Tag: Abby L. Vandiver

Disturbia

I’ve always liked cozies, and several years ago I realized that, outside of Donna Andrews, I wasn’t really reading them as much as I used to; and I wasn’t really sure why that was. As with diverse writers, I decided to turn it into a reading project; I had already done the Diversity Project, and the Reread Project, so why not the Cozy Project? I also decided it would be fun to keep reading Donna Andrews, but rather than trying the writers I had been reading before to try to find new ones, too–much as I love my regular authors, I’ve been wanting to expand my horizons. So I started reading Leslie Budewitz and Julie Henry and Barbara Ross and Ellen Byron and any number of other marvelous cozy writers–and believe you me, there are a lot of them, and getting into the Cozy Project also coincided with the Diversity Project, with marvelous writers like Kellye Garrett (loved her Detective by Day series) and Mia P. Manansala and Raquel V. Reyes and any number of other marvelous cozy authors.

Cozies are the subgenre in crime fiction that probably gets the least amount of respect (romantic suspense being another) from reviewers and other crime writers, but they are beloved by their readers and there are a lot of them. One of the things I am really looking forward to by attending Malice Domestic this year is to find more new-to-me cozy writers. I think it’s because they are “gentle” crime novels; no gore, no blood, no sex, no violence, no swearing. This sets them apart from the rest of the genre–almost at arm’s length, if you will, but I often find these books to be engaging, involving, and entertaining; a lovely respite from the toils and troubles of every day life.

And sometimes you need that escape. I’ve always found solace in books, and that will probably never change until I am in the grave (well, urn, since I want to be cremated).

“He put his foot in those greens.”

Reef stopped and looked at me. Hand hovering midway between bowl and open mouth. A forkful of collards dangling. Juice dripping. His eyes went from nine to Koby’s flip-flop-clad feet to the dark, limp greens in front of him. “You mean like they do with grapes?” Scraping his teeth across the surface of his tongue. he stuck it out and scrunched up his face. “Ugh! Is that how you make ’em?”

A bright, sun-filled afternoon, we were out back of our soon-to-be bookstore and cafe. We’d put out three umbrellaed wooden tables with our logo in the bricked alleyway and scattered brightly colored potted plants around.

“No.” Koby pursed his lips and shook his head at me. “That’s not how I make them. She just learned that term,” he said, and chuckled. “It’s just a saying, Reef. You know. You say it about the person who cooked something that’s really good.”

“So you didn’t actually stick your feet in ’em?” Not moving his head although talking to Koby, Reef rolled his eyes my way.

Body and Soul Food is the first in the Books and Biscuits series by Abby Collette (aka Abby Vandiver), and it’s a winner. Fraternal twins Koby and Keaton were given up for adoption as babies. Keaton hit the jackpot, being adopted by a loving couple (her adoptive father has died; her mom is a psychologist) while Koby went through years of foster homes and foster care before hitting the jackpot in his last group home with Mama Zola. Koby went looking for his family once he was old enough and found Keaton, and now they’ve decided to go into business together in the small town of Timber Lake, just outside of Seattle; a combination bookstore (degree in library science holder Keaton’s side of the shop) and cafe (Koby is a great cook so this is his domain). Reef and Koby were in the same foster homes, so they are sort of friends/brothers close…and single Keaton is more than a little interested in Reef.

But then Reef dies on a commuter train on his way back to Timber Lake from Seattle; Koby and Keaton were planning to meet him on the train and instead find his dead body. Who would want to kill Reef, and why? Koby and Keaton are tops of the suspect list and it doesn’t seem like the investigating officer, Detective Chow, believes them or their story…so around the hustle and bustle of opening the shop the twins are also playing detective, and finding out who Reef really was; the more things they learn about Reef only tend to make the tragedy worse; usually, the deeper into the investigation gets the more unlikable the victim becomes, but that isn’t the case here. Koby and Keaton also use the investigation to help them deal with their grief over losing Reef–Koby lost a brother; Keaton a potential love interest–and finding out that almost everyone who knew him had nothing bad to say about him, and in fact nothing but good things, makes the loss even more painful for the pair.

There’s also a great supporting cast, and I really enjoyed my visit to Timber Lake; and am really looking forward to reading the next book in the series as well as more of Abby’s work under whatever name she chooses to brand her books with. I do recommend this very highly; it’s quite fun, it’s well written and the story flows really well, and of course, Koby and Keaton are really likable.

More, please!

Fading Fast

Today’s title is an insanely accurate description of my memory; which has been fading faster and faster the older I get, which is endlessly annoying. I mean, it’s bad enough that my body has been endlessly betraying me more and more the older I get, but does my brain have to do it as well? Heavy heaving sigh. Granted, it’s not like I haven’t had reasons for my brain to stop functioning properly in the case of memory; we did have the trauma of a global pandemic on top of everything else that has been going on in the last few years, and of course, I’ve been stressed about Mom for the last three or four or five years or whenever all of her health issues began. I am slowly coming out of the funk, I think–I do think this every morning and then some time in the afternoon it hits me like a 2 x 4 between the eyes–and I need to reenter the world. I am going back to the office tomorrow for the first time in like well over a week, which has also been incredibly disorienting. I think getting back into my usual routine will make a huge and significant difference in my mental well-being; being off routine for someone as OCD as me is always an issue of sorts.

My toe is much better this morning, thanks for asking. It still hurts somewhat, but I spent most of yesterday elevating it or icing it, and I am not limping this morning. I think another day of icing and elevation may just do the trick…which makes me tend to think it’s not broken or bruised or sprained. Tomorrow morning I’ll take a picture of it and send it to my doctor through the app along with a note; I should have done this last week but…it’s been hard getting motivated lately. While I was icing and elevating yesterday I made some significant progress on Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food, and I have to share something sort of funny with you at some point about that; I just realized yesterday that Abby Collette is a pseudonym of Abby L. Vandiver; and all along I kept wanting to say Body and Soul Food was written by Abby Vandiver; even correcting myself a couple of times here on the blog when I mentioned the author–and then would chastise myself for confusing two women of color (which happens a lot, sadly; I heard someone call Kellye Garrett Rachel once at a conference–Rachel Howzell Hall–and vowed I would never do that). Turns out the author is actually who I thought she was, just using a different name! This was kind of a relief, because the constant confusing Vandiver for Collette was making feel like I needed to work more on my own subconscious racism. But the book is engaging and entertaining–Abby and I were both in The Faking of the President anthology back in 2020–and I am looking forward to finishing it during this morning’s icing and elevating.

I didn’t leave the house yesterday other than taking out the recycling and a bag of garbage. Paul was gone most of the day–he came home from the office after I went to bed early–and I meant to get a lot more done yesterday than I eventually did get done. The kitchen looks much better than it did before all the stuff with Mom started, and while I still have some things that need to get done today before I return to the office tomorrow, but it’s progress and I will take it. As long as I can stay motivated today, I think I should be able to get a lot of things done today–things that need to be done. I need to make groceries today–I made the list yesterday when they canceled my pick-up order–and I need to get gas on the way home from that. Grocery shopping, lugging everything in from the car, and then putting it all away inevitably makes me tired and exhausted, so the key is to get everything set up before I head out so that I have no excuses and everything is out and ready for me with little to no effort.

I also decided to write something private, merely for me, about my mother. I think it’s necessary for me to sort out my complicated and complex feelings about my relationship with her and my family; there’s a lot of baggage and I am starting to see things now with the kind of clarity that wasn’t possible when she was still with us, if that makes any sense at all. It’s odd how that kind of clarity isn’t possible when they are still alive, you know? And the slow, subtle changes to my life that result from the loss of Mom I’m only now starting to realize. What does this mean about the holidays, going forward? I don’t feel guilty about anything–I thought I might when I lost a parent–but I really don’t. I didn’t write very much to begin with yesterday–a couple of hundred words, maybe, at best–but it was writing and it did help me somewhat…and let’s be honest, how do I deal with everything, really? By losing myself in my writing, that’s how.

My coffee tastes rather marvelous this morning, too. I slept in until eight thirty–I woke up at five thirty, as I do usually every morning–and feel very rested. If it weren’t for my toe, I’d say physically I feel about as good as I can for someone who hasn’t set foot in the gym for over a year. I can tell my muscles need to be worked and stretched and pushed to their limits again, and I think I am going to tell Paul to take my membership off-pause at the end of March; I’d say for March but I’m not sure that’s wise given the toe situation. I feel good this morning–probably best to say “at peace”, really–for the first time in a while. Acceptance has finally come–although I am sure the waves of grief will come back at some point, triggered by something–but I am not going to beat myself up for not getting a lot done this past week, or being pushed off track with everything by Mom dying. I am very behind on everything, and I need to start digging out from under.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the elevating/icing process for today. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

It Always Comes as a Surprise

Yesterday was unusual in that it was a Saturday where I actually had to interact with the outside world more than I usually do on a given Saturday: I had a business conference call at noon, and then last night I did a live reading and discussion of my story for The Faking of the President, edited by Peter Carlaftes and the event was in conjunction with the Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock, California. Also reading were Abby L. Vandiver, Alison Gaylin, and Kate Flora. It was very interesting and fun, and my story, of course, is “The Dreadful Scott Decision.” I didn’t spend much time writing yesterday, but I do think I solved some of my computer issues with the desktop; at least it is working fine for now and not making me want to smash it into little pieces with a hammer. We shall see how it goes from now on, however; I reserve the right to lose my temper over it wasting enormous amounts of my time going forward.

It was fun talking about presidents, and history, and my story last evening. The story was fun to write, once I figured out what I was going to write about and how to frame the story. As I have said repeatedly, short stories are difficult for me to write, and I think part of the reason I enjoy them so much–both writing and reading–is because they are a challenge for me; plus, I can explore something–style, character, voice, etc.–vastly different from what I usually do, which I think also helps me become a better writer. I will always accept an invitation to write for an anthology or a magazine or something to challenge myself. The Sherlock Holmes story was a challenge for me–I still don’t know if they are going to use  it, or if it’s going to come back to me all marked up with lots of revision requested, or it’s going to be passed on–but once I got into the rhythm of the voice and the period, it was kind of a fun challenge. I’ve even thought about writing another one, which is really crazy when you think about it. I have never been a Sherlockian, although I’ve always appreciated the character and the importance of the stories to the history of crime fiction–seriously, where would any of us be without Holmes?–but it’s not like I’ve joined any fan groups, or have considered writing pastiches before…I certainly wouldn’t have written this one had I not been asked–and I do think it could be fun to write other Holmes stories set in that pre-American participation in WWI period, from say around 1912-1917, and maybe even beyond. It could, for example, be a lot of fun to write a story around German espionage in New Orleans, and it’s a very interesting time in New Orleans history. Maybe “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy” could turn into the start of a whole new direction for me. Who knows? That’s the fun thing about short stories–you’re never sure where writing one might wind up leading you.

But I have my entire day free today, and I am going to shortly adjourn to my easy chair to drink more coffee and read more of The Red Carnelian before I buckle down to my own writing. I am hoping to get a lot of progress on the Secret Project done today, and maybe some work on one of my short stories, perhaps even one of the novellas. I just realized next weekend is actually a three-day weekend–where has May gone already?–and so I should also be able to get a shit ton done next weekend….or at least, so one might think.

Paul and I also started watching The Great on Hulu last night, with Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great. It’s a sort of based on the real story, but a lot liberties are taken with actual history (for one example, Catherine’s husband was not the son of Peter the Great but his grandson; his aunt Elizabeth was actually the empress and selected Catherine as his wife for him–and he didn’t rule for long after Elizabeth died before Catherine usurped his throne. However, the time between Catherine’s arrival in Russia and her seizure of the throne was about twenty years or so; she was no longer a young woman when she became empress–but you can’t spread this story out over twenty years or the series wouldn’t be very interesting.

I also like that they admit up front they are taking liberties; as opposed to The Tudors or The White Queen, which also did but didn’t admit it. It’s also written by the same guy who wrote The Favourite, and the entire show has a similar feel to that movie.

And now, tis back to the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader–I know I intend to!

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