Books read in 2024

60  A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times (Lord Julian #1) Grace Burrowes (e)
59  Alliance Unbound (Hinder Stars #2) Cherryh & Fancher (e)
(58  Diviner's Bow, galleys)
57 Alliance Rising (Hinder Stars #1), CJ Cherryh, Jane Fancher (e)
(55, 56 Diviner's Bow, line edit, copy edit)
54 The Masquerades of Spring, Ben Aaronovitch (e)
(53 Salvage Right, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (e))
52 Black Dogs Part Two: The Mountain of Iron, Ursula Vernon (e)
51 Black Dogs Part One: House of Diamond, Ursula Vernon (e)
50 The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Ursula K. Le Guin (book club)
49 Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels(Dangerous Damsels #1)India Holton (e)
48 Two Old Women, Velma Wallis (book club)
47 First Lie Wins, Ashley Elston (e)
46  Mystic Tea, Rea Nolan Martin (book club)
45  Fated Blades, Ilona Andrews (e)
44  Grace, Beverly Watts (Shackleford Sisters #1) (e)
43  The Fortunate Fall, Cameron Reed (e)
42  A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (e)
41  Secrets at Midnight, Nalini Singh (e)
40  Born a Crime, Trevor Noah (book club)
39  Rocky Start, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (e)
38  Librarian Bear, Murphy Lawless (Virtue Shifters #2) (e)
37  Primal Mirror, Nalini Singh (Psy-Changeling Trinity #8)
36  The Duke at Hazard, KJ Charles (The Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune #2) (e)
35  Timber Wolf, Murphy Lawless/Zoe Chant (Virtue Shifters) (e)
34  Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus (book club)
33  Whammo Ranch, Jerry Boyd (Bob and Nikki Book 2)(e)
32  Bob's Saucer Repair, Jerry Boyd (Bob and Nikki Book 1) (e)
31  Finders, Melissa Scott (Firstborn, Last born Book 1), (e)
30  When the Dandelions Sing: A Novel, James J. Hill III (book club)
29  Winter Lost, Patricia Briggs, (Mercy Thompson #14) (e)
28  Koalafied for Love, Murphy Lawless (Virtue Shifters) (e)
27  The Time Traders, Andre Norton (re-read) (e)
26  War for the Oaks, Emma Bull (re-re-&c-read) (book club)
25  Earthly Delights, Kerry Greenwood (Corinda Chapman #1) (re-read) (e)
24  Wednesday's Child, Rhea Côté Robbins
23  Hate Mail, Donna Marchetti (e)
22  Comfort is an Old Barn, Amy Calder  (book club)
21  Arabella, Georgette Heyer (e) (re-read)
20  The Foundling, Georgette Heyer (e) (possibly I read this once before)
19  Death in the Spires, KJ Charles (e)
18  What Cannot be Said, C.S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr #19) (e)
17  The Grief of Stones, Katherine Addison (e) (re-read)
16  Witness for the Dead, Katherine Addison  (e) (re-read)
15  The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (e) (re-re-re-read)*
14  Hen Fever, Olivia Waite (e)
13  Unmasked by the Marquis, Cat Sebastian (e) ( re-read)
12  A Duke in Disguise, Cat Sebastian (e) (reread)
11  Heart of Stone, Johannes T. Evans (e)
10  West with the Night, Beryl Markham (e)
9   A Song to Drown Rivers, Ann Liang (e) (netgalley)
8   Bookstores and Bonedust, Travis Baldree (prequel) (e) (library)
7   We Could Be So Good, Cat Sebastian (e) (library)
6   Thorn Hedge, T. Kingfisher (e) (library)
5   Wild Seed, Octavia M. Butler (e) (library)
4   In Our Stars, Jack Campbell (Doomed Earth #1) (pre-pub) (e)
3   Legends and Lattes, Travis Baldree (e) (library)
2   Heart of the Sun Warrior, Sue Lynn Tan, (Celestial Kingdom #2) (e) (library)
1   This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (e) (library)

_____
*... I think I may have lost track.  I do know I started several books, and put them aside, because I Just Couldn't. I stress that it wasn't Them, it was Me.  I don't think I actually finished anything before I finally did manage to settle into a re-re-re-&C-read of The Goblin Emperor, so that's where we'll pick up the tally.

Last Sunday of the year (second in a series)

Sunday. Dullish blue and cool. The weatherbeans tell me that we're going to hit 40F, that it will rain this afternoon, and won't that be a mess? Just in time for 50F/4C and Even! More! Rain! tomorrow, when I actually have to go out.

Breakfast was a carton of skyr while I wandered around the house, Looking. With luck, lunch will be salmon cakes. The oven's heating for sugar cookies, which I never got around to yesterday.

Today I will be Not Writing. I will also not be looking at the Tax Packet, because -- no. I will instead be baking sugar cookies, which I never got around to, yesterday, and touching up the spots left paintless by the various installations of smoke alarms and thermostats, not to mention the scar that was Sprite's contribution to decorating the dining room. I will perhaps knock off early to read, or maybe look inside my embroidery basket. A Structure of Looseness, today.

Against all expectations, I did finish reading another book -- A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times -- and I started the next in the Lord Julian series, A Gentleman of Dubious Reputation.

And that's all I've got right now.

What's everybody reading?

I have a story. . .

So, I was straightening some shelves the other day, as one does, and a battered little tan pamphlet fell to the floor.  I bent to pick it up, and smiled at The Naming of Kinzel, the very first Lee-and-Miller indie published chapbook, with a cover by Colleen Doran.  Being unsure of this publication's actual date -- before or after Agent of Change? --  I flipped it open to the copyright page, and found that this wasn't just any random copy of ...Kinzel, but my particular copy -- #1 of a limited edition of 300 -- signed to me by one of the authors.

Here's the page in question:

 

 As you can see, the chapbook was published in June 1987. A year before our first novel was published.  Seven years after we married; a decade after we had declared to All Possible Universes that WE ARE US, and let the sparks fall where they may.

Several things drew Steve and me together:  a love of irony and a keen sense of the ridiculous; a love of music, and of reading -- and this idea that being a writer was a goal worth achieving.  No, more than that: Writing was a shared dream, and a shared reality; it was the glue of our partnership, and what kept us together, tight, and committed to each other, for 46 years.

Over those years, people would sometimes ask how our marriage had survived the pressures, the competitiveness, of a two-writer household.  And the answer  was that marriage was -- secondary to who we were.  First, we were co-authors -- companions -- partners -- in the adventure of creating.  We were married, yes, for tax purposes and for the demands of so-called Real Life, but honestly, we dealt with Real Life as little as possible. 

For Sharon, that inscription reads, the very first, with love -- may we stay happily in print for a hundred years -- Steve 

And there it is -- love and writing, and us, entwined and inseparable. That's who we were, living a very rich, very fantastical, life, of our own devising. 

Steve and I had many rituals, as I suppose that most partners do.  One was the evening toast, "To the Plan!" or, as it came to be in later years, when ill health and threats of mortality began to assault our walls -- "To the Plan -- as it may be amended from time to time."

But, you're saying, what was this Plan?

The Plan was to stand together, to tell stories, and to have fun.

Not much of a Plan, in the scheme of things, but it was ours.  We reveled in being grasshoppers, in living with and for the day, in not looking over our shoulders, to see what might be gaining.  Carpe Diem, yes?  And we had also agreed that we would keep on writing, as long as it was fun.

The Plan was not so much amended as destroyed, back in February.  I was, thank Goddess, already well-invested as the lead writer for the next book when Reality came due.  Against all odds, Diviner's Bow was fun to write.

So, I'm getting ready, now, to write another book, set in the place we built together, out of love, and commitment, and joy.  No question, I'm lead writer on this one, and I'm looking forward, and trying not to look over my shoulder.