I’m mourning. I just finished the last of the novellas featuring Dragos and Pia, Planet Dragos. The first time I read it, I was too preoccupied by the end of those characters’ arc to appreciate fully the story itself. Upon my second reading, I’ve found many aspects that made me think and even more that made me feel.

I’m in a book desert and my muse has taken an extended vacation. Sucks to be me. So I do what I’ve always done and pray that it will get me to where I always end up: with a new book that speaks to my soul and a shot of inspiration that kindles my creativity. I hope. I think. Maybe. Whenever I get here, convinced I’ve been abandoned and betrayed by all that I hold dear, I have to talk myself out of the endless loops of fear and anxiety that are old tapes that play in my brain. Not easy and not fun. But I can do it and I do, with a little help from my best book friends.

I used to prefer my world in black and white, a time when my options were either/or and never both/and. It was a simpler – albeit less accurate – worldview. These days, I’m more comfortable with shades of grey, although not all 50 of them. And in moving away from absolute thinking, I’ve learned to hold seemingly contradictory views simultaneously. I understand that extraordinary kindness can coexist with extreme intolerance for stupidity, mendacity and banality. That intelligence in one area is no guarantee of high cognitive function in another. And confidence can coincide with insecurity. All in the same person. The heroine of Shelly Laurenston’s The Unyielding, Erin, is one such person. I’m another. 

I’m partially through The Unyielding, the third and maybe last book of Shelly Laurenston’s Call of Crows series. These women warriors are fierce females. I love them and the men who claim their hearts. They are badass to the bone, battling to save the world as we know it. Along the way, naturally, they fight, vanquish monsters and of course…fall in love. Would that my world was drawn in such high relief. There is plenty of fantasy in Laurenston’s work, and also a great deal of truth, as is often the case in my beloved books. The most salient aspect of the Crows—women brought back to life by the goddess Skuld to express their rage and exact revenge—is that they are a team. All for one and one for all. They advance together and defend each other to the death. That’s a team I want to be on. Pick me!

Thank you, Robyn Peterman.  Your latest Sea Shenanigans novel, Misty’s Mayhem, made me laugh out loud, while thinking hard about truth in fantasy. In this installment, Misty the Mermaid and Cupid the (demi) god of love, have been boinking for decades – casually of course.  No deep feelings here. Cupid has become jaded; he doesn’t believe in love anymore.  And, Misty is determined to avoid the slings and arrows of the Archer’s bow.

It’s here. After eighteen and half years, the time has come.

It began when the doctors put a tiny bundle into each of my arms. “Hello,” I whispered to their newborn, old man faces. We were already acquainted, you see – I knew a lot about their personalities from their behavior in utero, but seeing them as fully formed individuals separate from me was a whole different experience. Today, my sons are separating in a new way, leaving me physically, just as they did when I gave birth to them, but roaming much farther afield this time. Turns out, this separation is more painful than childbirth.