Miranda Phipps

Miss P has a reading problem.  Namely, she doesn’t like to read.

This greatly distresses her Mama, a veritable reading freak. 

Luckily, Miss P has an excellent first grade teacher who recommended books on CD!  (Part of our theory is that Miss P likes to be Very Good at the things she does, and so she abandons reading whenever it begins to feel daunting.  Reading the book along with the CD helps her to get through those tough words that would otherwise hang her up.)

This recommendation has been sheer genius–not just because Miss P now likes to read, but because it has brought about an introduction to Skippyjon Jones, the Siamese cat who thinks he’s a chihuahua.  Yes, really.

Judy Schachner’s Skippjon books are just fantastic, and her readings are excellent.  (They rival Neil Gaiman’s recordings in my mind.)

Her love of (and dexterity with) wordplay and rhythm are really exceptional, and I would recommend checking these out if there are any little people in your life.  She’s also, and this part really makes me jealous, a brilliant illustrator.

I’ve been saving the best for last in this little blog post and that is an excerpt from the book.  Don’t you just love these opening lines?  (BTW, the reference to “box” is a reference to Skippyjon’s litter box.)

Skippyjon Jones did his very best thinking outside the box.  And this twisted his mamma’s whiskers tighter than a Texas tornado.

Enjoy!

“Now I know why women wear such large panniers,” she said.

“To repel their admirers?”

“Precisely . . . .”

I cruised through Carolyn Jewel’s Scandal yesterday afternoon.  It’s such a different romance–very quiet in its tone, but truly a mesmerizing read.  I loved this line especially:

She was near enough now to see his eyes.  Black rimmed his irises, the color bleeding slowly into a solid and unrelenting gray eerily flat of expression, or rather, she thought, the color, like silver gone to tarnish, made them impervious to reflection of his inner thought.

I think there was another bit about layers of silver tarnish in his eyes that I liked as well, but I couldn’t find that one.

And, I really liked the final reveal that Sophie, although she remained true to her vows in practice, did not do so in principle.

As You Desire is one of my all-time favorite romances, and I’ve pretty much gobbled up every one of Connie Brockway’s historicals since that time.  (I read her first contemp, Hot Dish, and I liked that too, but it turns out I’m just not much of a contemporary reader.)

I’ve been looking forward to So Enchanting for a few months and it didn’t disappoint–I love her voice in which she manages to be just a little bit snarky without taking me out of the historical moment.

Here are my favorite lines, brimming with classic Brockway:

Grey stared broodingly at the ceiling while at his side Hayden and Amelie began yet another long-winded conversation wherein they yet again discovered they enjoyed absolutely everything the other enjoyed, including, but not limited to, Gilber and Sullivan, music, American penny dreadfuls, long walks on misty mornings, quince jelly, badminton and Jack Russell terriers.  The only interruptions to this inanity were the breathless silences during which, Grey imagined, the pair stood gazing raptly into each other’s eyes.  Rather like poleaxed beef.

Poleaxed beef!? Poleaxed beef!?  I couldn’t get enough of that line.

My complaint about the entire thing was that I ordered the book off of Fictionwise and read it on Stanza.  There’s some problem with the translation of quotation marks and accents such that I get a stream of symbols instead of the appropriate symbol.  Although I definitely got used to it, it did pull me out of the story some.  I’m trying to weigh the benefits of having the books on my phone against the being able to read the thing seamlessly, and I have to admit it’s a toss-up right now.

I knew that the total eBook lovefest would have to end sometime.

The dust finally begins to settle on the chaos that is holiday shopping, holiday celebrating and holiday travelling. I’m happy to be getting back into a bit of a routine.

I didn’t read a huge amount over the holidays, but I’m just about done with Christine Wells new book, The Dangerous Duke. My favorite line? When Jardine says to Louisa,

“If I can’t have you, I’ll be damned if some limp cock of a smooth-talking bastard will have you, either. Good Lord, woman! Have you no discrimination?”

I have to admit that these two stole the show a little bit for me. I Googled around to see if I could find any hints of an upcoming book featuring Louisa and Jardine’s story, but nothing so far. I’m sure Wells has a great story in mind for the two of them, though.

I also read Save the Cat by Blake Snyder last month. It’s a screenwriting book, but has some great material for writers. I’m sorry to have missed his presentation at RWA last summer. After reading it, I spent quite a bit of time correlating his key story points to those over writers have described. I’ve been trying to hang the main plot points from my WIP, The Keeper, onto this framework and its been a helpful exercise so far. My favorite among Snyder’s many insights is the “Whiff of Death” scene. It makes so much sense to me that in any kind of story–even comedy–the only way to make the storytelling truly meaningful and grounded in human experience is to have there be some contemplation of death at the climax. How can you have meaning in life without some acknowledgment that life is always bounded by death.

After Snyder, I dug into The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler, which I’d read about five years ago but wanted to revisit given that I feel like I’ve learned so much on the craft front. I petered out pretty quickly this go around. The time just isn’t right for the lessons that book has to offer.

I turned instead to Writing for Emotional Impact, by Karl Iglesias, which is fantastic. I came across this with some random Google searches on writing emotion (can you tell I like Google?). This book is pure gold. It’s so dense, that I feel like I need to go back and outline a couple of the chapters for future reference–sort of a smorgasbord of methods to generate different emotional reactions.

Seeing as my book club won’t let me get away without reading some literary fiction, I also read Being Dead by Jim Crace this month. Beautiful prose, but not my idea of a love story. I guess I’m just not the type of girl who wants to better understand the depressingly realities of mediocre personal relationships. Or, for that matter, what happens to decomposing bodies on the beach.

The other thing I’ve glommed onto of late is Helen Fisher’s research into the neurobiology of lust, attraction and long-term love. It’s fascinating stuff. Jenny Crusie recommended her books during the Crusie Mayer Writing Workshop, and I finally got around to buying them. I’ve been focused on her scientific articles related to what happens when people break up with you (as this is relevant to The Keeper), but I’m looking forward to reading Why We Love and Anatomy of Love next.

Last up is the Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall. My mom, who is English, bought this for me for Christmas. She read it while she was recuperating from a cat bite that got terribly infected and almost landed her in the hospital. (Her words of wisdom after the fact, “If you ever see a cat and dog fighting, be sure to go after the dog.”) I read most of this the day I got it. Lyall’s journalistic style makes it a quick read, and she touches on so many great English cultural idiosyncracies. Drink as a social lubricant, lecherous members of the House Commons, bad teeth, hedgehog love and homoeroticism in public schools–it’s all there.

So I admit to being a complete Wuthering Heights girl, so I can’t help but believe that Ms. Kleypas was channeling Heathcliff via Kev Merripen. What a great, great hero.

Kleypas is also so good at anticipating the kind of connections and outcomes readers want and then delivering in unexpected ways.  I would say more, but there’s far too great a risk of spoilers.

As someone who’s interested in writing series, though, I have to give Kleypas real kudos for peppering wonderful tidbits throughout of the books to come. And who wouldn’t be after reading this line ?– “Yes, that was it. [Leo] wanted to bother her. Repeatedly.”