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Beryl: Day 6

[Original post on this date: Back in May when we lost power, it was restored on the sixth day. I remember hoping we’d never be without power for six days again.

Be careful what you wish for, right? Because we have no power and it’s just about to become seven days. ]

Another strong contender for a Mary Stewart favorite, this book has so many things I love that I even forced Tom to sit and listen to me elaborate on them. It also has one of the most touching epilogues I’ve ever read in a novel.

A circus in Vienna, a horse with a great backstory, and a strong leading man with a smart, interesting wife. I remember Greg and I once discussing how easy it would be to rewrite this using the Internet in place of the movie reel that kicks things off.

The novel is much more appealing than everyone’s debris piles. Tom and I took a walk around the neighborhood today and he got some photos with his phone that will probably end up on this website one day. His photos are ALSO better than debris piles.

One street over, we saw some power guys from a company in West Virginia that travels throughout the country to help with disaster recovery. When we talked to them, they’d already checked out the tangled tree at our fence line and it was on their list. This is the first contact we’ve had with anyone about repairs. We’re reluctant to feel hopeful, though, because some repair dates in our area are as far out as the nineteenth.

Beryl: Day 4

[Original post on this date. Still no power. A thunderstorm cooled things off a little, but near 7 pm, it’s steamy.]

So much litter from the trees covering the yard. You may not be able to see it, but a falling tree limb was caught on one of the power lines, and Beryl’s winds did a nice job of twisting it up in a second line and then letting it rest on yet more lines. We think that’s the point when we lost power. When that transformer blows, it usually takes out five houses. Originally, that was the case, and most of our neighbors still had power.

But on Tuesday (the second day), wind or rain continued the chaos and our neighbors lost power, too. None of us had any idea when we might get help.

Nice title on today’s comfort read.

I enjoyed it with popcorn. Grateful for a gas oven/stovetop, because I prefer my popcorn made the old-fashioned way in any case.

Beryl: Day 3

[Original post on this date. Remain without power. Will add more to Beryl posts when power is restored.]

Today’s first comfort read from Mary Stewart was Rose Cottage. I’m sure I read this one, though it was like reading it for the first time. There was a sort of twist to it that reminds me of an important plot point in the Neverending Saga. I let the readers know pretty quickly (second novel) what most of the characters don’t know. Mary Stewart saves hers for the very end after teasing the readers with suspense.

Speaking of cottages, I dragged some big tree limbs and a lot of other branches off of Debby’s patio. As a result, she’s starting to make Fairy Cottage look a little more normal.

The daily showers are bringing the temperatures down a little. That’s more helpful than you can imagine unless you’ve experienced Houston in July.

My second comfort read was the Mary Stewart novel that used to be Debby’s favorite (may still be), Touch Not The Cat. A big storm figures into this novel, too. Timely.

Tiny Tuesday!

During May’s power outage, I colored every day during the sunlight hours. Coloring gave me the opportunity to think of my characters and what I wanted to write when I could get back on the Internet and my computer.

I was feeling way more stress and anxiety during this weather event and its power outage. For the first time, I decided to take my anxiety meds, though only in half-doses. Just an attempt to take the edge off.

I also opted to read instead of color, choosing comfort books. I stuck with one of my favorite authors since I was a teenager (my mother, sister, and I all shared and devoured these novels). I’ve reread my favorite Mary Stewart books many times, so I decided to begin with books I don’t remember reading at all, but if I did, it was only once.

First up on Tuesday: Thornyhold. Not so much her usual romantic suspense, this one had a little more magic, a fun change from a small paperback.

Sunday Sundries

Today I hope to conclude the bookmarks discussion prompted by Mark L. It’s a shame he’s unable to see these posts at present due to various technical issues. I miss his comments and look forward to interacting with him again soon, both here and on his online journal.

These are the rest of the bookmarks I found inside books on the living room shelves. The first batch includes books I shelved unread (I don’t actually keep a TBR pile because I wouldn’t know where to stack it). I put bookmarks in them as little flags to help me find them when I’m looking for something to read. These are on my music shelves.

Joe Nick Patoski’s Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. I very much look forward to reading this when I’m ready for another biography. (I think the most recent three I read are on loan to Lynne: one each on Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mellencamp, and Bruce Springsteen.) Willie’s bookmark advertises the animal rescue group Scout’s Honor Rescue. This was the organization to whom Lynne turned over two dogs she found tied to a fire hydrant on her way home from work one night. The poodle mix, Curly, was adopted immediately. When she took the chihuahua, Paco, to an adoption event, she realized she couldn’t let him go and adopted him herself. He was part of her family for years before crossing the Rainbow Bridge. I adored that little guy.

More Scouts Honor memories: Tim fostered many dogs for the group (Tom and I fostered less than a handful). Pixie was Tim’s first foster fail and became Rex’s “little sister.” Later, someone reached out to Lindsey about a stray dog living in a parking garage and being cared for by several people. The property owner was going to call a kill shelter to pick her up. Scout’s Honor agreed to take her into their adoption program if Lindsey could catch her, and Tim agreed to foster her. That dog was Penny, who became Tim’s second foster fail and Rex’s second little sister. All three lived great lives with Tim, bringing much joy to friends from The Compound, Doll House, Houndstooth Hall, RubinSmo Manor, Fox Den, Fairy Cottage, and Green Acres/Half Acre Wood. Rex, Pixie, and Penny are reunited with one another and all their dog and cat buddies at the Rainbow Bridge.

That’s a bookmark for the Timothy James Beck novel I’m Your Man in George Plasketes’s biography Warren Zevon: Desperado of Los Angeles. It’s not his only bio waiting for me, and I suspect these were moved to the pile after I read Crystal Zevon’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon.

The other bio is Nothing’s Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon by C.M. Kushins. The bookmark inside the Kushins book is from Garden District Bookshop in New Orleans. I didn’t buy the book there, but I’ve purchased others from them during various Saints and Sinners festivals, and anything New Orleans-related seems like a good bookmark for the untamed spirit of Zevon.

Somewhat related to New Orleans (if you read long enough, you’ll get the connection)…

I initially became aware of writer Mark Doty thanks to my friend James, who gave me one of Mark’s memoirs and invited me to attend a Mark Doty reading and booksigning with him back in the mid-nineties.

I continued to go to appearances Mark made in Houston. From one of those, there are two bookmarks in this copy of My Alexandria: Poems By Mark Doty. One is from Brazos Bookstore, which is almost certainly where I went to hear him read from the book in 1998 and had him sign it afterward.

The second bookmark is from Twelve Voices: University of Houston Creative Writing Program & Imprint, Inc. Doty was the John and Rebecca Moores Professor in the graduate program at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program for ten years.

Above are more books from his appearances. All are signed, and some are inscribed with specific messages based on our conversations.

Once, I admitted to Mark that a few years earlier (before he was part of their faculty), I’d applied to U of H’s MFA program in Creative Writing. I felt driven to do so by my late friend Steve’s plea that I create fiction from my experiences with the HIV/AIDS community and not let my friends’ stories be forgotten. I’d tried, with very little success, to do that, and wondered if a writing program might help me find my voice.

I knew what a longshot it was. From their own site, the program advises, Admission to our creative writing program is extremely competitive, with up to 20 new students across the two genres selected each year from the hundreds of applications received from around the world. I’d long been out of the academic world, and I had no outstanding writing samples to submit with my application. I was disappointed, but not surprised, not to be accepted into the program.

From then on, my inscriptions from Mark in his books always included encouragement and best wishes for my writing. And then, in a most unexpected way, I did find a voice for telling those stories when I began doing a fun writing exercise with my friends Timothy, Timmy, and Jim. I could recognize the spirit, humor, and sadness of the friends I lost and their larger community in what I was writing with them. When we had a draft of a first novel that grew out of that exercise, I began sending it out and got dozens of rejections. I shared that information with Mark at a signing in 1999 for his memoir Firebird, telling him I was happy to be writing but sad that the writing wasn’t finding a home. This is what he wrote when he signed his book that night.

Mark Doty. For Becky, who will be persistent–9/99 Houston.

Because of that, I decided not to give up on behalf of the entire TJB team. Timothy and I both read a first novel by another writer and agreed that his tone and subject were similar to what we were writing. It seemed worth reaching out to that author’s agent, who submitted the manuscript to Kensington, and all that writing and submitting ultimately turned into the five Timothy James Beck novels. Persistence can definitely pay off. Thank you, Mark Doty.

I’ve also had the pleasure of interacting with Mark at Saints and Sinners literary festivals in New Orleans. At one of those, I went to a panel where he had his attendees do a writing exercise by giving us a prompt. What I wrote gave me a scene I hoped to use in a Becky Cochrane contemporary romance novel if the publisher wanted a third, but my editor wasn’t enthusiastic about my third Coventry idea (I believe it was titled A Coventry Homecoming). Last year, I modified what I wrote during Mark’s panel and included it in the sixth novel of the Neverending Saga. Hold on to your scribblings, writers, you never know when you may find a place for them. And published or unpublished, NEVER STOP WRITING. (I have to remind myself of this constantly.)

I know with certainty that I’ve read this Louise Penny book, although it has a bookmark in it. I think that little angel was probably another bookmark that belonged to my mother and remained tucked inside the novel even after I finished reading it. Louise Penny is among my favorite authors and I’m up-to-date on all her novels. Except…

Recently, Tom and I were talking about the novel Bill Clinton cowrote with author James Patterson. I bought it, read it, liked it. (They wrote a second, but I don’t have it. Yet.) Tom asked me if I’d ever read the novel Hillary Clinton cowrote in 2021 with Louise Penny. And I said, “I’m pretty sure I got it from Murder By The Book, but I haven’t read it yet.”

Sure enough, there it was on the bookshelf with its “flag,” a bookmark from Detering Book Gallery, a fantastic bookstore, now closed, that was managed by our friend Steve V. No bibliophile who experienced Detering could ever forget what a joy it was. This political thriller would be a strong contender for my next read except that every.single.day, I’m heartsick because of politics.

The Clinton/Penny book is on what I guess could be called my executive branch shelf, where I spotted another book with a bookmark.

Both books were published in 2005, and I don’t remember if I read President Carter’s, but I definitely know I purchased, read, and relished all of Harley Jane Kozak’s Wollie Shelley mysteries after I got them from Murder By The Book.

Sadly, I just missed a booksigning at Murder By The book with my friend Dean James, writing as Miranda James, for his latest Cat In The Stacks Mystery, Requiem For A Mouse. You can bet I’ll be getting it from MBTB soon and adding it to his shelf, where here, you might spot a couple of bookmarks. I must have been reading the Southern Ladies Mystery Dead with the Wind at Mister Car Wash, judging by the bookmark. On the shelf in the background, another Murder By The Book bookmark is tucked among those Cat In The Stacks paperbacks.

I believe this concludes three Sundays of Bookmark Inventory. Thanks for following along. Sometimes, this site contains the only writing I can find the heart or energy to do. These three posts gave me a chance to express my deep regard for other writers and their work, my commitment to my own writing, and my gratitude for readers, including those of you who read here. Writing can feel like hollering into the void sometimes, so thank you for when you comment here or email or text me to let me know you’re still out there reading me.

Tonight, we’ll start seeing the impact of Beryl on our side of Houston. Possible street flooding, trees down, power outages. We’re preparing as best we can. I’ll update when I’m able. Everyone stay safe.

Sunday Sundries

This is a continuation of last week’s post, suggested by Mark L, wherein I’m sharing photos of the physical bookmarks I’ve found around the house. As I was looking for something on my bookshelves after I did the first post, I realized I have books with bookmarks still in them. I thought it would be fun to share those, too. I’m starting with those found on the library shelves. Next week I’ll go to the living room shelves and be finished with this particular sundries subject. Unless I get more bookmarks. =)

I ordered this book back in April as explained in this post.

I don’t remember why I might have been rereading or referencing Browning’s “My Last Duchess” (a favorite poem), but that’s where I found another Murder By The Book bookmark on that page with the poem’s delightful illustration. Appropriate bookmark! If you aren’t familiar with the poem, the speaker had his “last duchess” murdered. It’s the kind of thing a duke leaves off his online dating accounts. Duchess wannabes, you have been warned.

Then I spotted a bookmark in the second volume of Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past, reminding me where I left off. And that I left off, and when the heck do I intend to finish reading this and the third book? Who knows, but Half Price Books will be happy to alert me, the next time I glance toward that shelf, that I’m on page 80, and time’s a’wastin’.

Ralph Waldo Emerson looks none too pleased with me. Is it because I haven’t read my Proust, or is it because of the bookmark tucked into his book on page 30?

It’s an advertisement for Lisa Alther’s novel Original Sins. I suspect the very serious Emerson knows that’s not a treatise on the concept of original sin, but hey, it’s probably not as racy as Alther’s first novel I read, Kinflicks. Count your blessings, Ralph.

I’m hoping Henry David Thoreau is not as upset about the bookmark I found in his tome. At least it has a somewhat more religious theme, with references to Psalms and Proverbs. I think this bookmark came from my mother, and the full text is, Becky, “Close To God,” “…Thou art my God, and I will praise thee,” Psalm 118:28,” and “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches…” Proverbs 22:1.

The quote marked on that page is most likely because it was cited in a lecture in a college class (RIP, Dr. Beidler, who changed my life in so many ways): “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is…” Thoreau would no doubt be pleased that I take this to heart. I do love and appreciate my life. I might fault-find technology, but I suspect the original Mr. Live Off The Grid might be of a similar disposition.

This copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was a gift from old LiveJournal pal and composer Jeff Funk. It’s full of index cards with notes made by him referencing certain passages. The first card reads, “Becky, if you’re ever feeling caught up in chaos, I hope these beautiful words will bring you comfort. All my best, Jeff Funk, 12/18/09.” I often take dives into Whitman, and one of my long-term goals is to take a free online course on Leaves of Grass. I have several copies, but this one will always be special thanks to Jeff.

I also spotted something sticking out of the pages of the biography Virgina Woolf, by Hermione Lee. I’ve mentioned on here before that I’ve never finished this biography. It’s not from lack of interest and it’s no reflection on the biographer, I simply forget about it, despite recurring reminders of Woolf (just this week, Timmy posted a drawing on Instagram from his sketchbook with Woolf as his subject).

As Jim always says before he visits us and we talk about movies he wants to watch with us, meals he wants to eat with us, and places he wants to see with us, “Put it on the list.” Coincidentally, what was the perfect “bookmark” of what page I’m on? Two photos sent by Jim, one of Jim, one of his ex (I don’t show that one because I didn’t ask permission of the ex. Jim, on the other hand, is used to me sharing images of him on this site). No idea how long ago these photos were taken, but I think he’s at his family’s cabin, and I like that he’s in front of books. Holding what appears to be a glass of wine. What a distinguished gentleman!

ETA: I don’t know how I missed this photo when I created this entry. I was riveted by this Joan Ashby novel and definitely finished it. I don’t think the bookmark is there to note any particular passage, but I’m sure it’s from Brazos bookstore because I bought the book there and used it while I was reading. (It’s a long novel.) Wolas has only two published novels. As soon as there are more, I’ll read them.

Mindful Monday

It was back in May of 2019 when I made the decision to start rewriting a novel I’d last written in the late 1980s/early to mid 1990s. It had a single title (it was the first of a series of three novels) and was nearly 600 pages long (that is way too many pages). My plan was to edit it down to an actual publishable length.

I randomly split the stack of manuscript pages, read a few, and immediately decided that was a bad idea. The writing was nothing like the style or voice my writing had evolved into by the time my other novels were published in the 2000s. My distaste for what I read wasn’t only because of a difference between the style compared to the style of the published books. I just didn’t like what I read.

But those characters had been resurfacing in my consciousness for a while. I can see proof in a lot of my posts in the months prior to that decision to rewrite–the way the most random topics would lead me back to remembering those people and their stories. As I finally said here in 2019, I wanted to know how the decades of changes in me would impact how I would change them. In order not to be influenced by the past version, I packed the manuscript away unread and began my novel in an entirely different way. I never looked back.

As I’ve admitted repeatedly, I didn’t edit that old book down to publishable size. I stopped imposing rules on it. Rules are for publishing houses and their marketing and publicity. I’m not seeking that. I’m writing… because I have to. Even if it’s for the two readers I have. [I’ve tried other readers. That hasn’t worked out well for me so far. I have to rise above the insecurity and doubt other people’s reactions or even indifference cause me so that I can keep writing. This isn’t easy. Writers crave readers.]

Once again, the book was getting TOO LONG. I split the new manuscript into three books. I’m now on the seventh. In each new novel, refreshers are needed relating to plot and characters, but I try to do those in a variety of ways that aren’t tedious for a reader.

Recently, I reached a point when I questioned why the plot unfolded as it did for these people in the old version. I know what motivates them now, but things are a lot different. So what motivated them back then?

A few days ago, I pulled this out again.

I read it first page to last. It was startling how different things are between that old version and the one I’m writing now. I can barely recognize these people. In the decades in which I first conceived them, I was either a teenager smitten by music and musicians, or I watched a lot of daytime TV, plus prime time TV offered dramas like “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” and “Falcon Crest.” Many bestselling novels of those decades were from Jacqueline Susann, Sidney Sheldon, Judith Krantz, Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins, and Danielle Steel, among others. That genre was referred to as glitz, and I suppose because I was writing about people with money, ambition, and fame, I thought I had to write something similar to that style.

I think that old novel fails not because I was writing outside my life experience, but because I was writing outside what I regard as my authentic storytelling voice. So what the heck ever, whether I have two readers or twenty or none, I hope I’m doing all the things listed on the above quote from Mary Lou Cook. I love these people and their flaws, mistakes, virtues, depth, humor. I break a few rules with them. I’m fine with that.

I write for my characters. I write for me. (We are not the same.)

Sunday Sundries

I introduced the sundries topic last week and asked for suggestions on content for it. Today’s theme, suggested by Mark L, required a bit of foraging and was fun. As a child, Mark began a bookmark collection; he still uses bookmarks from that collection as an adult. Having grown up in a house full of readers, bookmarks were definitely part of my environment, both for pleasure reads and textbooks.

Though I read a lot of ebooks now, and they open to the page I’m on each time I pull one up on my iPad or phone, I still have a need for bookmarks because I continue to read and reread physical books. Here are photos of some I found (they don’t include Tom’s, who always has a physical book with a bookmark in it on the bookcase closest to his reading chair).

First up, let’s hear it for the booksellers!

This shares a bit of the bookmark evolution at my favorite Houston bookstore, Murder By The Book. I have many because I shop there a lot, and have also attended many booksignings and even had a couple of my own signings there. There are six (oops, plus one) shown here, but there are more throughout the house. Brazos is another Houston bookstore that’s a favorite. A lot of my literary choices and books about music and music figures come from Brazos, and ~~next week~~ in two weeks, it may figure into a story about an author I plan to share. The Independent Bookstore Day bookmark may have also come from a local bookstore visit. On my links to the right, there’s one to the Independent Bookstore Finder throughout the U.S. Whenever possible, I order through my local booksellers, but I also order from independent booksellers who host booksignings and publicity for authors I admire and read.

That Crossroads bookmark evokes so many memories. There were two LGBTQ+ bookstores in Houston, since closed, Lobo and Crossroads (I believe both stores are mentioned in The Deal, and my late friend Steve R worked at Lobo for a while). TJB and Cochrane/Lambert had signings at both, and Crossroads was my favorite place to go people watch, work on writing, and buy books. I met many people who became friends through Crossroads (including John, who I followed from there to two different Borders locations to Murder By The Book), and when Tim first moved here, he worked there! I miss Crossroads so much.

Then–speaking of the tenacity of independent booksellers who doggedly keep going in a hard market–yet another, older Murder By The Book bookmark slipped in. The Bookshelf was a used bookstore in Huntsville, Alabama where I used to shop. It’s “temporarily closed” since sometime in 2023. I hope they make it. Then there’s Borders, a chain since closed, but it was a vital place that hosted booksignings for us. When people complain that chains drove indies out of the market, I think they provided far more good than people appreciated. I still enjoy going to Barnes & Noble, where I can get a lot more personalized information than online algorithms offer.

Finally, a few neat connections.

I’m not sure about the cherub bookmark, whether it was a gift to me or belonged to my mother. But I’m sure that’s a Greg Herren bookmark from his Bold Strokes book Lake Thirteen. Also, back in the days of Live Journal, at least as far back as 2005, I think, other writers/authors and I agreed we needed to use the reading-is-hot tag on our blogs and websites. I still use it. A lot of readers helped us by sending photos of themselves reading in beds, bathtubs, etc. It was a fun time. I don’t remember where the bookmark came from and imagine it was probably not connected to that effort, but it certainly illustrated the theme. The bookmark on the far right was from the late Linda Raven Moore, who maintained several sites, including Markeroni, to which contributors documented with words and photos their visits to historical and local locations that had markers explaining their significance. I very much miss Linda, as I’m sure many do. On LiveJournal, she was whytraven.

These are some that belonged to and were used by my mother.

They live in a metal box where I have many small mementos belonging to her. The one on the far right is imprinted with the word JOY. I have a vague memory about the one made with yarn, but I’m not sure of its accuracy.

I’ve shared these on here before. They’re bookmarks made for Tom and me by his mother with beautiful beads. I’ve used them several times in thick, heavy books.

Finally, here are some I designed (and had printed by a company I’m not sure still exists; it’s in the old ‘hood) to give away at readings and to people who sent us novels to be signed.

Notice there isn’t one for the fifth book, When You Don’t See Me. I can only speculate that for me, some of the serious themes and painful events in the characters’ lives didn’t lend the novel to a whimsical bookmark.

There are also serious themes in Three Fortunes In One Cookie; that didn’t stop me then.

Regarding the websites listed on these two bookmarks–Tim no longer has an active website (which I miss very much), and I finally shut down cochranelambert.com this year since it had been inactive for so long (and websites aren’t cheap).

ETA: Later, I went to open one of my display cabinets, and found these three bookmarks with beautiful original art that were gifts from Geri. I don’t use them because I want the art to remain intact, and that’s fine. Even utilitarian items can be appreciated for their aesthetic value.

Thanks, Mark, this was a good journey, and as always, I found other things along the way that merit a little more storytelling. In fact, there are enough of those to require a Part Two on the Bookmarks sundries topic. Hope to see everyone next week when I share them. AND PLEASE give me more topics (I do have several thanks to visitors to this site, two who left comments, and others from people who tell me via other channels). As always, thank you for visiting and engaging.

Random Saturday musings

Back in March of 2019 is when I think I posted using Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal for the first time. The page I chose to do involved fruit stickers, and it looked like this.

I may have added a few since then.

Here’s a new one I did this month. Another way to test my memory.

When I did it, I kept wondering what smelled so wonderful. Well, it was a couple of pages prior, done in April 2019, and still smelling as FABULOUS as ever: splashes of Chanel N° 5.

It took me more than five years to have the nerve to do this one. It is done as of yesterday.

Author Keri Smith warned it would be difficult.

Did you flinch a little when you saw that I did it? Even book lovers who read the cheapest of paperbacks protect the spines. (And most of us use bookmarks to keep from bending down the pages.)

No worry about cracking the spines or bending the pages when I read ebooks on my iPad, including this latest one from Carolyn Haines in her Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series. Of course, my iPad has fallen to the floor a couple of times and now has thin cracks across the surface of the glass. I don’t blame the dogs, who ran into power cords and pulled it down. I blame whoever makes covers for devices like this one. When my old iPad that I had for many years stopped working, it still had a flawless screen because of the great case that kept it well-protected. When I replaced the iPad, I couldn’t find a case even close to that one in quality or protective features. So I deal with those hairline cracks; it’s worth it to read my favorite writers. Carolyn Haines is certainly among that group.

Hump Day

Since I mentioned author Donna Leon in Monday’s post, I decided to poke around and see which novels in her series I hadn’t yet read. There are two, and I’d forgotten I downloaded one of them quite a while back (and I immediately added the other). I’ve been kind of low-energy this week, so though I’ve done some writing, I also began reading Give unto Others (number 31 in Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series).

Along the way, I was struck by this excerpt and copied it, redacting information that might constitute spoilers.

These words from Leon so perfectly summed up a character in the Neverending Saga whose actions in the past (before my narrative begins), and years later in the first book of my series, negatively impact people’s lives for decades.

I can think of only three characters I’ve ever written who are irredeemable. Do I think people like them exist? Yes. Everyone is capable of redeeming themselves; some never make that choice. Unlike in life, where you often read about the irredeemable in the headlines, when you’re a writer, you get to mete out a satisfying justice for those characters.

There were a few things from the overall series that I missed from Give unto Others, but those made sense in context of the time it was set. As soon as I finished it, I started reading number 32, So Shall You Reap. Just as with the Martin Walker books, I learn so much about culture and history from the many details authors deftly weave into their plots. Some of those things I missed from the previous book were back, to my delight.

I believe the next novel in the series comes out in July. The next Martin Walker novel in the Bruno series is due out in September. These are things I can look forward to while I write my way through the summer and fall forecast of heatwaves and hurricanes, and I also have a couple of other favorite series/authors with books just out or on the way.