A Heroine to Aspire to

You would think, when I suggest a topic, I’d have a response to my own question in mind. You would think incorrectly. So, apparently, do I.

Like Jeffe, I very much dislike picking a favorite anything, so I’ll claim I haven’t. I’ve just selected a heroine I really wish I was good enough to have written. There are plenty of those, but in the spirit of playing by my own rule, I’m just picking one.

I wish I’d written Charlotte Holmes from Sherry Thomas’s Lady Sherlock series. She’s autistic. She’s brilliant, logical, and driven. She’s focused and her energy propels her story. The key to her humanity, though, is that she’s deeply unwilling to face or admit her vulnerabilities. I love the combination of clever intellect and sloppy emotion that she refuses to process. She stonewalls almost all tender feeling, and her reactions are predictable enough that she leaves herself open to being manipulated (by people she believes she’s manipulating.) I love her because she plays a long, long game. It’s fun.

The thing is, I don’t know if it’s the character I admire, or Sherry Thomas’s exquisite writing. Her facility with Charlotte’s character is exhilarating. I admire the heck out of how lightweight the craft feels when I’m reading the stories. I want to learn how to do that – to create someone complex, filled with contradictions that make complete sense within the story. I still have a lot to learn.

Office Space, Too Much Help, and TBRs

 

While I have a dedicated space with a standing desk and a walking treadmill, this is shared space. Turns out that during a pandemic, the entire house is shared space. As a result, I move around. A lot. Where I wrote yesterday likely won't work today. This is one of my favorite spots. The other favorite spot is on the lanai in the back. Nothing like getting to be outside while writing. Unless it's a bijillionty degrees and/or a thousand percent humidity. Nobody likes that, least of all my computer equipment. The walking desk arrangement has the benefit of air conditioning. Since I wasn't going to spend the going rate for an electric desk like Jeffe has, I made my desk from a couple of pine boards from Home Depot. I cut them to spec, took a router to the edges and corners, then sanded them down. They're painted with an unholy combination of Dixie Belle paint and Unicorn Spit. I used pink iridescent accent wax to stencil a jellyfish on the main desk, then sealed everything with Dixie Belle Alligator Hide. In this office, I like to keep my craft books close to hand for easy reference and to remind myself that most days I might actually know what I'm doing. Mostly.

 The main problem with the walking treadmill and the homemade desk is that I often have far too much assistance with my writing. (This was taken at the *other* homemade desk that's in the bedroom - it's green and rose gold and black Unicorn Spit. It is not my favorite place to write because its tucked into a corner and has me staring at a wall. It's good for focus, though, I guess. Unless I have 'help.')

Cats like to 'help' with reading, too, so it's possible I haven't managed to keep track of my TBR recently - I really lost track of it while Cuillean was dying and looking back, I realize how protracted a reading break that was. BUT. Did you know Sherry Thomas wrote more Lady Sherlock stories? I didn't. I do now. They're sitting awaiting me on my Kindle. But first, I had to HAD TO read every last Murderbot story I could get my hands on. So I don't guess I can call that TBR anymore. They're now past tense, more's the pity. Most recently, I was able to add Bright Familiar (Jeffe's second book in her Bonds of Magic series) to the TBR. Looking forward to that one very much. In fact, I think I know what's rising to the top of the pile for this weekend. Excellent.

 

Favorite Reads of 2018

Favorite Books of 2018?

Book One of the Lady Sherlock Series

Elementary, my dear Watson.

It is no mystery which books I most enjoyed reading in 2018. It's all three books of a trilogy by Sherry Thomas. Yes. The first book came out two years ago. It simply took me a bit to get through my TBR pile. I'm glad I did. Charlotte Holmes is the youngest of four daughters and a little peculiar into the bargain. She has a fondness for cakes and an incredible mind for nuance and detail. She is also possessed of a keen notion of what she does and does not mean to accept from the lot in life prescribed to her both by her parents and by society's expectations. She devices a plan to thwart any notion to marry her off and finds there is a desperate price to pay.

In the company of Mrs. Watson, a widowed former actress, Charlotte begins unraveling mysteries - mostly for other young ladies of society. Word gets out, of course, about Charlotte's desperately ill (and fictional) brother Sherlock whose stunning intellect can solve a mystery merely from hearing it recounted by his devoted 'sister'. Still. Some secrets cannot stay secret forever and success comes with its own risks. A few of those might be fatal.

The books are beautifully written. The characters are wonderfully drawn. I love that Charlotte isn't neurotypical. Without a set of ironclad ethics, she'd be a serial killer in a skirt and it's a joy to be in her head staring at that line.

Fair warning. These books are not romances, but they are lush and rich. Well worth reading.

Four books I loved in 2018

2018 was a weird year for me personally, and my reading habits reflect that. For the first time in a long time, I read books I just plain wanted to read -- not for market research or contest judging or what-have-you, but merely because I knew this particular thing was going to engage my brain and remove me from real life for a little while. And by and large, my selections did just that. These ones especially:

The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas. I have loved all of Thomas's Lady Sherlock books, but this

one especially rocked. Charlotte Holmes protags in this gloriously feminist in-your-face-Victorian-England way, and I dig it so hard. In my estimation, she is the awesomest Sherlock ever. Fight me, Cumberbatch fans.

The Jane Hawk series by Dean Koontz, starting with The Silent Corner. I binge-read through this series and then pre-ordered the new one coming in May 2019. Jane Hawk y'all. Fear her. But also respect her.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking. If popular science is your happy thing, this one won't disappoint. Also, the framing -- the book was published posthumously and has a long foreword by a colleague and an epilogue by Hawking's daughter, Lucy--is unexpectedly poignant.

And finally, John Scalzi's second Interdependency book, The Consuming Fire. Gotta confess I had two problems with this read: first, there's a lot of discussion of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, which is not my thing and frustrated me (horribly?); second, someone needs to, as Gwynne Jackson puts it, "de-fuck" this book. Seriously, the swearing is off the charts, and I am not in the least bit a prude when it comes to salty language. So, those two things might have caused some face-palming, but the story is strong and when the actual heroic characters get their hero on, they are such a pleasure to read. Plus, I won't spoil anything, but Scalzi threw some of my all-time-favorite tropes in here, and I luff them they are my own my precious. So yes, I enjoyed this book.

What about you? You got a 2018 read that we should all read?