (Scroll past pictures books to chapter books.)

3. I love Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pie night . . .

2. (Pie night being the invention of my friend, Katie, who posits that one generally eats too much on Thanksgiving day at the dinner table to fully appreciate the glories of Thanksgiving desserts. So our families have pie night--on the day after Thanksgiving, after putting up Christmas decorations, we get together to watch movies and eat nothing but dessert. Pumpkin, coconut cream, double-layer pumpkin, apple, pumpkin cheesecake. It's the holiday after the holiday.)

1. After finishing season 4 of Supernatural on dvd, I was looking for something new to watch while working out. In the spirit of "everything old is new again", I started Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 'Welcome to the Hellmouth'. And realized anew why Joss Whedon has no equal. Buffy and Xander and Willow in all their sophomore geekiness, with Cordelia just the way she belongs: all cool and shallow rather than the mystic, goddess, Angel-love-interest that made me gag in the later seasons of Angel.

October Books

2009-11-06T13:04:00.001-08:00

CATCHING FIRE/Suzanne Collins/A
I had to pry this sequel to HUNGER GAMES out of my son's hands--it was worth it. Katniss and Peeta are the first joint winners of the Hunger Games ever and now they're on tour to the discontented districts. While playing their lovelorn game for the government, Katniss hurts her best friend and sees how dangerous winning can be. And then the worst happens--she and Peeta are forced back into competition. Who will they betray? Who will they kill? And which one of them will come out alive? Collins really ups the tension and the stakes and I can't wait for the next book.

THE FOUNDING/Cynthia Harrod-Eagles/D
Deadly boring historical about the creation of the Morland family dynasty in Yorkshire in the 1400s. I love a good historical dynasty novel--this wasn't it. I didn't care about any of the characters very much, in spite of all the jumping around in POV, and I especially didn't like the matriarch who held the book together. The time period was the only interesting part--being a Yorkshire family, they had a lot to do with Richard, Duke of York, and his two sons who ruled England, Edward IV and the ill-fated Richard III. But I'll have to find a better story to fully appreciate that background.

THE PLAGUE OF DOVES/Louise Erdrich/C
Further proof that I am not smart enough for literary fiction. An interesting set-up, about a town on the fringe of a Indian reservation, the murder of a family generations before, the lynching of the innocent, and the tendrils of consequence that are still being felt. But I just could not lose myself in the story because I always felt like I was missing symbolism or not appreciating the language sufficiently. My problem, not the book's.

HERESY/Sharon Newman/B-
I used to devour the Catherine LeVendeur mysteries set in 12th-century France, but I've let them slip over the last few years. This one has to do with the son of Heloise and Abelard (a historically real couple) who does a favor for a friend and ends up accused of murder and, like his famous father, heresy. Catherine is still engaging as an educated and strong-minded woman, but the story felt forced on the framework of historical facts. I liked the first three in this series the best, though I'll probably keep reading them just to see how Newman solves the problem of a Christian noblewoman in love with a Jewish merchant.

ARMAGEDDON'S CHILDREN, THE ELVES OF CINTRA, and THE GYPSY MORPH/Terry Brooks/B
I've never read Brooks before, but I enjoyed this trilogy which is a prequel to his famous Shannara books. In a devastated near-future, several groups come together in a race to save a handful of humans before the end of the world. There are Knights of the Word (who control powerful magic) street children who have no one but themselves, Elves who can no longer hide in their corner, demons and once-men who terrorize, and a villain who wants to kill them all off What more do you need?

SO BRAVE YOUNG AND HANDSOME/Leif Enger/A
I loved Enger's debut novel Peace Like a River, and was not disappointed in his second. Set in 1915, failing writer Monte Becket makes friends with Glendon Hale, a former outlaw who decides to set off for Mexico to make amends to the young wife he left long ago. Monte goes with him, but the journey is complicated when a former Pinkerton detective catches Glendon's trail and refuses to let up. Floods, elopement, robbery, and murder leave Monte wondering how he got where he is and whether his disappointing life can be revived. No blurb or review can do this book justice--Enger has the gift of creating characters who walk straight into my heart and make me follow wherever they go. If you haven't read him, read both his novels as quick as you can.

Late, Random, and Sorry

2009-11-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, I haven't been completely idle the last 3 weeks. In fact, I've written many fascinating blog posts in which I expound on my adventures and philosophies and general love of life. Unfortunately for you, all that writing never made it from my head through my fingertips so now you're stuck with me being very sorry and very late and now, just to catch up, very random.

1. You remember that cool thing I was doing that I couldn't tell you about? I did it. And it was cool.

2. And if you don't know what IT was, here you go: IT involved 15 hours of driving in two days with two moms and one six-month-old baby and Diet Coke and wax donuts and Corn Nuts (my husband is now cringing) and late hours of gossip at a hotel and the very best surprise I've ever managed to pull off in my entire life.

I went to Fort Collins, Colorado to see my friend, Becca, at her book launch party. Seriously, I would have driven twice as far for the look on her face when Ginger and I walked into the bookstore. Someone cried. (It actually wasn't me, which is kind of weird since I usually cry at everything.) I heard her read. I heard her talk about writing and the creation of Hush, Hush and I saw her signing a real, actual, physical book that she had written. And I sat there like a mother hen, all proud of this fabulous chick who I've watched grow over the last five years into a masterful writer. And I hoped that someday it will be me on the other side.

3. My talk about mother hens is a meaningful metaphor. Because in all the glory of Becca's night, I had a fairly severe crisis-of-confidence moment. It was when a neighbor of hers sat down next to me and asked, "Are you Becca's mother?"

4. Let's get this straight: Yes, I am older than Becca. By ten years. Which, thank you, is quite enough. And also, I look nothing like her.

5. And one more thing . . . not to sound vain, but usually people seem surprised to find out I have a sixteen-year-old. That is all.

6. I saw U2 in Las Vegas last weekend. Awesome. My husband, our best friends, and Bono. What more could you ask for?

7. Oh wait, this is me at a concert, so obviously "what else" I could ask for is someone drunk who thinks they're being more cheerful than me. Or, in this case, my husband. I had to shove a guy's hand off my husband's shoulders cause he wanted us to be happier. Yeah, touch my husband, that's going to make both of us happy.

8. Cigarettes were not the only thing being smoked in Vegas.

9. You know you're getting old (but not yet old enough to have a 30-year-old daughter) when the crowning moment of the U2 night was beating the traffic out of there.

10. Had our (9th? 10th?) annual Halloween Party Friday night. I love my friends. I love their food. I love their costumes and their laughter and their reminders of what friendship means.

11. Finally a warm night for trick-or-treating. Warm meaning that my 8-year-old didn't have to cover his Luigi costume with a ski coat and I didn't mind walking with him for over an hour.

12. It's November. That, in my world, means writing. You know how I always do my own little version of NaNoWriMo (for always read the last two years)? This year I decided to do the real thing: 50,000 words of a new project in 30 days. Of course, I was a rebel from the start because the NO in NaNoWriMo stands for novel and I didn't plan on writing a novel. I planned to write A Mother's Memoir of Childhood Cancer. (Catchy, huh?) It seemed good timing since October 28th marked one year off treatment, which means only four more years to Cancer Survivor.

13. But then my best-agent-day-in-my-career-to-date that I wrote about 3 weeks ago became my second-best day. Because this week I got a revision request from an agent. That might not sound like much, but trust me--it's a huge deal. It's the last step before signing with an agent. (That last step can, and usually does, take months, and most authors go through multiple agents asking for revisions and then deciding they still don't quite like it enough to make an offer. But it is the last step, and it's what I've been hoping for.)

14. So here I am. For NaNoWriMo, I have to write nearly 1700 words a day to meet 50,000 by the end of the month. But I have an agent--an actual, human agent who WORKS IN NEW YORK--who wants me to fix two points in my story and send it back to her if I'm willing. Let me think . . .

15. Agent wins.

16. So now I'm immersing myself in a printed copy of my manuscript and Irish history books and websites on Napoleon and planning to have a revised story ready to send by Thanksgiving.

17. But I also feel the need to start the memoir.

18. So I have a new November goal: 25,000 words of cancer-mom memoir in one month. That's only half the NaNoWriMo amount, but it will give me a good, long lead into the book.

19. And it will give me an outlet when revisions freak me out. At least in a memoir (first-draft) I don't have to think up what comes next. Or create entirely new characters.

20. Happy November to all--I'm going to start giving thanks now.

Friday Five

2009-10-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

5. My parents are somewhere over the Pacific at this hour, winging their way to Sendai, Japan. They'll be gone 18 months which doesn't seem terribly long. Until I add up and realize I'll be 42 when they come home. And my oldest son will be within weeks of high school graduation. Is that really only 18 months? Seems like it should be years instead.

4. It's cold. I like it better than the hot. And so far the snow has been confined to the mountains where it belongs.

3. The best part of my week is here--deciding what to order in for dinner to enjoy while watching DVDs with my husband. It's our cheap and easy date :)

2. I'm doing something very cool next week. But I can't tell you. Bummer for you. Check back next week.

1. Yesterday was the best agent day of my career thus far. I got a request for the full manuscript from the agent who requested my first three chapters in August, and I got a request for the first three chapters from an agent I queried on Wednesday. (Of course, my Wednesday queries also produced a reject in the record time of ten minutes, but we can shove that one away for now.) I was positively giddy there for a few hours, until I got down to the nasty business of writing a synopsis. I was hoping to escape that, but no such luck. At least I can walk around now and say, all off-hand and casual-like, "Yes, I have one partial and two fulls out with agents."

It's a beginning.

September Books

2009-10-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

A DISH TAKEN COLD/Anne Perry/C
A novella about revenge and mistaken identity during the French Revolution. A good sense of place and the tensions of the time, but the writing didn't really get me into the characters, not enough to really care about them. Only for fans of Perry.

A DARK HORSE/Craig Johnson/A
My sole complaint with this book is that I've now caught up with the series and have to wait for Johnson to write more! Sheriff Walt Longmire goes undercover in this story, trying to clear a woman who insists she murdered her husband. (The fact that he burned her beautiful horses to death inside a barn provides a convincing motive.) But Walt finds no shortage of motives in the man's life, and now his own is in danger since he isn't the most convincing insurance agent around. Write faster, Craig Johnson!

DRUMS, GIRLS, AND DANGEROUS PIE/Sonnenblick/A+
Loved this book. If those three words aren't enough--then here are some more. Steven Alper thinks 8th grade, drumming in the All-City Jazz Band, and figuring out girls are his biggest problems. Then his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey, is diagnosed with leukemia. Here's why I love this book: it's honest, it's funny, and it's as real in depicting one family's struggle to endure as any book I've read. I loved it, my once-cancer child (now in 8th grade himself) loved it, and his little sister (who knows something, along with her other two brothers, about being the forgotten child in the middle of chemo and radiation) loved it. Read it!

THE SIBYL IN HER GRAVE/Sarah Cauldwell/B+
Hilary Tamar is a profesor of law at Cambridge. He (or she?) keeps in close touch with former students. One of them is worrying about letters from her aunt, detailing an obnoxious new (spiritualist) neighbor, while another is trying to advise a bank director on which of his subordinates is up to his neck in fraud. When the obnoxious neighbor is murdered, the two cases blend together until only Hilary Tamar can bring all the pieces together. The strength of this book is its wit, language, and a tone. The characters and plot serve in the background, but it was a fun read for a day or two.

FUNERAL MUSIC/Morag Joss/B+
Sara Selkirk, world-famous cellist, has come to Bath after a spectacular collapse in a full concert hall. Now she gives lessons to a local police officer, which gets tricky when she discovers a body in the Roman baths. The director of museums seems to have lived a blameless life, so why did someone knife him in the back? Sara, like all good amateur sleuths, goes places she shouldn't and asks questions that get her into trouble. A decent mystery except that I didn't particularly like Sara, especially by the end of the book. Still, I'll likely go on to the second in the series.

LIVING WITNESS/Jane Haddam/A-
To keep out of the way of manic wedding plans, Gregor Demarkian escapes Philadelphia for a small town caught in the media's eye. As a trial looms over the issue of intelligent design vs. evolution, an old woman has been attacked and lies in a coma. Gregor has no shortage of enemies, but a great shortage of reasonable suspects. But when has reason been necessary for a murder? I enjoyed this for the reason I enjoy all Haddam's books--the ability to bring various, extraordinarily different, characters to vivid life and help me understand them all. Plus, Gregor finally marries Bennis :)

AMMIE, COME HOME/Barbara Michaels/A
A re-read of a classic Gothic ghost story. Ruth Bennett is trying to entertain her niece, Sara, by holding a seance in her historic Georgetown home. But something dark is awakened that night, and its focus is Sara. Now it's a race to find out the history and the truth before Sara is consumed. Though published in the 60s, this book holds up amazingly well with very little to date it, at least in the characters and their behavior. Highly recommended for the spooky months of autumn.

A CARRION DEATH/Michael Stanley/A-
Detective Kubu (a nickname meaning hippopotamus) is called from the capitol of Botswana to the Kalahari reserve when human bones are discovered. They're from a white man--but no white men seem to be missing. Kubu's investigation leads through the boardroom of a powerful diamond and cattle company to the grubby schemes of a blackmailer. At the heart is the story of twins whose father died in Botswana and who have returned from England to stake their claim to his company. Kubu is a wonderful detective and man, and this Botswana mystery creates a vivid portrait of the country, one more complex and layered than others. Some of the passages took me right back to my visits to Africa and I will definitely read more of Detective Kubu.

MASTER OF THE DELTA/Thomas Cook/A-
In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch is the last member of an old plantation family who's teaching at the local high school. In his course on evil, he's shocked to discover that one of his students is the son of the Coed Killer--a man who was killed by a prisoner before he could come to trial. Jack encourages the boy to write a paper about his father, hoping to eradicate the past and help spring the boy to a brighter future. But old attitudes die hard and Jack isn't as disinterested as he thinks. This is one of Cook's best books, about the good deeds we do and the complicated motives that lurk beneath.

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH/Edith Wharton/A
At the turn of the last century in New York, Lily Bart is teetering on the edge of society. Twenty-nine, single, and poor, she is trained for nothing but being decorative. She uses those skills to try and ensnare a rich husband, but when she comes close, her independence rebels and ruins her chances. The story (entirely mirth-less, I assure you) follows Lily down her increasing slope of lost chances, vengeful friends, and not-quite-strong-enough lovers. It gets an A because it's a brilliant satire of a gilded society that uses people ruthlessly and casts them away when they're no longer needed.

A BROOM OF ONE'S OWN/Nancy Peacock/C
I picked this up solely for the title (fans of Virginia Woolf will know why.) This writer of several literary novels (none of which I've read or even heard of), spent much of her life as a housecleaner to support her writing habit. In these essays, she combines the writing life with the cleaning life. It was okay, but the stories of insensitive clients and their bad habits began to wear thin quickly.

THE GARGOYLE/Andrew Davidson/B+
The story opens with the unnamed narrator burning in a fiery car crash. During the painful months that follow in hospital, he meets a mental patient named Marianne Engel who claims that they are lovers from medieval Germany and that she's been waiting for 700 years to find him again. Marianne tells hims stories about their lives before, woven between the narrator's recovery. He really starts to worry about her when she claims that God has granted her an end to her long centuries of life when she finishes carving a certain number of gargoyles. And that number is getting smaller each week . . .I'm not sure if I exactly liked this book, but it was powerful and skillfully structured between past and present. It is occasionally graphic, particularly when the narrator describes his previous days as a coke-addled porn star and filmmaker, but his relationship with Marianne and his disfiguring burns alter him. A story not easily forgotten, at any rate.

Friday Five

2009-10-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

1. Manuscript sent. Now in the nerves-and-nausea stage.

2. A moment of personal trivia that makes those over forty say "Are you kidding me?" and those under twenty say "I don't know what you're talking about": before last night, I had never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Now that oversight has been rectified. Not only have I now seen the film, I saw it at the Sundance Resort (which Robert Redford began the same year as the movie came out), and viewed the actual 35 mm print of the film that belongs to Redford himself. If that wasn't cool enough, I really liked the movie.

3. My husband and I spent two nights at the Sundance resort and finally, after 24 hours, were able to get beyond the "fire lit" stage to the "fire continues burning" stage. At one point, my husband said, "I don't understand how the forest ever catches on fire." Campers we are not.

4. I'm coming to the end of Angel Season Five. I will be happy when it's over--I'm getting tired of one disaster after another. It's reminding me of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton which we read for book club this month. (And there's a title that's misleading: there isn't a single moment of mirth in the story of decorative Lily Bart in early 1900s New York.) Frankly, by around page 200 I wanted to scream at Lily, "Just lie down and die already!" Kind of what I'm feeling about Angel right now.

5. Becca Fitzpatrick will be doing three book signings right here in Utah later this month for Hush, Hush. One on Friday, October 23rd and two on Saturday, October 24th. Follow this link and read down the list of dates on the right-hand side of the page for details. I will be driving back from seeing U2 in Las Vegas Friday night, but plan to make it to the signing at 3:00 p.m. Saturday. And don't think you can't go if you don't know her. Tell her you know me! It might not get you anything, but I do promise that she knows my name :)

Friday Five

2009-09-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

1. My husband's home. It's always nice to say that after he's been gone a week.

2. I'm going shopping tomorrow. Shoes and skirts. Might even be better than tea and books.

3. I've been hugged twice in two days by my 16-year-old. And told that he loves me. Do you think he's contracted a fatal illness I don't know about yet? (I'm sure it's entirely unconnected to the fact that I gave him money.)

4. Finally settled on Halloween costumes. After seven years, I do have quite the tradition to uphold in this neighborhood. Let's just say a certain young starship captain will be making my heart beat fast beneath my communications uniform.

5. I'm finished. I spent the last four hours reading my manuscript straight through, all 317 pages. Now I'm going to let my mind settle for 48 hours, fix a few obvious flaws, and then send it off on Monday. Wish me luck!

Accounting

2009-09-20T19:11:00.001-07:00

I did not buy one single book. I bought three. (Well, actually, I bought eight, but five of them were for my daughter.) I'm sorry, but if you want me to not buy books, then you're just going to have to blindfold me whenever I enter a bookstore. How could I possibly be expected to resist picking up a novel titled THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG?

The energy for this book-buying spree came from tea beforehand, in which I did not have scones with clotted cream, nor did I have a chicken and leek pasty. I did have shortbread, accompanied by a macaroon and preceded by a swooningly wonderful ploughman's lunch. A fresh triangle of bread, crumbly Vermont cheddar cheese, Wensleydale and cranberry cheese, two pickled onions that stayed firmly on the plate at all times, and two thick slices of ham. Why isn't Elizabeth's tea shop next door?

And speaking of accountability, I'm throwing myself on the collective humiliation power of my blog readers (all 3 and a half of you). Here's my pledge: by Friday my revisions will be finished. Completed. Done.

Or something very bad will happen.

How's that for motivation?

Friday Five

2009-09-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

1. I'm happy to report that my to-be-read shelves have shrunk. All the way down to forty-four unread books. I am absolutely, under no circumstances, allowed to buy another book until it has gone down to twenty-five. Except that I need to get the book for couple's book club. And I will be at The King's English tomorrow. Maybe just one. (And anyone who believes I've ever bought a single book in my life obviously doesn't know me at all.)

2. Running leaves my stomach muscles sore. In protest, I expect. It's only a matter of time before they rise up in utter rebellion and convince me that looking three months' pregnant isn't the worst thing in the world.

3. I'm taking my daughter to tea tomorrow. Good thing I still have fifteen hours to decide what I want. Scones with clotted cream? Shortbread? Chicken and leek pasty? All of the above? (That might quiet my protesting stomach muscles.)

4. 260 pages down on my revision, just over 50 to go. And he hasn't even kissed her yet. Can that possibly be right?

5. Sunny Septembers are all well and good, but could we possibly knock the temperature down from the high 80s to the high 70s? Honestly, you'd think the weather didn't understand it was autumn.

HUSH, HUSH Pre-view

2009-09-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

In twenty-nine days, HUSH,HUSH hits bookstores everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. This is not a whimper, slide in under the radar, hope for the mediocre release. This is a hit them hard, ramp up the excitement, plan for the best and more release.

And it's all for my writing friend, Becca Fitzpatrick.

I first met Becca at a group night held at our writing teacher's home. We were taking separate sections of his continuing education writing class and he wanted his students to see how a writing group works in person. So we dutifully trotted over with 2-3 manuscript pages in hand, hoping we didn't humiliate ourselves too thoroughly. My pages were from the Victorian mystery novel that was my first. Becca . . . well, that's Becca's story and she'll have to tell it if she feels so inclined :)

We didn't meet again in person for almost five years. But those years were filled with our online group, in which I first met and fell in love with Patch, the bad-boy hero of HUSH, HUSH.

Of course, it wasn't called HUSH, HUSH at the time. And Patch had nothing supernatural about him, except possibly his wicked smile. And the female star of the novel had a different name and, well, you get the picture. HUSH, HUSH and Becca have both come a long way since then.

Technically, I suppose I could have offered a review of HUSH, HUSH at virtually any time in the last five years. That's how many times I've read it, or versions of it. And if all you want is a one-sentence review of the book, here it is:

No matter how often I read the manuscript, I always picked it up the next time with the same shivery sureness that I was going to read something wonderful.

But if you'd like a slightly longer review, here are my Top Five Reasons Why I Love HUSH, HUSH (and not one of them is that I happen to know the author!)

1. Nora Grey
Being that this novel is told in first-person, the storyteller/heroine must be engaging. Nora is. She's smart, independent, vulnerable, and with a store of wicked comebacks that I wish I could come up with. She's never passive and sometimes reckless, but never in the dreaded TSTL category (Too Stupid To Live). She's endearingly a teenage girl, in a way that makes me remember what it's like to be attracted to someone you know is no good for you (although my object was a long-haired drama student and not a fallen angel). I cheered for Nora, and feared for her, and was proud of her even when my heart was breaking at the end. You can't ask for more in a heroine.

2. Patch
Sigh.
Patch is the boy that no mother ever wants to meet, but almost every girl wishes she could. He's dark. He's mysterious. He's intense. He's funny. He's annoying. And yes, he's hot. It's tricky walking the line of bad boy in a YA novel, but Patch (with Fitzpatrick's genius) walks that line with ease. I always felt that, like Nora, I had no idea what he might do next. I was sure that he'd done bad things. But I was also, irrationally, sure that he wouldn't hurt Nora. There's more to him than meets the eye, and Fitzpatrick is brilliant at shading Patch's character so expertly that you don't have to know the details to be drawn to Patch like Nora is.

3. Dialogue
All writers have innate strengths. Fitzpatrick's is dialogue. She is a master of wickedly funny, writing lines that just beg to be quoted. That's not to say she doesn't have other strengths, but I settle into her exchanges between Nora and Patch with a particular kind of pleasure. It's a gift, and she has it in spades.

4. Pacing
A writer once said that the way to properly pace a novel is to "cut out all the boring bits." It's harder than you might think, but Fitzpatrick pulls it off. There are no serious lulls in this book, no stretch of pages where I wondered "When is something going to happen?" That's not to say that it proceeds at a steady breakneck pace, but that the scenes and transitions are beautifully constructed to keep you moving from one to the next. There is no easy place to set this book down, even when you know what's coming next. So just plan to have a good block of time to read, because you're not going to want to stop. And once you approach the climax, you're not even going to want to breathe.

5. Characters
Apart from Nora and Patch, this book sparkles with fascinating characters. From Nora's best friend Vee who's on a hilarious color-wheel diet to the young and pretty school counselor to the villain who's not fully revealed until the end, this book is alight with people you'd want (or maybe not) to meet and certainly can't forget. There are no filler characters, no placeholders, everyone has something to do and does it memorably. I, for one, will never forget the homeless woman who likes Nora's hat.

Those are my top five, though by no means are they the only reasons I love the book. Who do I think should read it? Well, obviously everyone, but practically speaking I'd recommend HUSH, HUSH to fans of YA, fans of nothing-is-as-it-seems thrillers, fans of complicated romance and complex mythologies playing out in our own world.

And to say one thing about the enormous elephant in the room--yes, it sounds similar to TWILIGHT. Forbidden love, tortured hero, heroine in danger, paranormal meets contemporary teen.

HUSH, HUSH is better. TWILIGHT tells a wonderful story, one that gripped me when I first read the books, but it was a temporary effect that did not last through a second reading. Not only does Becca Fitzpatrick have a gripping storyline, she has the skill to hold it together beyond a first, emotional response.

Twenty-nine days to go . . . pre-order it now.

Friday Five

2009-09-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

1. My oldest son is not only driving to school several days a week, he is attending his first date dance tomorrow. Since when am I old enough to have a 6-foot-tall child going to Homecoming?

2. Instead of one ten-year-old, I am mothering three ten-year-olds for the next ten days. That makes six children total if you're counting. Not to mention the hungry teenagers that swarm like locusts, leaving mass destruction of foodstuffs in their wake.

3. 200 pages down, roughly 100 to go in my novel revision. I'm struggling with how to make a fencing scene more dramatic, how to make a villain less obvious, and how to get the heroine back to her century with the possibly murderous love interest in tow. I'm beginning to think fictional characters are no more easy to boss around than flesh and blood children.

4. I'm still searching for the perfect shoes to celebrate the release of HUSH, HUSH. Okay, to be completely honest, I'm still searching for the perfect shoes that cost less than three hundred dollars to celebrate the release of HUSH, HUSH. Becca, I love you, but I'm not buying the red leather boots until I have an agent of my own.

5. Good news at Jacob's Journey

SFP

2009-09-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

Or: Shameless Friend Promotion

HUSH, HUSH is coming. Which everyone who knows me is hearing about ad nauseam. But I've got a great link for you. Barnes and Noble runs a First Look Book Club online, where certain readers are given advance copies of a highly anticipated book and then given a place to ask the author questions. It's going on right now and I just spent the last half hour losing myself in discussions and every now and then going "Holy cow! I know this writer."

Here's a link to a particularly cool bit, an interview with Becca's editor from Simon and Schuster, Emily Meehan.

Check it out

And stay tuned for my review of the ARC, which I plan to post on September 13, one month before the book's release date.

August Books

2009-09-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

THE LANDOWER LEGACY & SEVEN FOR A SECRET/Victoria Holt/B
This was my indulgence for the month, an orgy (can it be an orgy with only two?) of my favorite Gothic novelist from the long-ago days of my adolescence. Her writing is not perfect, and the style is somewhat dated, but Holt was a master of the 19th-century strong-willed woman falling in love with the arrogant and mysterious man who has secrets that come between them. Really, that's pretty much the plot of every one of her novels, but I don't care. They make me feel young and romantic and instilled in me a great desire to wake up one morning on a windswept moor or a wild coastline or in turn of the last century London. Now I'll put these away for my daughter to read in a few years.

20TH CENTURY GHOST/Joe Hill/B
Stephen King's son is following dad's footsteps as a horror writer. This collection of short stories covered lots of paranormal ground, from the title ghost to a new meaning for the word "bubble boy" to a disturbed child who makes creepy labyrinths in the basement. Intriguing is the best word I can come up with--some of the stories I'm pretty sure I didn't get, but I was fascinated by the twists and turns of Hill's imagination.

A COOK'S TOUR/Anthony Bourdain/A-
The sequel to KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, an account of his first trips around the world filming NO RESERVATIONS. It's like his previous book--profane, funny, lots of drinking but even more food, from three-star restaurants to open-air kitchens that he had to drive through armies to get to. Recommended for fans of Bourdain.

THE KEEP/Jennifer Egan/D
I didn't give this book an F for two reasons: first, because I did finish it and second, because it had some good ideas and decent setting. But the rest was a mess of literary pretension that would only have worked if I cared. And I didn't. So skip this novel, in spite of its enticing cover and the promise of dark secrets in an old castle . . . the story plays second fiddle to the language and ideas and that will never work for me.

JULIA CHILD, A LIFE/Laura Shapiro/A
Picked up the afternoon I saw the film JULIE AND JULIA (based on the book I read a couple years ago). This is a brief but satisfying biography of Julia Child, from her childhood in California to her work with the OSS during WWII to her marriage and introduction to cooking in France. For someone who does not cook, I seem to be having an affair with cooks and their lifestyles recently.

THE STONE DIARIES/Carol Shields/C
I'm waiting for lightning to strike, as it surely must for my presumption in giving a less than perfect grade to a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. But it just didn't do much for me. It was sweet enough, this episodic biography of a woman's life in the 20th century. But after the first chapter, which details Daisy's tragic birth to a woman who didn't realize she was pregnant, I just couldn't summon up the energy to care that much. Apparently I am too simple for the likes of literary Pulitzer Prize winners (except that I loved, loved, loved ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner . . . so maybe I should do a post pondering the differences.)

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE/Alan Bradley/A
A charming and original mystery introducing 11-year-old Flavia and her eccentric family in 1950s Britain. First a dead raven is found on their doorstep, prompting her father to lock himself in his study. Second, a man is found dead in the cucumber patch. Third, Flavia's father is arrested. What comes next is Flavia's determined attempts to find out what happened and protect her inexpressive but necessary father from prison. The voice carries this story with a whimsy that gave me pleasure and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

THE CRAZY SCHOOL/Cornelia Read/B+
The second mystery featuring Madeleine Dare, a 1980s twenty-something caught in a recession and recovering from being brought up by parents who mixed debutante society and hippie freedom. Maddy is working at a school for troubled teens when she gets caught in a tragic double-suicide that she thinks was actually murder. The director of the school is either tremendously clever or frighteningly deluded, his deputy is having a nervous breakdown, the students are revolting and the teachers are a mix of automatons and rebels. I didn't like this one quite as well as the first (A FIELD OF DARKNESS), being a little put off my Maddy's strident personal and political opinions, but I will read the third whenever it appears.

SWEET PROMISED LAND/Robert Laxalt/A+
Written fifty years ago, a beautiful memoir by the son of a Basque shepherd who came to Nevada in his late teens and is finally going home to the Pyrenees after decades away. I keep coming back to that word beautiful because I can't think of a better one to describe this story of immigrants and the West and loneliness and homecomings. Highly recommended.

BLEEDING HEART SQUARE/Andrew Taylor/B+
Taylor is the author of one of my favorite mystery trilogies: THE ROTH TRILOGY. This one was different and a little bloodier, but still wonderfully written and compelling. In 1930s London, Lydia Langstone leaves her husband and ends up sharing her father's rooms at Bleeding Heart Square. There's a mysterious man watching the house, an uncomfortably powerful and reticent landlord, an owner who vanished four years ago, the rise of Oswald Mosley and the British Fascists, and a string of packages containing bloody hearts. But the intricate story never comes apart, for Taylor weaves together storylines like a master and managed to surprise me in the very last chapter.

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS/A
The first and most acclaimed of Maya Angelou's autobiographies. Written forty years ago, it was something new in the field, a personal history that used fictional techniques like dialogue and scenes and unity of theme. But mostly, it's a powerful story of growing up poor, black, and female in the years before and during WWII. Angelou creates the people of her childhood lovingly and powerfully, especially her brother, Bailey, and her grandmother, Annie Henderson. One I think every adult should read sometime in their life.

A Word About Concerts

2009-08-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

I am no stranger to concerts. And I'm not talking about my own exceedingly well-spent youth, which was much more likely to involve Bach than the B-52s. The wildest I got in my teens was seeing Kenny Loggins perform. No, my concert education has come at the hands of my two teenage sons, and it has been most eclectic.

In the last two years, I've been to bands I've never heard of in places where I was afraid to touch anything and among people whose gender I couldn't always determine. I've propped myself against walls and entertained myself with a plethora of unusual sights and sounds and even (mostly) enjoyed myself. I like live performances, whatever the genre. They have an energy and excitement that's contagious whether it's Miley Cyrus (okay, that concert wasn't with my boys, but with their younger sister) or U2 (and that concert was for me and my husband--but you get the picture.)

I've never experienced anything like last night.

My second son (13) is a classic rock and roll kid. ACDC, Iron Maiden, Kiss . . . you get the picture. Probably better than I do, lifelong geek that I am. For his birthday, I bought two tickets to see Def Leppard at an outdoor venue about an hour from our house. I did this knowing full well that my husband would be out of town on the day and it would fall to me to attend. No problem, I thought. I'm getting to be a veteran.

But apparently not enough of a veteran. I don't know what the difference was. The outdoor venue, maybe? Although I've enjoyed concerts in a cramped indoor space that had toxic toilets merely from standing fifty feet away and smelling them, I'd never before joined 13,000 people on a lawn. It was nice, actually, especially during the two opening bands (Cheap Trick and Poison--and I must say Brett Michaels is a name and a voice I know from my teens) because the sunlight was enough for me to read a good deal of the time.

But as darkness came on and people began cramming around the blankets on the lawn, things got a little cozy. One guy had to keep positioning himself between his wife and me so that she wouldn't dance backwards into me.

Abd by the time darkness came, people had also been drinking for quite a while. Don't get me wrong--unless you're my child, I'm not going to dispute your over-age right to drink. Have at it. But do you really have to have at it to the point that you're slapping a stranger's butt because she's not dancing the way you want her to?

Seriously. Butt slapped. Twice. By the same person, actually, but not in a row. It was like a half hour apart and it's not like she was hanging around me the whole time. Yes, that's right, it was a she. My husband can breath easy now. But let me tell you, she slapped hard.

It was also a woman (the erratic dancing woman mentioned above) who grabbed my chin in her hand at one point and commanded, "Cheer up!"

I was perfectly cheerful. I could see my son ten feet in front of me, dancing and loving his night (and his mother), plus I was working out some knotty character problems in my novel rewrite. Why wouldn't I be cheerful?

But (and this is for you, Chris) to be completely honest, there was a man involved in this odd night. I was standing up, moving a little to Def Leppard but not, you know, shaking anything too hard (that's a dangerous proposition at my age) when suddenly a guy is facing me. A twenty-something goodlooking guy, but that's neither here nor there. He apparently felt my movement was some sort of invitation, but his movements were a lot more, hmmmmm, flexible than mine. In the pelvic region. And I'm standing there trying to ignore him and thinking what horrors my teenagers would feel if they could see this. And also, let's be truthful, just the tiniest bit flattered that he would bother.

But not flattered enough to join him in his more intensive dancing. I shook my head in a universal gesture of "Not interested" and that's when he offered me a beer. Or, to be precise, he offered me one of the two half-empty cups of beer he had (one in each hand--and yet he didn't spill them while he danced. Impressive.) At which point I decided my honor was on the line. Head shaking hadn't done it, so it was time for direct and to the point.

"Go away," I said. And he did, but after a last, somewhat mournful glance, as though he was genuinely sorry not to dance with me. It might have touched my heart if I thought there was any chance he would remember it in the morning.

After that, there was more butt-slapping and a stare-down with a guy who thought I was too serious and all in all a bunch of people who seemed to think I was way too uptight and it was their job to loosen me up.

But, just like cheerful, I was perfectly loose. Enjoying myself even, in my own way. I don't know what it was about me that screamed, "Old lady who doesn't know how to have fun and we must teach her." Why did they even care? Personally, I don't see much fun in drinking until you fall over or dropping cigarette butts onto other people's blankets or shaking what you've got at every stranger in the vicinity, but you didn't see me running around knocking beer out of people's mouths and shoving books into their hands so they could have fun.

Ah, well. As a sidenote, it was a great place to boost my opinion of myself in terms of just about everything--health habits, diet choices, fashion, skin care, hair care, general hygiene, those sort of things.

In fact, at one point I considered what Tim Gunn, my favorite gentleman and fashion expert, would say if he were there. He has been known to emit shrieks of horror at denim jumpers, after all. Regretfully, I concluded that I couldn't wish him there because, honestly, it would have killed him dead.

Now tell me that I didn't have fun :)

I Didn't See THAT Coming

2009-08-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

Picture me enjoying silence.

Picture me jumping a foot off my chair when my house is invaded a full two hours before the end of the school day.

Picture me wondering how to turn back time so my high-school junior can't drive home for lunch.

Sigh. Not of pleasure.

Why I Love Today

2009-08-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

1. It's the first day of school.

Done.

(Really, need I say anymore? It's been eleven weeks of non-stop teenagers/kids/movies/computers/xBox/food around my house. So as my husband lovingly said this morning: "In the words of your mother--get the heck out of my house.")

What's not to love? Lower grocery bills, silence, schedules, silence, earlier bed times, silence, writing without interruption, silence . . .

--insert sigh of pleasure--

Oh, and also, Project Runway returns tonight.

Life does not get any better.