I Saw Mommy Kissing

I’m sure you’ve heard the song. It’s everywhere during December. Cute little kid, chirping about sneaking out of bed to peek at presents and getting the unpleasant surprise of Mommy smooching on Santa. Like most things in life, the reality isn’t quite so cute.

It was Christmas Eve, or maybe super early Christmas morning, I didn’t check the clock when I slipped the covers down over my flannel-covered legs. It was long enough past bedtime that the wooden floors had given up any lingering warmth and were shockingly cold against my bare feet. Rather than fumble to find my slippers, I lifted up onto my toes to minimize contact with the floor. (And to be sneakier. Every seven year old knows that tip-toeing turns you into a ninja.)

Mom and Dad always left my bedroom door cracked at night. They said it was so they would hear me if I called out in the night. But we all knew it was to let in a trickle of light from the hall, so that I wouldn’t be afraid there alone in the dark. The bonus of the open door was I didn’t have to worry about the creak of the old iron handle when it turned. I only needed to nudge the door, slip it open a tiny bit more, just enough for me to squeeze through the opening and out into the hall.

It was quiet everywhere. But not dark. The tree was lit up in the living room, sending shafts of shifting reds and greens down the hall to my feet. I followed the path the dots of light created on the floor, knowing they would lead me to the presents nestled under the tree. I wasn’t going to open anything. I just wanted to pick them up, feel the weight, test for shaking pieces. I wanted to guess and dream about what was inside.

As I reached the doorway to the living room, I realized it wasn’t as silent as I initially thought. There was a gentle rustle coming from the living room, the sound of fabric sliding against skin. I was just young enough that I wasn’t sure if I was about to catch Santa in the act, or catch my parents pretending that Santa was real. I wanted to know, though. I wanted to know exactly who it was that put presents under the tree every year. So I didn’t turn away, return to bed. Instead, I crept closer to the wall, leaned forward a bit, so that I could peer around the doorway and see who Santa really was.

It was my mom. And a man. Not my dad. Not Santa, either. This man was tall, dressed in rough dark clothing that looked like it had been covering his body for weeks while he rolled around in the mud. Or worse. He was wearing some sort of strange hat that I couldn’t quite see. I couldn’t see it clearly, or his face, because he had his head tipped down, his lips apparently locked on Mom’s. They were kissing.

My seven year old brain couldn’t process this. Mom kissing someone other than Dad. I must have stepped forward to try to see more, gather more information to help me figure out what was happening. I must have made a sound, a creak of a floorboard, a sharp intake of breath, a startled “no.” They heard me. I was caught.

Mom spun to face the noise in the hall, maybe thinking Dad had caught her in the act. Her movement revealed the man behind her.

What I thought was a hat was a large set of curved dingy white horns. Below the horns, his face was a twisted snarl of scorched flesh broken by tufts of wiry black hair. I pulled air into my lungs to scream, but I wasn’t able to make a sound. I just held the air trapped inside, frozen in place along with every muscle in my body.

Sensing my urge to scream, Mom made a shushing gesture and whispered at me to be quiet. We didn’t want to wake up Dad. I kind of thought that was exactly what we should do. Wake up Dad so he could deal with the man-thing that had been kissing Mom.

I slumped to the floor, the hard thump of my tail-bone against the wood finally knocking the air out of me in a whoosh. I closed my eyes, wishing that when I opened them I would see an empty living room. Just a tree. No Mom. No strange goat man. I would have been happy at that point to lose all the presents if the people went with them.

When I opened my eyes, the man was crouched on the floor right in front of me. I don’t know how I didn’t hear him move across the floor. From here, I could see his filthy feet. They weren’t feet at all. They were hooves. I also don’t know how I didn’t smell his approach. He was foul. How did Mom stand kissing this?

Then he smiled. Broken black teeth jutted from raw red gums.

I so wanted to scream. But he held one gnarled bony blackened finger in front of his ruined mouth.

“Shhhhh,” he said. His voice was deep, dark, sandpaper. “You’ve been a very bad boy.”

We stared at each other. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, maybe argue that I was really a good boy, but I couldn’t form any words.

“I like to punish bad boys at Christmastime.” He reached for me with his final word.

I found my voice. “Technically I didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered. “I didn’t get a chance to peek.”

The man goat pondered this technicality for a moment, but must have decided it wasn’t enough for me to avoid punishment. His hand began moving again.

“She’s been worse.” I lifted one trembling hand in the air and pointed to where Mom still stood next to the tree.

The nasty man thing froze, his head tipped to one side.

“She’s married,” I explained. “But she’s been out here kissing you.”

That slow slimy smile spread across his face again, a chuckle that sounded like rocks in a tumbler rolled out of his chest.

“You’re a very smart boy,” he said as he stood. “And you’re right. She’s been a very, very bad girl.”

The second he turned his back to move to Mom I was gone. Down the hall and into my room. I risked the clattery screech of the doorknob to make sure it was closed and locked behind me before I climbed into bed and buried myself under the covers.

I don’t know what exactly he did to Mom. I didn’t hear any sounds from the living room. I never heard footsteps in the hall, or voices. She was just gone when I woke up in the morning. Dad seemed mildly puzzled, but not really surprised. It was like he always thought she would disappear without a trace, leave us behind when she moved on to the next thing.

I never told him what happened that night. I never told him that I saw Mommy kissing Krampus.

Credo

I was looking through my notebook from a Playwriting class I took in college and came across this Credo, written in 1997 by a much younger me. Surprisingly, it still applies.

I believe in the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. I believe in a mountain night so clear I can see the entire galaxy spiraling out before me. The feel of cold rain. The smell of the ocean. Sand between my toes. Jetty rocks cutting to my soles. Fireworks on all sides. Waves crashing. Silence. Stillness. Thought. Self-contained. Observant. Ant on a blade of grass. How small? How large? Equal. Different. Same substance. Laughter. The joining of souls that have met before. Separating to meet again. We hope. The pain of parting. Feeling the thread of a stretched connection. Feeling the threat of scissors. Unable to stop them. Remembrance. Shadows. Connected, but unclear. Sharing. Not sharing. What to hide? Me? My mask? You’ll never know. Multiple personalities? Maybe so. Dotting the is to avoid the next thought. Stalling. Protection. Safety. Revealing. One piece at a time. The ones I want to give. Some I don’t understand. Search for self. Search for knowledge. Will knowledge help find self? Or is it completely useless? Money. What it does. What it doesn’t do. The ability to live by denying the real life. Entitlement. To what? To whatever they want. I sometimes crave that stability. That ability to continue. Through my life and through others. Leaving a mark. Making an impact on the world and those I encounter in it. Not being forgotten— insignificant. Being needed. Value. Purpose.

An Anonymous Girl and other November Reads

I finished nine books in the month of November:

The First Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and John Mensch (ARC)
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (ARC)
Before and Again by Barbara Delinsky (audiobook)
Turtles all the Way Down by John Green
The Cure by Douglas E. Richards
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves (ARC)

I also wrote over 52,000 words this month, and I am a little bit tired!

I’ve included my review of my favorite ARC of the month below. You can click on the links here to see my reviews of the other two.
The First Conspiracy https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2580740007 

The Girl He Used to Know https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2604139127


I received an Advance Reader’s Copy of An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen from the publisher (St. Martin’s Press) in exchange for an honest review. An Anonymous Girl is scheduled for release on January 8, 2019.

I read The Wife Between Us last year and struggled with some plot and character issues. This made me a little hesitant to pick up another book by this duo. While An Anonymous Girl did have some minor issues for me, I was overall pleasantly surprised by the read.

This is the story of Jess. Jess is living on her own in New York City, working as a makeup artist for hire for a local company. On one of her jobs, Jess overhears an invitation to a psychological study and manages to get herself on the subject list in order to make some extra money. The study is digging into the topics of ethics and morality. These are the topics of the whole story. What would you be willing to do for personal gain? What would you have to gain to violate your personal ethics?

Jess gets pulled into the life of the doctor who is running the study, accepting more money than she could have dreamed possible. Just to answer some questions about her past. And then to put herself in real-life situations (or maybe they’re staged, Jess is unsure….).

The events of the story unfold in NYC. Because I have been to New York, I was able to see the story unfold in this city. If I hadn’t been there, however, I think the descriptions in the novel would have led me to envision as a much calmer, quieter city than it is in reality.

Where the chaos lived was in the plot and the characters. For the duration of the story, lies and deception prevail. Like the characters, you find yourself constantly questioning every move of every individual. There were spots in the story where I got so lost in the layers of lies that I was mostly sure something happened in the plot that contradicted a previous plot point. Because of all the lies and questions, however, I was never sure if the issue was in my memory or an actual plot issue.

What I am more sure of is my impression of the characters. I struggled a lot with the psychiatrist running the study. This character is written in a very precise way, with the chapters told from this point of view written in second person, which I think was intended to mimic clinical, scientific writing. This was a very difficult point of view for me to connect with. I struggled to connect the voice here with the actions the character was taking.

The biggest glitch for me was the final moments of the story. There is one last twist, literally on the last two pages of the novel. This twist felt very contradictory to the character. It seemed to undo the entire arc of the character in question, throwing them right back to where they started the story. This stood out a lot to me, as the character had made great strides in the preceding chapters.

Overall, An Anonymous Girl was a more enjoyable story for me than the previous one by this pair of authors. They are very good at putting together twist and turns, making the reader question what they are reading. I think this pair will get even better as they continue writing, delivering stories with seamlessly woven plots and hopefully characters who are entirely consistent.

House of Gold and other October Reads

I finished 9 books in October:

Turpentine by Spring Warren
House of Gold by Natasha Solomons (ARC)
Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder (audiobook)
Seconds by David Ely
The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan (reread)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware (audiobook)
Finders Keepers by Stephen King

I received a copy of House of Gold by Natasha Solomons through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. House of Gold was released on October 23, 2018.

House of Gold is the story of the Goldbaum family, a Jewish European family, before and through, World War I. The family is a financial icon, running banks across Europe that influence politics, industry, and the daily lives of people throughout Europe. To maintain the strength of the family, and tie the various houses together, marriages are often arranged between cousins. This is where Greta finds herself, planned to marry her cousin Albert, and leave her family in Austria to live with him in England. Neither Greta nor Albert are thrilled with the arrangement, but they do what is expected. Just as Greta starts to make sense of her new life, and find happiness in her new home, the War strikes. This war divides the Goldbaum family, with members fighting for both sides, and the ties that held their houses and financial power torn asunder.

While this is a novel, and is definitely fiction (not based on real people as far as I know), the story is rich with the history of the time. Discussions about whether or not to have electrical lights in the new house, whether women can wear pants while gardening (or remove their corsets), and struggles with childbirth and reproductive rights place the reader in the historical context. This story is definitely focused on Greta and her personal journey within this family and this time period. But the larger story, the question of the survival of the family as a whole and the world as a whole, loomed large. We spent a lot of time away from Greta, seeing the big picture from other points of view. In the end, I wanted more connection between Greta's story and the larger one. Even a moment where she saw her place in the big picture would have helped me here.

Throughout the story, the characters were consistent, and seemed to be accurate representations of the mindsets of the time. Again, I would have like more reflection. There are high stakes in this novel; characters lives are threatened, characters die, and I found myself not feeling the events. I realized this may have been because I had few moments to see the characters feel the events, and respond to them. I felt a bit distant from the characters and what they were experiencing.

I also struggled to keep track of the when and where throughout the story. This is not the author's fault. Headings throughout the novel included locations, months, and years. I just had difficulty tracking through a part of the world that is unfamiliar to me, and keeping dates in my head. I almost always struggle with this in novels with such a large scope, and have no idea what an author could do to make it easier to follow.

Overall, House of Gold was a good read. It was not my favorite historical novel, but it was an interesting historical look at a specific group of people during a significant moment in history.

The Doll in the Driveway

It's Spook-tober, so I was in the mood to deliberately write a creepy tale. Dolls are scary, right?
 
There was a doll in the driveway.

Weird, yes. But not really shocking. I had seen little girls walking on the sidewalk, riding their bikes, skating in the street. There were clearly small humans nearby. Small humans that were likely to play with dolls. Small humans that might lose track of their toys, forget them when they were called home for lunch.

I stopped my car halfway up the drive. The doll had been forgotten, left behind, but that didn't mean it was okay for me to run it over. Someone loved this doll. Someone would miss it eventually and retrace their steps. I didn't want to be responsible for disappointment and possible devastation.

I left the car running as I got out to move the doll and clear a path to the driveway. The doll was warm in my hand, having soaked up all of the late afternoon sun. It was a floppy doll, understuffed, loose and shifty in my hands. As I lifted her up, her ceramic head and dark brown curls fell back. It looked so uncomfortable that I found myself adjusting my hands to support her head. Her head was heavy, especially compared to her almost empty body. Caught in my hand, she was positioned to look up at me. Dark brown eyes that tipped open and closed with the bobbing of her head.

I didn't like her looking at me. I tipped her head back to force her eyes closed and turned to lean her up against the front step. I wanted her to be super visible when her best friend came back to retrieve her. The eyes popped open again as soon as she was upright. It's just a doll, I told myself. No reason to feel weird under her stare. But I did. It felt strange, and I had to force myself, but I turned my back on her and walked back to my car.

As I pulled into the garage, my eyes were drawn back to her. She was staring at me, at my car. I hit the gas, in a hurry to get out of her gaze. I swear her head was turned toward the street, not the driveway, when I set her down. It's just a doll, I said again, out loud this time. There was no way she turned her head to watch me.

I closed the garage door just in case. I locked the door that separated the kitchen from the garage and checked the front door. I told myself it was just to make sure the little girl didn't wander in when she came to retrieve the doll. I might have believed myself.

Binge watching reality TV helped me forget about the doll. Until I turned off the TV and tried to settle into bed with a book. The little brown-haired doll child kept popping into scenes of the story she had no business inserting herself into. She interrupted a battle. Then a make-up make-out scene. That was too creepy to bear. I caved and closed the book, and took a pain/sleeping combo pill in an attempt to make her disappear.

Sleep eventually stole me. The creepy she-doll followed. Dreams of making coffee were twined with the doll's eyes popping open as she turned her head to look at me.

I woke up with a sleeping-pill hangover, feeling as if I hadn't slept at all. It was more than an hour before my alarm was set to go off, but there was zero chance of me falling back asleep. Again, I pretended that the doll on the driveway had nothing to do with my issues. I pushed the thoughts of her aside and drug myself through the shower, into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Only when I had a cup of sweetened caffeine in my hand did I allow myself to go peek out the window.

Impatient, I headed straight from the coffee pot to the front window and shoved the heavy blue curtain aside.

She was gone. No floppy body leaned against my front step. Thank God.

Every cell in my body relaxed. Deeply satisfied by what I did not see, I took a hesitant drink of flaming hot coffee. It was the best coffee ever. I turned to go tuck myself into the corner of the couch to enjoy the rest and try to gear myself up for the day ahead.

She was sitting in my spot.

The mug slipped from my hand, cracking as it hit the hard floor, splashing scorching hot coffee over my toes. I screamed. The sound made the doll turn her head to look at me. It also made me wish I hadn't dropped my coffee. I wanted something in my hand to hurl at the creepy little doll-child. I wanted something to make her stop moving. I wanted something to make her go away.

I swear she raised an eyebrow and one corner of her mouth twitched up in an evil grin as she started to move her legs, her arms. She was trying to climb down out of my cozy spot.

I stepped away. My back hit the edge of the window sill. I was out of room. She was almost to the floor. If she made it, I imagined she would be able to dart across the floor to me. An image of her reaching for my legs, her mouth opening into a bloody, angry maw flickered in my mind. I screamed again.

Then I realized I still had a moment before her feet got to the floor. I was wasting time. I forced myself to look away from her, to turn my body and run. I was halfway down the hall before my brain caught up and I realized I made the stupid, trapped-in-a-horror-movie choice. The front door was closer. I should have gotten the hell out of the house instead of moving toward a space where she could trap me. There was no door to the outside on this side of the house.

I did the best I could to recover from my stupid decision. I slammed and locked the door to my bedroom. If nothing else, I had a solid door between us. Between my legs and her gnarly little teeth. Which I hadn't really seen, but was totally convinced she had.

What were my options? My cell phone was sitting on the table next to my bed. I could call someone. 911. Or Jessica. But what would I say? There is a doll holding me hostage in my house. There was no way to explain what was happening to someone over the phone. And I couldn't just ask someone to come over. They wouldn't be prepared, ready to defend themselves from the deadly doll.

So no calling for help. I would have to find a way out of this. A way around her.

I looked at the bedroom window. Technically, I could use it to get out. The problem was what was waiting on the other side. Right under my window was a cluster of rose bushes. Rose bushes that I had neglected for too long. They were hugely overgrown, a tangle of branches and thorns waiting to pierce me like a shish kabob. I wasn't that desperate to get out. Not yet anyway.

I moved back to the door and pressed my ear against the wood. I was careful to keep my feet far away from the narrow gap at the bottom. I wasn't sure if her skinny little arms could fit through, but I wasn't going to risk it. I held my breath to make the room truly quiet. I didn't hear anything. But she was a small, floppy little doll. I was sure she could be stealthy as she crept down the hall. I waited, hoping to hear anything, any sound that would tell me where she was, even if it was right on the other side of this door.

Nothing.

I was tempted to throw the door open and make a run for it. But she could be right there. She could have made a stop by the kitchen to grab a knife.

I stepped away from the door and moved into the attached bathroom. Somewhere in one of these drawers I had to have a mirror. A small one that I could slide under the door, allowing me to see where she had gone. By the time I found one, the bathroom floor was a disaster. I had made so much noise digging that it occurred to me she could have picked the lock and made her way in. She could be waiting on the bed for me.

I crawled across the floor and peeked around the bathroom door jamb. The door that led to the hall, the door that I had closed and locked, was open. I stopped breathing. I couldn't breath, couldn't make the muscles move to pull in air. I could make my eyes move. I scanned the room, expecting her to pop out at me. When I wasn't attacked, I could finally draw in a breath.

For a moment, I considered closing myself in the bathroom, putting a door between her and me. Again. But from the bathroom, I had no outs. No phone. No windows. Just me. In a bathroom. Until the end of time, possibly.

I also considered standing and making a run for the door. Turning my back on the bedroom, on the bed and the hidden space underneath it, however, was not happening. No way was I leaving her an open, undefended path to sink her needle-teeth into the back of my legs.

I had to find out where she was. I had to find a way around her. Which meant looking under the bed.

I sat in the doorway, staring at the bed. I wished I could will the stupid plaid bed skirt to lift up into the air, show me what or who was hiding underneath. It did not move.

I started to move across the carpet, crawling on all fours, ridiculously aware of every swishy-crunch of my hands and knees crushing the carpet fibers. There was no way she was going to be surprised, no way she would miss the fact that I was moving toward her hiding spot.

Halfway to the bed, I froze, convinced that she wasn't under the bed at all. She was clearly in the closet, peering out through the slats at my exposed back as I moved away, oblivious to her impending pounce. I could go check the closet, but then my back would be to the bed. I could back out of the room into the hallway. But what if she never came in the room at all? What if she just nudged the door open to trick me into coming out?

Commit, Sara. Talking to myself again. I refocused on the bed skirt, restarted my momentum across the carpet.

I was going to puke. I was going to pass out. I was going to pee on the floor like a terrified, over-excited little puppy.

I held it all in, held it all together. Finally close enough to touch the skirt, I paused again. I just wished I could see her, wherever she was. She'd be so much easier to deal with, so much easier to avoid. To escape.

I was trying to escape from a doll. This was ridiculous. I was a big girl. I needed to pull up my big girl pants and just deal with the damn problem. I reached out and flipped up the skirt.

She didn't jump out at me. Nothing jumped out at me. With my big girl pants firmly in place, I scrunched down and tipped my head to the side, determined to see anything that was lurking under the bed.

There she was. Sprawled a foot or so from the foot of the bed, her arms and legs thrown out as if she had fallen from a great height. She wasn't moving at all. I waited, expecting her head to turn, her body to roll toward me, her limbs to scurry her in my direction. Zero movement, not even a flinch.

I wanted to poke her. But from the side where I was half-laying on the floor, I couldn't reach her. Not without crawling under the bed with her. Not happening. I took a deep breath and scrambled around the corner of the bed to the spot where she must have crawled under. I didn't let myself pause before I moved the skirt to reveal her. She was still still. Still floppily spread out. So I poked her. No reaction.

I pinched her red fabric shoe and pulled her toward me, watching her eyes as she slid across the floor. They stayed tightly closed. She stayed locked inside the doll body, refusing to reveal herself to me again. Honestly, it bothered me. I wanted to see her, wanted to have a chance to really face her.

With her just lying there, all of the tension drained out of my body. I couldn't physically maintain that level of vigilance, that level of panic. So given this moment of calm, it all fell out of me. She was just a doll, lying still on the floor where I could clearly see her.

I turned and sat with my back to the foot of the bed. After a moment's hesitation, I picked up the doll, held her under her arms in both of my hands, her eyes level with my own. They had drifted open as I lifted her. We stared at each other. Well, I stared at her. She did nothing. Because she was just a doll.

I closed my eyes and blew out the last tendrils of tension. That 's when I felt it. The tightening of the little doll body. I slowly opened my eyes. She was looking back at me. Really looking.

She lunged, giving me only a second to wish I had just run her over.

If you're still in the mood for spooks, I have a short story on Amazon, free with KU!

 

The Dream Daughter and Other September Reads

I finished eight books in September:

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (audiobook)
The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith (eARC)
Betrayal by John Lescroart
The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain (ARC)
When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica (audiobook)
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
November Road by Lou Berney (ARC)


This has been a bit of a blah reading month for me. Honestly, I didn’t read anything this month that I super loved. Two of the ARCs I read were very meh, you can find links to my reviews here:
The Ancient Nine 
November Road

The third ARC, I really did not enjoy. I am posting that review here, because I was able to identify exactly why I didn’t enjoy the story. I would love to hear other opinions, though, whether you agree with me or not!

I received an ARC of The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. The Dream Daughter is scheduled for release on October 2, 2018.

I usually avoid all spoilers in my book reviews. This time, however, I can't. I need to discuss something that happens very early in the book (within the first 50 pages) but is not mentioned in the blurb or the publisher's information. This suggests that the author (and publisher) want this to remain a surprise. So here is your warning, read ahead at your own risk. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

The Dream Daughter is the story of a woman (Carly) who has just lost her husband in the Vietnam War. Just before his death, she learned that she was pregnant and sent him a letter that he didn't receive in time to know that he was going to be a father. Carly is already facing single parenthood (though she has lots of family support in the form of her sister and brother-in-law) when she learns that her unborn baby has a serious heart condition. In 1970, when this story takes place, this condition was a death sentence. Carly is devastated that she is going to lose the only piece of her husband she had left.

In her moment of crisis, Carly's brother-in-law, Hunter, confesses his deepest secret. He is actually a time traveler, originally from the year 2018. He wants to send Carly into the future so that her unborn child can have pre-natal surgery to save its life. This is the secret that I need to talk about. Honestly, if I knew up front that this was a time travel novel, I probably wouldn't have agreed to read it. I am a very tough sell on time travel stories. They are difficult to do well. There are often plot issues that the author wasn't able to fix due to the complexity of a plot that loops through itself in time.

This novel did not deal with the time travel aspect well, in my opinion. The problems started almost immediately. Hunter discusses the importance of not changing anything as a time traveler. Yet he has stayed in 1970 for a long time, gotten married, and had a child. He doesn't seem to recognize that this is exactly what he said a time traveler should not do. He created a whole human that would not otherwise exist, which is bound to change the course of time. Maybe in insignificant ways, but the effects could be huge.

Later in the story, despite being a near-genius who can do the complicated math to send Carly to the exact when and where of his choosing, Hunter makes a mistake that is based on him forgetting one of the most significant dates in recent history. These types of issues were scattered throughout the story, making everything feel very unrealistic and keeping me from sinking into the story.

I also struggled with the characters throughout. We spend the majority of the novel with Carly, in her head. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of the other characters. I also didn't feel like I got to know Carly, or maybe that there was anything to know about Carly. Despite spending so much time with her thoughts, all I knew about her at the end was that she loved her husband and child and wanted to be with them. I knew nothing else about her.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this novel. Granted, I was biased as soon as I saw time travel, but the story did nothing to change my mind. Both the plot and characters felt shallow and inconsistent.

The Day I Fell For You

They say when you're dying you see your life flash before your eyes. You get to relive your life in snippets, like a highlight reel. It's true. It's also not the whole story. I know there's more because it happened to me. Well, not the dying part, not quite.

I almost died when I was thirteen. I was a gymnast then, so the whole thing shouldn't have happened. I was used to walking on a balance beam, doing cartwheels, flips, whatever. I was coordinated, graceful. But there aren't obstacles on the beam. There aren't small children running from their parents, weaving in and out of the crowd, tangling themselves in your legs.

I tripped. That's all. I should have been able to catch myself, save myself. But I was standing at the top of concrete steps leading into our church. When I fell, I tumbled. Unlike the beam, there was no padding, and I had no control over the physics of my fall. I don't know how many steps I hit on the way down. I don't know how many times my head made contact with the unforgiving concrete.

I do know that I woke up in a hospital bed with one leg and one arm in casts. It was hard to see them, because my head was swaddled in a thick layer of bandages.

I also know what I saw when I fell. While I was falling, the steps disappeared. I wasn't really falling. I was dreaming. Remembering. I saw my fifth birthday, the trampoline my parents got for our back yard. I saw my sister get married when I was six. I saw my brother get his drivers license, then the crash that dented the car, but left my brother unscratched. I saw my parents get divorced. I saw us move halfway across the country. I saw my niece the day after she was born. I saw the plane that took me to Hawaii for competition. I saw the dress I put on that morning before I climbed the stairs. I saw the little girl start screaming and pull away from her mother's hand.

Then I saw beautiful green eyes, flecked with golden brown. I saw my hand, saw the ring Daddy gave me for my twelfth birthday, lifted to a curved smile for a kiss. Those green eyes looked over my hand, staring into me. I saw my hand twined with the hand of green eyes.

That's what no one tells you, the rest of what you see when you're dying. You don't just revisit your past. You get a glimpse into your future.

I saw you.

When I woke, still alive, I knew you were out there, waiting somewhere for me to find you. I didn't know when it would happen, and that was okay. I had the promise, I just had to be patient while fate worked to fulfill it.

It took five years to find you. I spent five years scanning crowds, looking into the eyes of strangers for that exact speckled, sparkling green from my memory. When I finally found those eyes, there was zero doubt. I knew it was you.

There was one small problem. You didn't know it was me. Not yet. You didn't see my vision, you didn't see what I did when I fell. To you, I was a stranger, you didn't know what we meant to each other, what we would mean to each other. I had to show you. I had to convince you that we were meant to be.

Two years. That's how long it took to show you we weren't just friends. That's how long it took for you to finally let me in. But I did it. And here we are, on our one year anniversary. This is my favorite spot, alone with you, overlooking the entire town sprawled below us.

Today we are celebrating our love, the love I fought so hard for. And I think today is the day. The day I saw years ago while I was falling. This is the day you will finally make new promises.

It's almost dusk, so I know it will have to happen soon. Your eyes catch the last of the day's bright light. The golden flecks are on fire. Right now your eyes are as beautiful as the day I fell. The day I fell for you.

"I love you," I say. I don't want to push you, but maybe this is part of the vision I didn't see. Maybe part of the story of this moment is that I say the words first, encourage you to confess what is in your heart.

You return your love to me in a nodding smile. "And you wore me down, convinced me that this was meant to be."

You get it. You get that I couldn't let you go, couldn't let you walk away. You are mine. You were promised to me, my prize for surviving.

Then it happens. Your eyes are glittering golden-green diamonds as you catch my hand in yours and lift it to your lips. I watch my ring glide up, nestle below your nose as your lips land on my knuckles. Your fingers interlock with mine, sealing us together.

I wait for you to reach in your pocket, pull out the new ring that I know you have tucked inside, ready to slip on my finger. That's why we're here. You're ready to promise me forever.

But you don't reach for your pocket. Instead you stand and pull me to my feet in front of you. You start to back away, pulling me with you away from the blanket stretched on the overlook's thin grass. You want this to be perfect, so you're moving us closer to the view. It's a waste, though. I can't look away from your eyes.

I follow your feet all the way to the edge and wait for you to sink to one knee. Again you surprise me. You pull hard on my hand, pulling me close for a hug. Or a kiss. I let my free hand fly up, my arm aimed to wrap around your neck and hug you back, pull you into me.

But I miss. My hand sails past you because you aren't there. You have stepped aside and set my hand free. I can't catch hold of you. I can't catch hold of the ledge. I can't catch hold of myself. I am falling. Again. This time it's not for you.

This fall is different. This time I only see my past. Moments since the first time I fell flicker through my mind. Most of them show you. Your face when we first met, the pinching around your nose and mouth as if my appearance displeased you. Your beautiful sun-flecked eyes rolling when I found you over and over again. Your mouth dodging mine, landing instead on the hollow of my cheek.

As I fall I get to watch you fail to fall in love with me.

Just before I land I realize the whole truth. What I saw the first time? It wasn't a promise. It was a warning.

A Well Behaved Woman, Lies, and other August Reads

I finished 8 books in August:

An Illustrated History of the Civil War by William J. Miller and Brian C. Pohanka
The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (reread)
The Best of Roald Dahl by Roald Dahl
Lies by T.M. Logan (ARC)
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Shadowsong by S. Jae-Jones
A Well Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler (ARC)
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

I received an advance readers' edition of Lies by T. M. Logan from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. Lies is scheduled for release September 11, 2018.

Lies is the story of a man (Joe) who sees his wife talking with another man. The encounter seems off to Joe, causing him to ask questions. One question leads to another, each with answers he never saw coming wrapped in layers of lies.

Joe's story is built around what some would consider to be a role-reversal. He is the primary care-giver for his son (in addition to his job as a teacher). Joe's wife (Mel) has what is probably the higher paying job, and the job that demands more of her time, taking her out of the house and into meetings. The plot of this book is built around a central question for Joe: "Is my wife cheating?" Joe talks a lot about how much he loves his son and wife, but we don't really get to know either of them as characters, which makes it a bit difficult to feel his love for his wife and his pain at the perceived betrayal.

Joe is not presented to the reader as an unreliable narrator. Instead we follow him as he tries to sort out the truth from the deliberate lies and misleadings of those around him. Like most novels that deal with a search for truth, this novel is full of twists and shifts in the story designed to keep the reader guessing as to the real story and what might happen next.

This was also my primary issue with this novel. While there were many twists built into the story, many aspects of the setup and follow-through felt clunky and forced to me. The pieces didn't quite fit together in a way that made real sense. An example from the first few chapters of the novel reveals that Joe's phone is synced to his wife's work iPad but is not synced to his own personal iPad. To me, this makes no sense and made me question everything that surrounded this in the story. I love novels that have turns and shifts, but they need to make sense. The turns and shifts need to be believable in the world of the story. Reveals and surprises should seem to be the only possible answer (but not until they are actually revealed!).

I also did not particularly like the ending of this novel. The final twist (which I won't reveal here) seemed to be added in for shock value, when it really should not be considered shocking at all, or function as any sort of plot point in a story (in my opinion).

Overall, Lies fell a little flat for me. The characters were not vibrant on the page, and the story felt forced. I'd love to hear other readers' opinions!

I received an Advance Reader Copy of A Well Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. A Well Behaved Woman is scheduled for release October 16, 2018.


A Well Behaved Woman is the fictionalized biography of Alva Smith (soon to become Alva Vanderbilt). I often enjoy reading these sorts of books and trying to puzzle out exactly where the line between fiction and reality lies. This story was deeply detailed, as I expect from a novel, but with the richness of history and truth lying behind it. Alva is a southern woman trying to survive after the Civil War. Her family is in dire financial straits, and relying on her to make a good marriage to save them from destitution. She manages to catch the eye and interest of a Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilts are a "new money" family, lacking the social standing that typically comes with the enormous amount of money they have managed to accumulate.

Alva finds marriage to be a disappointment, though it does feed her father and sisters. She is painfully aware that hers was a marriage of convenience, allowing her to catch glimpses of what she imagines love must be like in those around her. Alva secretly pines for this love. She publicly pines, and fights for, other things. She claws her way through society, dragging the Vanderbilt name up with her. She works with a designer to build mansions across the northeast. She begins to plan her daughters future, pushing her to choose the right man.

Alva is an interesting character. She is not warm. She is not particularly personable. She is honestly not that easy to like. Therese Anne Fowler says this herself in her author's note. While writing the initial story, Fowler did not like Alva. During revisions, she realized she didn't like Alva because she was looking at Alva as a woman, and laying all of the expectations that are typically placed on women onto her. Once Fowler began to shift her view, to look at Alva as a human instead of a woman, did Fowler begin to like Alva. Alva knows what she wants and is willing to put in the time and effort to plan and work for those goals. In a man, we would say he was driven, dedicated, committed. Why shouldn't we apply those same descriptors to a woman doing the same things?

This social commentary is completely justified, given what Alva Vanderbilt accomplished during her lifetime. However, there were a few points in the story where the message felt a bit heavy-handed to me. Fowler sometimes stepped a bit too forward, making the story about Alva the warrior, instead of about Alva the human.

Overall, I enjoyed this walk through the late 1800s and early 1900s. This was an in-depth view into the life of a woman during this era. I am sure that I would not have faired as well as Alva during this time in history, and am ever more grateful for the women who changed the future for me.

Fortune Cookies

I often find writing dialogue to be incredibly painful. This nugget, however, poured out of my fingers in ten minutes-ish. I'm not sure why I wrote it as straight dialogue initially, and I thought about going back in and adding dialogue tags, actions, and descriptions. But I decided to leave it as is and leave much up to the imagination of the reader. I'd love to hear what you envisioned in the scene in the comments below!

"I'm just doing what the fortune cookie said. Who am I to stand in the way of fate?"

"So if the fortune cookie told you to jump off a bridge, or rob a bank, you'd do it?"

"That's my fate."

"Wait. Since when are fortune cookies the same as fate?"

"The cookie is just a tool, how the universe communicates with you."

"So the universe gives you a heads up for what's coming, what you've earned, or whatever?"

"I guess."

"What if you don't ever eat Chinese food?"

"Then you don't get to know what's coming."

"If the fortune is really your fate, what's with the numbers? They never work for me."

"Cosmic combinations."

"What?"

"They're probably not lucky numbers here. They're more like coordinates for a place."

"That you can't get to. Cause it's not on Earth."

"I guess."

"So what's the point?"

"Information. It's all just information. A recording of places and events."

"But the events of the fortune don't happen in the place of the coordinates, right? The fortunes are your fate, your future here. On Earth. But the numbers are coordinates for something, somewhere, else."

"I guess."

"That's the third time you've said 'I guess.' Are you just making all of this up?"

"I guess. I mean, no one can know for sure what the fortunes and numbers and whatever else is stuffed in the cookies really means."

"Except the people who stuff the cookies."

"I'm pretty sure it's machines. They automatically cut the slips and lay them on dough and fold them and package them and everything. Untouched by human hands."

"Who writes the fortunes?"

"No one knows."

"Someone knows. They don't just magically appear in the fortune cookie factory."

"Maybe they do."

"Ha ha. Magic isn't real."

"Isn't it? You seem to believe in the fortunes."

"No. That's you. You're the one who blindly did the thing the cookie told you to do. I'm the one who questioned it."

"But it seems to be working out just fine. Which suggests it is exactly the thing I was meant to do. Fate. You know."

"What if my fortune cookie told me to do the opposite. To stop you from doing what you're doing. What then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Which fate wins?"

"We would both just have to fulfill our fate, what was in the cookie, and see what happened."

"So we don't get to know the effects of our fate, we just have to do the thing?"

"Yes."

"Well then, I guess I have to."

"Have to what?"

"Stop you from making a terrible mistake, no matter what the cost. That's what my cookie said. It's not my fault, it's my fate."

Baby Teeth and other July Reads

In July I finished 13 books:

The Disappearing by Lori Roy (ARC)
Planning Effective Instruction by Kay M. Price and Karna L. Nelson
How to Use Problem-Based Learning in the Classroom by Robert Delisle
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage (ARC)
Problem-Based Learning: An Inquiry Approach by John Barell
Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones
The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
1984 by George Orwell
The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher (ARC)
The Winter Witch by Paula Brackston
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney

Review for The Disappearing can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2440786934

Review for The Kennedy Debutante can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2461321631





My favorite ARC of the month was Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage. I received a review copy of Baby Teeth from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review.​ Baby Teeth is scheduled for release July 17, 2018.

Baby Teeth is the story of a mother and daughter with a troubled relationship. Hanna is seven years old and non-verbal. She loves her Daddy with all of her heart, but feels like Mommy is a phony who just gets in the way. Suzette is a stay at home mom who struggles with her own health issues and memories of the uncomfortable relationship she had with her mother. Suzette is concerned about her daughter's lack of speech, seeing it as a choice Hanna uses as a weapon to drive her and her husband apart rather than an uncontrollable condition.

This story is told with dual points of view. We get to ride alone with both Hanna and Suzette as they navigate their interactions with each other. Both points of view are well written. I felt like I really got to know what makes both of these characters tick. I also felt like I couldn't trust either of them entirely. There were no blatant secrets they kept from me, they did not deliberately lie to me (I think...), but I still had the feeling that I shouldn't trust too much in their perspective. There was a feeling to both of these characters that they were avoiding truths they didn't want to face.

As the plot progressed (I won't share any details, because I don't want to spoil it!), there were a few spots where I felt the character choices were inconsistent, a few spots where the story went bump for me. These moment stuck with me, hanging in my mind as I read. By the end of the story, though, when the truths of the characters were more fully revealed, these choices made sense.

While I can't say much more about this novel without ruining the experience for the reader, trust that I thoroughly enjoyed it. This novel is definitely dark and twisty in all the best ways!

Maid of Honor

"I'm so happy for you!" I pull Tanya close and wrap my arms around her in a convincing hug.

"Are you sure? It's not too much?"

I shake my head. "You're my best friend, right? I should be standing next to you when you get married."

"It won't be weird? With Kenneth and everything?" I wish she hadn't brought up Kenneth. I want this to just be about Tanya and me. This is something I'm doing for her and me, not for him.

"It'll be your special day. And it'll be great. In fact, I can help make it great. Make it your dream wedding. I can help you keep the press and paparazzi away."

Tanya's face wrinkles. "How can you do that? They are all over this story. Our story."

She's right, of course. I've gotten over a hundred phone calls over the last week. I finally turned off my phone and tucked it in a drawer until this whole thing moves out of the public eye. "My dad has a boat. I know how to sail it. What do you think about a wedding at sea?"

There is a long moment of silent thought. "It sounds good to me, peaceful. I'm not sure if Kenneth will go for it, though."

"You can convince him," I say. "You can convince Kenneth of anything."

I'm right. Convincing Kenneth has never been an issue for Tanya. This wedding is no different. Flash forward two days and Tanya has managed to convince Kenneth to give her exactly the wedding she wants, regardless of the promises Kenneth made to other people.

This is how we all end up on Daddy's boat. I shouldn't call it a boat. It's a sailing vessel. A yacht. Huge. White. Shiny, new, and ostentatious.

Tanya is beyond impressed. "I get to get married on this?" she squeals when she steps onto the dock.

"Yep. This is where you and Kenneth get to make your forever vows."

"Oh, my God." Tanya looks pale, as if this is all a bit too much for her. "Is Kenneth here?"

"He's below decks."

Tanya moves toward the ramp, but I put out a hand to stop her.

"You can't go see him. It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. You can't see each other until you walk down the aisle."

"Okay. I guess. When will that be?"

Tanya really did let me plan everything. She has no idea what's happening here. "Dusk. The water is beautiful at sunset. It'll be perfect."

Tanya squeals again. I smile and lead her on board. Tanya stops when she sees the heavy red velvet curtain blocking off part of the boat. "What's that?"

"That's were the ceremony will take place." I paste yet another smile on my face, but I don't think Tanya sees it. She's too caught up in the curtain and what is waiting behind it.

Her hand falls onto my arm. "Thank you so much, Mary. I can't believe you did all of this for me. For us, Kenneth and I. It means a lot to have you here supporting us."

I can't say anything to that. So I smile again and lead Tanya to her room.

"The food smells delicious, by the way. Who did you hire?" Tanya asks.

"No one. I did it myself."

"God, Mary, that's a lot of work."

"Not really. It's a tiny wedding, remember? No more work than cooking dinner for a couple of friends."

"True. But still..." Tanya trails off as we reach the door to her room. "Is my dress here?" she asks as I turn the handle to let her in.

"It's waiting inside. I hope you like it." Really. She let me pick the dress, even. I could have brought a brown paper bag and she wouldn't know. I didn't, though. But I also didn't bring the sparkling white gown she might be imagining. I think what I picked for her is so much better.

Tanya steps into the room, her face glowing in anticipation. I follow behind her and close the door. She stops a few feet into the room, frozen by the sight of her dress.

"It will look amazing on you. It will make the ceremony perfect," I say when Tanya remains speechless.

"Are those.... flames?" she asks.

I nod, then realize she can't see my head move, she is still staring at the dress. A yellow so pale it is almost white. Flashes of bold orange and red flames leaping up from the trailing hem. I move in front of Tanya and lift the dress from its hanger. "Try it on. Let's see how it fits."

"I'm not sure about this," she says. "I always thought I'd be married in pure white."

I want to tell her if she really cared about the dress, she would have been involved in picking it out, but I don't. Instead I say, "Trust me. Just try it. Besides, only like four people are going to see it. If you don't like it, don't release pictures."

Tanya stares at me for a minute, then caves and begins to shimmy out of her pencil skirt and into the flaming gown.

I zip up the back for her and look over her shoulder into the mirror. "See. Perfect."

"What is Kenneth wearing?" Tanya asks.

"Don't worry," I reply. "You'll match."

I leave her in her room to finish some final details. Tanya doesn't hear the sound of the lock clicking into place as I step out of her room. I can't have her wandering the boat, finding Kenneth before it's time.

It takes longer than I expect to get everything and everyone into place. Kenneth puts up a bit of a fight, but I manage to make him stay in place at the impromptu altar and wait for Tanya to come to him. I worry that Tanya might have gotten antsy, tried the door and realized it was locked. But apparently she was so entranced my her image in the mirror that she didn't notice how much time had passed.

"Already?" is her replay when I open the door and say "Let's go."

She's fidgety until she gets to the door and hears the music playing. "Pachelbel's canon. My favorite," she says and calms instantly.

"I know," I say. "You told me." She told me everything, all her likes, all her dislikes. She let me into every single one of her thoughts, as if I was her personal confidante instead of her competitor. Maybe that's why she won in the end. She assumed from the very beginning that it would be her standing next to Kenneth at the show finale. I never had that confidence, that assumption, that he'd pick me. I always thought I had to earn it. Earn him. And I failed.

I stop in front of the curtain. Tanya is frozen beside me.

"I don't know if I can do this."

Months of her fighting to win. Fighting to win Kenneth. And now she has cold feet. I wish I could say it surprised me. But I always questioned whether Tanya really felt anything for Kenneth or just wanted to win. Now I know. It was never about Kenneth. Tanya just wanted to beat everyone else. Including me. She doesn't really love him like I do.

I sigh. "You won, Tanya. This is your prize. You and Kenneth together forever. There are twenty-three girls who wanted to be here now, right where you are. Including me. But Kenneth chose you." I give her a smile, hoping she doesn't look past my mouth, hoping she doesn't look to my eyes.

"Go ahead," I nudge, both with my words and my hand on her arm.

Tanya reaches out a hand and clasps the edge of the curtain. She turns to look at me again. "I'm sorry you didn't win. A little. Not because I don't love Kenneth, I do. I just think you deserve to win, too. There should be a prize for the other girl left in the final show. Like a clone or a little brother, or something." Tanya laughs.

I do get a prize. One I made for myself.

Tanya pulls open the curtain. Kenneth waits for her on the other side, where I left him. Seated on the edge of the altar, his suit in tatters draped over his charred flesh. Tanya pulls in air for a scream as I clamp my hand with the soaked rag over her face.

I was never willing to be the runner-up.
                                                                                                                                    

Cliches, Tropes, and my June Reads

I finished 16 books in the month of June:

The First Days of School by Harry K Wong and Rosemary T Wong
Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood (ARC)
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger (ARC)
What Every Teacher Should Know About Instructional Planning by Donna Walker Tileston
The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan (reread)
Designing Responsive Curriculum by Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Kelly Moore
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch (ARC)
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Teaching Boys Who Struggle in School by Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris (ARC)


You can find reviews of this months ARCs on GoodReads. Click the links below to go there!
Rust & Stardust https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2407568536
The Banker’s Wife https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2414141516
The Devil’s Half Mile https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2435206506
Bring Me Back https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2438727937

I’ve actually had time to write this month. Yippee! In addition to writing, I’ve been chewing a lot on writing practices- how to improve, what to avoid, etc. There’s a ton of advice out there, some of it better than others. I know that all advice (not just writing) should be taken with a grain of salt- what works for one person may be the worst thing another person can do.

Some of the advice out there seems very solid. Don’t start a book with your character waking up. Don’t have your character look into a mirror and describe themselves. Don’t start a book with dialogue. There’s solid rationale for all of these bits of advice.

Sidenote: The first novel I wrote started with a character waking up, then moving to the bathroom where she looked in a mirror to describe herself. This book did not get me an agent. Interpret for yourself.

Despite the solid rationale for these bits of advice, though, there are amazing (and successful) books out there that do those things we are warned not to do. There is indeed an exception to every “rule” of writing.

What I want to look at here are cliches and tropes. Cliches are those overused phrases that make you cringe when you hear them or read them. They are so overused that they have lost their power.

But here’s the thing. They became so common, so overused, because they resonated with a common truth. People heard those phrases and the phrases spoke to them. The phrases echoed in their minds and hearts, carrying more meaning and relevance than a simple stream of words. These phrases that are now seen as weak writing were once powerful.

And you can still use them successfully. You can bring back the power. The trick is finding a new overtone, a new echo.

Here’s an example. When I was in grad school (for Cell and Molecular Biology) I took a creative science writing class. The class was a mix of MFA and MS/PhD students, but was skewed heavily to MFA candidates. One of our early assignments was to write a poem. About science.

The class was relatively small, so once we had our poems written, we workshopped them. Each of us brought copies for the class, read our work aloud, and then received feedback. I was terrified. While I had always enjoyed writing, this was the first time I had ever put myself in a position to receive feedback. And I felt inferior. This was not my turf.

One of the “actual writers” read her poem. One of the primary critiques she received from our instructors (both published writers) was the use of cliches in her work. She was told she needed to find a fresh way to say what she wanted to say, not re-use these stock phrases.

I looked down at my own poem. Which contained the phrase “it was love at first sight.” I wanted to get up, find a shredder, and never return. But I’m not one to make a scene, so I stayed in my chair, sweating, hoping that we’d run out of time and not get to my poem.

I did not get what I hoped for. Instead, I was asked to read next. I already knew what critique was coming, so I just pushed through. And I was surprised. While there was some criticism of my poem, the use of the cliche was applauded, pointed out a strength of the work.

What?

People liked the use of this cliche in this poem because it was the last thing they expected to see there. It was a poem describing the infection of a human cell by a bacteria, and the eventual murder of that cell. No one expected a reference to love. Putting an overused phrases into a context where it doesn’t belong and yet makes perfect sense can bring it back to life.

Tropes have a similar bad reputation, though they are far more difficult to avoid. Tropes are the story elements that have been so much that they feel stale. Tropes can include everything from stereotypical characters (such as the gay best friend) to entire plot lines (good girl falls for bad boy).

Just like a cliche, a trope can make for good writing, if you find a fresh way to use it. For a good example of well-used tropes, check out One of Us is Lying! This novel is built on tropes, but has added a depth and richness that makes the story super satisfying.

My advice to you: Go forth and use all of the cliches, and trope up your story. Take us to a place that we find familiar and comfortable, then force us to look around the corner, see what is hiding beneath. Turn that cliche or trope into something new, something that makes us see the story and language in a way we haven’t before.

The Reaper's Rope

Nine knots. I’ve counted a hundred times. Once a day, every day. Every time I count I wish the number were lower. Every time I count I know it will only get higher.

I don’t know what will happen when I get to ten.

I doubt it will be anything good.

My fingers worry the tangled twist of rope, as if the mere manipulation of a knot will shrink it until it disappears. It doesn’t. The knots are permanent, a reminder of what I have done.

My door swings open. He didn’t knock. Again.

I don’t have time to tuck the rope away. It wouldn’t do any good to hide it anyway, he’s the reason each of the nine knots exist.

“You ready for another one?” he asks, a bright smile lighting his eyes. He’s excited for me, ready for me tie the tenth.

I try to echo back his enthusiasm, mirror back his light. But I can’t. Instead I turn and hang my rope back on its nail. “I guess.” I can’t tell him no. That’s possibly the one outcome worse than a tenth knot.

He waits for me to turn back to face him. I feel the weight of his stare until I turn. He lifts a hand toward me. I hold back a flinch as I see the slip of white pinned between his fingers.

I hold his gaze as I reach out and take the paper. “Thanks.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” he holds the door open for me, waiting for me to head off. Does he know I don’t want another knot?

I force a small smile and step past him, close enough to feel the wave of heat pushing from him. He’s a furnace about to explode.

I hear my door click shut but I don’t turn to look. I know I won’t be able to pass through the door again until I complete my task. He won’t unlock it until I return to tie another knot.

I focus on one foot in front of the other. All the way up the stairs until I’m forced to stop and wait for him to unlock the door and let me out.

He drops a hand on my shoulder as he pulls the door open, letting in a stream of sweet clean air. I pull in a deep breath, replacing the stale air I’ve been steeping in. His hand slips, drifts down my arm as I step forward and out.

“I’ll see you soon.” The door slams, separating me from his voice. I am free.

And not at all.

I shift the paper in my hand, wanting to read the name written on it. But the longer I wait to read it, the longer it will be until I have to tie another knot. Lucky for me, the darkness is deep. I can’t see the path in front of me, much less the penciled name.

My feet find their way, moving toward the main road and the street light that marks the corner. It’s been several months, but I don’t stumble. Any sticks or rocks that dared to stray here have already been banished. I wonder for a moment about the people who get that task. Are they the opposite of me? Free to move outside only during daylight?

Under the lamp, I unfold the slip of paper.

Jacob Tanner.

My breath stops. I know this name. Not in the his last name is Tanner, so I know where he works way. I know this name in the we went to kindergarten together, celebrated our birthdays together way. He has made my tenth knot personal.

I bend, tuck Jacob’s name into my sock. I start walking.

A block from the house where my mother lived, I turn right. Two houses down on the left. I stand on the sidewalk and look at Jacob’s house. The windows are dark. No dog barks a warning. The air that moves toward me from the large garage is a bitter burning, even though they aren’t working now.

Here there are rocks at my feet. I scuff one loose, pick it up and aim. The rock pings off the metal frame of a window on the second floor. I wait. The silence continues. A second rock, a second ping. A light flickers into life a moment before the glass shifts.

Jacob leans out, looking into the darkness. There are enough street lights here to give the night a bit of a glow. It is enough for him to see me. “Caro?” he whisper-calls.

I lift a hand. I’m not sure if it’s a greeting or a warning.

His hand mirrors mine. He disappears from view.

It takes Jacob less than a minute to get to me, but an eternity of thoughts move through my mind. It’s a mixture of memories: birthday cake, carols, and trampolines, interspersed with blood and sadness.

I have no plan. We stare at each other, contributing to the quiet. His eyes skate over my face, as if he is trying to read my truth there. I’m glad that my progress is marked in knots on a rope, rather than marks on my skin. I’ve seen myself in a mirror, I look the same as I did when I was still unknotted.

Jacob looks older. Finally a grown-up instead of boy. His eyes are still blue in the pale light. When they meet mine, I know I can’t. Killing Jacob would be the same as killing myself. I don’t know what he did to deserve his name on a slip of paper. I don’t care. I don’t know what the penalty will be for failing in my task. It doesn’t matter.

“Help me.” It’s my voice. Soft and shaking.

“How?” Jacob asks.

How can he help me? Can Jacob hide me?

My name would be scrawled on a piece of paper. Someone else would be sent after me. I could become another’s tenth knot.

I look away. There is no answer here. Nothing I can do to save us both.

Jacob’s necklace. A shark’s tooth wrapped in golden wire.

I reach out and touch the point, then grip it tight and pull. The cord breaks.

“Caro!” Now my name is muffled exclamation. I don’t answer the question stretched across Jacob’s face. I grab his hand and pull it toward me, slash hard with my other hand. Blood spills in his palm, trickles into mine.

I don’t look at his face. I don’t want to see the betrayal there. I don’t want to explain that I am really saving him. And maybe saving myself. I just squeeze, milk the thick red liquid from his hand onto my hands, let it drip onto my pant leg, smear a swipe across my cheek.

The smear mingles with the salt water slipping from my eyes. I let it all run and reach out for Jacob one last time. My fingers trail down his cheek, leaving a mark that I know he will wash away.

I want to say goodbye. I want to say more. Instead I turn and walk away, back into the darkness of the night. Back to him.

At the door, I press my palm to the scanner. It swings open, the building breathing out onto me.

He meets me at the foot of the stairs, ready to let me back into my room. His eyes read the story on my skin. “Good job. Sleep well,” he says, his hand reaching for his keys.

My hand is faster.

I snatch the keys, twining my fingers through the rings and thrusting all in one motion. For the second time tonight, blood spills across my hand. This time it is from a neck. This time it is fatal.

He tries to grab me, tries to hold himself up. As long as he is standing, he is alive, after all. His hands scrabble over my shoulders, my arms, his fingernails drawing blood of their own. But they fail to keep him up. He falls at my feet.

Again I turn and walk away. I add to the blood on my pants, wiping the keys across my thigh as I move to my door. It takes four tries to find the right key. Not bad, considering there are at least twenty keys on the rings.

I hold the door open and drop the keys to the floor in the hall. I pause for a moment, my gaze torn between the hallway and my room. The door swings closed, the lock clicking into place as I reach for my rope.

I begin to tie the tenth knot.

How Hard Can It Be, Chemistry Lessons, and other May Reads

In May, I finished 10 books:

Micro by Michael Crichton (audiobook)
How Hard Can it Be? By Allison Pearson (ARC)
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (audiobook)
When to Jump by Mike Lewis
City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (audiobook)
Chemistry Lessons by Meredith Goldstein (ARC)
City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (audiobook)
Revival by Stephen King
Creating the Opportunity to Learn by A Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera
Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov

I received an Advance Readers’ Edition of How Hard Can It Be? By Allison Pearson from the publisher (St. Martin’s Press) in exchange for an honest review. How Hard Can It Be? is scheduled for release on June 5, 2018.

I didn’t realize this book was a sequel until it got to me. I haven’t read the first book, so I was worried that I wouldn’t understand what was happening, or wouldn’t know the characters. I considered getting and reading the first book, but I am not drowning in free time right now, so I just dove in.

This novel is the tale of an almost-fifty year old woman. She formerly had a career in finance, and was very successful. She left that career to raise her children. This novel starts with her husband deciding that he is leaving his job to follow his dream. His dream involves classes, therapy, and riding his bicycle. His dream does not involve bringing in money to support his family. So Kate is headed back to work.

Kate worries about balancing work with continuing to raise her children, repairing a strained relationship with her husband, and renovating the well-worn house they are living in. She is also worried about finding and holding a job at her age, fearing that she will be pushed aside and undervalued because she is “old.”

But Kate has no choice but to push forward. She will have to set aside her wants to support the wants of her husband and children. She knows that it will be difficult, bu is not fully prepared for what the world has in store for her. She is even less prepared to find her way to her own wants and unrealized dreams.

Allison Pearson has created a rich cast of characters in this novel. While Kate is the focus of the story, and we get to know her very well, she is not the only well-drawn character here. She is surrounded by family, friends, coworkers, and mostly-strangers that shine on their own.

The plot of the novel is complicated, but believable. Kate faces all the obstacles you would expect a woman to face as she returns to the work-force after taking “time off.” There were, however, a few spots where the story jumped forward in a way that pulled me out of the story. I would turn to a new chapter and find Kate in the midst of dealing with a decision she had made, or an action she had taken. I missed the moment where she made the decision, decided to act. I only got to see her deal with what she had done.

Overall, How Hard Can It Be? is a very good novel that I enjoyed. Though it is a sequel, you do not need to read the previous novel (I Don’t Know How She Does It) to understand the story and love the characters.

I also received a copy of Chemistry Lessons by Meredith Goldstein from the publisher (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) in exchange for an honest review. Chemistry Lessons is scheduled for release on June 19, 2018.

Maya is ready. Ready to be a freshman at MIT. Ready for the next step in her relationship with her boyfriend, Whit. Ready to move forward with her life.

Then Whit breaks up with her. Suddenly Maya is lost, adrift. She finds solace in the boxes of research her mom left her in her will. She also finds what she needs to get Whit back. Maybe. Maya will have to conduct an experiment.

With the help of her mom’s graduate student, Maya plans to test her mom’s pheromone formula on Whit. But first, she needs a couple of control subjects. A close friend, and a relative stranger.

As often happens in science, the results are not quite what Maya expects.

What I loved most about this novel was the focus on women in science. There are men in the lab where Maya works, but the researchers that drive the story forward are all female. The female characters throughout are relatively well drawn. Maya’s challenges are realistic, given her specific history. The women around her aren’t quite as fleshed out as Maya, but they all have their own stories.

I did struggle a bit with the male characters in the story. Overall, they are less developed, in particular Maya’s dad. I had a difficult time getting a sense of him in relationship to Maya and the story as a whole.

I also appreciated that the story wasn’t based on a vague, improbable love potion. Instead, the magic formula is rooted in actual science, though it may not work quite the way it does in this novel.

While the story did end pretty much the way I expected, I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the journey Maya took to realize there was a new worthwhile path waiting for her. I also loved the “whiff walks.” You’ll have to read the story to find out what that means!