Blue Moon over Seattle

sunrise was at 6:27, sunset at 7:51.  the very air was golden in the afternoon.

just a quick little note to remember:  it's august 31, 2012- a lovely day, the wind cool with the smell of warm.  we ate breakfast outside (dennis cooked).  blue sky, hummingbirds in and out of the fountain.  niece is coming tomorrow, and tonight is a blue moon.  i went to the top of the hill to see it in it's full-ness.  the sky is amazing!  the clouds are like the bottomsides of icebergs, the color of gin in tonic, the blue in opals; currents of air pushing them aside to leave indigo paths to the moon brilliant above.  jets rival the stars and planets as they come and go over the sound.  the air smells like tansy and juniper, warm, like drier lint.

i went to the car earlier to do mundane tasks in the heat of the day and opened the door to what was both exquisite and more than a little gross.  a slug had gotten into the car: when i opened the door, the dry silver slime, now dry and cracking, still shimmered in the the sunlight.  it was so beautiful, a silver calligraphy, ending at an eraser of a slug, dried and twig-like at the driver's seat.  the trail could be tracked from the back of the jeep to the where this slender thing with tiny antennae finally expired, swirls and loops of a mercurial storytelling.  this is the way fairies tell their tales: sitting astride slugs and snails on teensy saddles, tinsel voices geeing and hawing as they direct their steeds one way and the other until  all  is finally told.

Bartender's Tale and Old-Fashioned Storytelling

Sunrise was at 6:09 this morning, and sunset will be at 8:17.  It is just after 8 am and it is 71 degrees outside.  It's beautiful and there is a very slight breeze.  All the windows and doors are open to cool the air down before we hit the mid 90's.  The air over the Sound has that kind of gritty look that just looks hot.

Well, I love Ivan Doig's books. I love to read them, I love to sell them, they're pretty on a shelf, and I loved talking with him.

I am putting a link to the interview that Thom Chambliss and I did with Ivan here.

What the interview doesn't have, and this is the part I don't have the writing skills to show, was how much Ivan laughs while he talks!  He leans forward, he sits back, his voice bubbles with laughter and he nods when letting you in on something important.  He takes long pauses when searching for the right word or phrase, looking out of the windows off over the sound, until he finds it.

tools

He sits at a desk that has a silver manual typewriter on it.  I don't know if you can see that it has a left handed cartridge return and a bald, shiny spot where his hand rests.  He's got pads of paper, a cup of tea, pens.  There's a phone, but not at hand, there is a HUGE, old computer behind him where he eventually prints and reads his manuscripts.  The walls that aren't windows are filled with books, art, filing cabinets, and paper ephemera collected for projects.  There is a signed painting that, I'm assuming was the original, was the dust jacket for This House of Sky.

Carol, Ivan's wife, sits slightly out of the way and he includes her constantly in the interview, double checking his facts, making sure the timing of the stories are right, telling us about their lives together.  It's obvious that she has a great role in making sure that things get done and done the way they should be.  There is no I in this team.

Anyway, it was a joy and an honor to have been asked to take the photos and then to rescue the interview after a machine meltdown. I've included some of the photos that didn't make it into the interview in this blog post. 

Black City, by Elizabeth Richards

Black City, by Elizabeth Richard

I will read anywhere.

Thankfully, for reading time, anyway, I own a Jeep.  It takes at least four pages to fill the tank.

For those of you who like dystopia, vampire-ish characters, and really dislikable side characters, Black City, by Elizabeth Richards, is for you.

Star-crossed lovers, Natalie, the daughter of the Emissary of Black City, and Ash, the son of a human and a Darkling (a twin-blood), meet under not-so-great circumstances.  She's escaping her guard, he's biting a human to give that human a Haze high.  The two of them feel an immediate connection but neither can explain it.

In this time, war has come and gone.  The Darklings are segregated behind huge walls, starving and decimated by the Wrath Plague.  The United Sentry States are 9 states governed by military law.  Natalie and Ash are by-products of the war and never should have met.

Natalie has recently moved back to Dark City and is in school with Ash (she is a stubborn girl who really wants to give her mom fits by going to public school).  They make physical contact and sparks literally fly:  Ash's heart gives its first beat ever.  

A Twin-Blood has two hearts, neither of which beats until they meet their blood mate.  But how can they make their attraction to each other work?  It's against the law for either of them to love the other, crucified citizens are mounted at the city walls for loving someone other than those of their own species.

Ooh, it's good.  I'm not done, yet, just had to let you know that you need to look for this book in your piles of galleys (if you're a bookseller or a librarian).  It pulled me out to the porch the other night for a couple of hours of reading as the sun set.

I will say that when I caught the, now fairly obvious, reference to our past history in these United States, I had a complete palm to head D'oh moment, but, when you are taken by a book from the beginning and are moved by plot, sometimes someone has to yell at you to pay attention.  I don't know if that gives anything away or not, I haven't gotten to the end yet so...

I am thoroughly enjoying the ride.  I'm looking forward to finishing it and I'll let you know if the ending lives up to the rest of the tale.

(Ages 14 and up.  Putnam.  Available November, 2012.  Hardcover, $17.99.)

Addendum:  Finished it last night and it was good.


(no recompense was received for the review of this book.)