So fun! Self went to her garden early, early to take the above pictures.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Since Eddie’s Boy began (actually, also in the two days since she started reading), so many things have happened to the hero/hitman. After he was targeted in York (York! City of cathedrals!), Michael Schaeffer (yes, MC does have a name) headed to Manchester Airport (which was smart, because Gatwick and Heathrow have security cams all over the place) and flew to SYDNEY.
SYDNEY, as in Sydney, Australia.
Before you can say two sneezes, he’s attacked twice, the first time on the airport express to downtown Sydney (Scary/good scene! It goes down in exactly 13 minutes).
So, having determined that Sydney was a VERY BAD IDEA (LOL), he takes another flight, this time to the U.S.
It’s a good thing this was written before pandemic, or Michael would have no recourse except — maybe an island in the middle of the Pacific?
Wait, why didn’t he go to an island in the middle of the Pacific? Surely, it would be hard for hitmen to escape detection there — fewer people, etc etc
As a matter of fact, self has already written this story: in her story, the island isn’t deserted because it’s an island in the Philippines, which is over-populated. Her story’s called “Sand,” and it’s coming out later this year in Pembroke Magazine.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
It takes only five pages for Thomas Perry to describe what goes down on an airport express train to downtown Sydney.
From the top of p. 53 to the bottom of p. 58: non-stop action and HELL YEAH!
Self loves this book! From the opening scene — the hero’s having a meltdown in a Bentley because he had to kill, it enraged him, can’t people just behave so he doesn’t have to kill them? — she’s been having a fine time!
There are four corpses (already) in that Bentley, and that’s just in the first paragraph!
Plus self loved learning about the excellence of the double-barreled Purdey & Sons rifle (100,000 GBP each, thank you very much!)
Anyhoo, the first four would-be assassins attempted a break-in at the hero’s re-modeled 1650s Yorkshire mansion (technically, the property of his wife, she’s a member of the English nobility). Our hero drives the Bentley to the Manchester airport, where he leaves it (and the four bodies) in the parking lot and waits for a shuttle to the terminal. Unfortunately, a new set of goons try to kill him before he can get on the shuttle. Since it is only p. 29, we can assume the hero survives, which means these assassins must be off-ed, as well.
A few pages later, our hero faces an existential crisis: how can he get rid of the blood spatter on his clothes before entering the plane (to Sydney)?
Digressing a bit: Self has a book to pick up from the library this afternoon. Then, FaceTime with Dearest Mum in Manila. Tomorrow morning, bright and early (4 p.m. London time), she’s registered for a talk by the woman who writes obituaries for The Economist (such elegant examples of the form, she’s even taught them in creative nonfiction classes). There’s another zoom event tomorrow afternoon, fortunately it’s Central time, not such a big time difference as Manila or London: poets Denise Duhamel and Nin Andrews, hosted by Rain Taxi, and free!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Eddie’s Boy opens in Bath! That’s Jane Austen country! Of all the bloody cheek.
It seems Eddie the hitman’s settled down with a member of the British royalty! Whose family has owned a house on the Royal Crescent for hundreds of years. Every May, the couple abandon Bath (because that’s when all the American students pour into town — oh, the horror!) for the more sedate charms of a country manor outside York.
Lord, what a ride this is going to be!
Self loves Bath. She was there once, in 2017. The Royal Crescent is, rightly, a World Heritage sight. Self is mighty entertained at the notion that one of those fabulous Georgian townhouses is the abode of an American hitman and his lordly wife.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self has made her selection of her next book (High as the Waters Rise is sooooo sad, now she has to write sad fiction to work it out of her system), and it’s neither This Is All I Got or Ice Walker. (Sorreeee!!!)
Sorry for being so indecisive. It seems that what self is in the mood for reading is — not about homelessness, or about the environment — a really good, fast-paced crime novel!
Thomas Perry’s Eddie’s Boy fits the bill. She hasn’t read Butcher’s Boy, but she understands from the reviews that you don’t need to have read the earlier novel to appreciate this one.
This is, oh my God, so GREAT.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
My whole life I’ve been a model of responsibility and good sense, and you know what? It’s not a recipe for joy. I follow the rules. I never eat more than half a bowl of rice because I’m diabetic, although lately I allow myself a small bowl of red bean soup, or a tiny piece of cheesecake, no bigger than two fingers. I deserve to live a little, don’t I?
— “Teddy” by Grace Loh Prasad, Ms Aligned 3, edited by Rebecca Thomas
Grace Loh Prasad was born in Taiwan and raised in New Jersey and Hong Kong before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and is an alumna of the VONA Workshop for writers of color along with residencies at Hedgebrook and the Ragdale Foundation. Her piece, “Unfinished Translation,” is in the new issue of Khora.
Grace will be reading with contributors to Ms Aligned in an on-line event hosted by the Redwood City Library on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 5:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m.
He sat like that for a long time and felt the air getting cooler, and it made him think of Cantarell, of the gigantic fields, which stopped yielding, little by little. Statfjour, even Brent dwindled, in the North Sea. That someone had taken the trouble to name them all, and that they were now withering, petals and stamens collapsing to leave huge hollow spaces. At some point all that came up was sand and water. And that there was only water over them. That they’d take away the rigs. No trace, like none of it had ever existed.
The North Sea, Petrow had said, is nothing compared to what they’re planning now.
This is an environmental novel, make no mistake. Self is so glad she read it.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Since High as the Waters Rise turned out to be a novel about the environment (who knew!), self decided to continue the theme with her next book, Ice Walker: A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic, by James Raffan.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Oh, this elegiac and mournful and very absorbing book.
She’s going to finish tomorrow or the day after. Amazing that she read with such speed today.
You never know beforehand what the price is. And above all, you don’t know what you’re ready to pay.
Don’t let Waclav die. Please!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Kanlaon 