DAMNING THE DEAD by Kerry Blaisdell: release date 1/5/2022

 I guess this is my year for reviewing non-Georgian/Regency novels. Recently I finished Kerry Blaisdell's third novel in her series featuring Hyacinth Finch, who is sort-of-dead illicit antiquities dealer on a mission from the Archangel Michael.

Do I need to say I read the third because I really enjoyed the preceding books? If you haven't read Debriefing the Dead and Waking the Dead, do that before Damning the Dead.

Kerry Blaisdell’s Damning the Dead is the third in her Dead series. You might have thought Hyacinth Finch’s life—half-life? Non-life?—couldn’t get more complicated. You would be mistaken. She started out as an inoffensive buyer and seller of stolen antiquities. Now in the third book, she’s up to her neck in demons, Nazis, ghosts, and two boyfriends, one of them dead, the other half-demon. Then there’s her part-time job for Michael, the Archangel, and her guardianship of her nephew. They’re all bound to conflict at some point.

There’s a peculiar realism to these novels. Hyacinth is no superhero and neither are her allies. In spite of supernatural dangers, the characters still have to eat (if they’re even half alive), find transportation, and deal with sneaky and/or jealous boyfriends. Hyacinth remains ethically challenged in some respects. 

That grounded-in-reality feeling and the fact I’ve never yet foreseen all the twists and turns in Ms. Blaisdell’s novels keeps me reading. Also they’re page-turners. 

I received an ARC for my unbiased review.

  

 

Once in a while I review a book, usually one in the Georgian/Regency period. I do like other historical fiction, however, and mysteries, and besides, my father grew up in New York City not long after the period in which this series is set. I could not resist reading this turn-of-the-century mystery.

I’ve read and liked several of Rhys Bowen’s novels so I had high expectations for Wild Irish Rose by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles. There are a number of series running to a dozen or eighteen books that I love and keep reading, but I’ve been reading them since the first, and I think that makes a difference. Wild Irish Rose is the 18^th in the novels featuring Molly Murphy Sullivan. I found it difficult to establish a rapport with the characters, coming to it so late.

I did expect something a little meatier, more in the tradition of Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries or Charles Todd’s WWI and early 20^th century mysteries. Something that bothered me a little is that it’s my understanding that the various ethnic groups in New York in the 19^th and early 20^th century tended to live in their own neighborhoods, like Little Italy in the case of Italian immigrants. There seems to be more of an ethnic mix in Molly’s neighborhood.

Another stumbling block for me was that Molly didn’t “feel” like a comparatively recent immigrant. But again, that may be because I’m a Joanie-come-lately to the books.

However, it’s well written and an entertaining read and fans of the series will probably enjoy it.  It’s scheduled for release on March 1, 2022.

 I received an ARC of Wild Irish Rose in exchange for my unbiased review.

 

I’m running a little behind this year. Today I put the Halloween decorations away except for the skeleton sitting on the rollator between the kitchen and the front room. I also put up a string of lights to augment the string still up from last December…or maybe the December before that.

I meant to do something seasonal and New Mexico for the blog this time but ran out of that commodity. So instead, here’s a semi-seasonal ditty:

My Favorite New Mexico Things (with apologies to The Sound of Music)

Rain in the arroyos and lightning that flashes,

Dust in your bedding and clothing and lashes,

Dry canyon winds that blow in the spring,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Doors and sashes in blue and old royal roads,

Pickups with firewood and artwork in loads,

Rose colored adobes and red chile strings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Roadrunners that dash with never a stop,

Mesas standing tall with pueblos on top,

Kachinas and kivas, hidalgos and kings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Happy holidays, everyone. 

 

Inexplicable Happening: Halloween must be coming

 Cue the Twilight Zone music.

I've long suspected that sometimes in our rational universe, weird stuff happens. This morning I used a ratty old bath towel to blot up water on the floor (the mop bucket leaked). Then I threw it in the washer and set it for hot water, heavy soil, and prewash. Turned it on and went away to do 

Isn't this vintage washer's 
expression sinister ?

something else. Came back to hang it to dry outside because why waste gas and electricity when New Mexico's air will dry it in no time? Somehow, the old white towel had turned into a pair of drawstring pants and the towel was gone. My housemate didn't take it out and didn't run her pants this morning so we can only conclude that the towel metamorphosed into pants.

Has anything this weird ever happened to you? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

18th Century Dance

 I've often written about doing research for novels. YouTube has generally been fairly far down on my list of resources because I'm a word, rather than a video, person. Another problem is that the camera work for many of the demonstrations is not well done. 

However, when they're good, they're often very good indeed. 

When I started writing historical romance, I knew nothing about period dance. Disclaimer: I still don't know much about it but at least I've now seen it performed, thanks to various groups on YouTube.   

It's Friday. If we were living in the 18th century, perhaps we would be attending a ball this evening. This is what it might look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=___I5dy4PhQ Some seldom-seen or referenced 17^th and 18^th century dances. Have you ever heard of anyone performing "The Dumps" in a Georgian or Regency novel? I hadn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZWDrjLO7r4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdYoW6lhf6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbXUWNaDKyw   No, I don’t know why one of the dancers is wearing a harlequin costume. Drafted from a masquerade because they were short one dancer and she knew the steps? We'll never know.

Wonderful music, too.

 

Wednesday, October 20th 2021 is Hagfish Day!

How is a hagfish like a book cover? According to https://nationaldaycalendar.com/hagfish-day-third-wednesday-in-october/,

"Hagfish are considered to be the ugliest of species. The idea behind this observance is to encourage everyone to look beyond the exterior...Not unlike a book cover, the day points out the benefits of looking deeper into the subject."

How ugly is the hagfish? Really, really ugly. 

Hagfish (two shown) are unlike most fish. They don’t have eyes, jaws or bones. From: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/new-fossil-shows-how-hagfish-went-back-basics

Hagfish-hit highway in Oregon. Source: Depoe Bay Fire Dist/ Twitter They were destined for Asian dinner tables but they and their slime ended up on Highway 101 in Oregon.

A truck carrying over 3400 kilos [Note: about 7,495 pounds] of hagfish was travelling down the coastal road at around noon, when it hit...halted traffic.

Unable to stop, the truck ended up shifting weight which caused one of the cartons carrying live hagfish to "fly across the highway," as the Oregon State Police described.

While that carton landed somewhere on the road, others in the truck toppled and spilled all over, leading to a freak chain-reaction accident involving four vehicles. From: https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/hagfish-slime-eel-covers-highway-oregon-1024496-2017-07-15

And that is all I am going to say about hagfish. I plan to celebrate living in a state with no seacoast.

Things That Last

 I have always loved old things: antiques, traditional ways of doing things, old photographs, stories about earlier times. This is probably why I write historical fiction/historical romance.

A while ago as I poured water into my Mr. Coffee®, it occurred to me that I’ve been using the same coffee maker almost every day for thirteen years. Now I’m wondering what its life expectancy is (for purposes of comparison, the dishwasher, refrigerator, and the washer, all new in 2008, had to be replaced in the last two years). The gas stove, bought at the same

time, has no oven light and no clock because it’s strictly gas, with no electric bells and whistles, is still going strong. I did have to have a repair guy come in to clean the soot out of the bottom of the oven when the holes got plugged and the oven stopped heating*. My Kitchenaid Junior stand mixer, now about forty years old, still works. By comparison, I’ve been through three (three!) printers in thirteen years.

That led to contemplation of things that last.

Years ago, I bought a Hoosier kitchen cabinet. For the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with the term, it’s like this early 20^th century advertising 

illustration. There were many different styles (mine is narrower and taller). My current house, like the last one, does not have a lot of built-in cabinets, so my Hoosier is a godsend. It houses my crockpot, some small kitchen equipment, dried fruit, spices and seasonings (including the weird medieval and 18^th century ones like musk, and the chiles and chile powders because this is New Mexico, after all), and it also serves as the liquor cabinet. I believe it’s over a century old. It will outlast me, and that’s an oddly comforting thought.

Maybe that’s why shabby chic furnishings, antiques and genealogy are popular: they spell stability. And I think the appeal of historical romance novels lies in the desire for things that last:  a long line of ancestors and a house inhabited by the same family for decades or centuries, heirlooms, enduring love.

But even if we don’t trace our ancestry back more than a generation and aren’t rooted in the same soil that nurtured our great-great-great-grandparents, we are still part of the continuity of centuries. I have my father’s heavy bone structure, my mother’s singing voice, my father’s aptitude for special relationships (you know, that thing about what direction gears are turning? Didn’t get that from Mum), and my mother’s skill with the language. My father and I both inherited his mother’s chin. I don’t know where my nose came from. No one in any of the family pictures has it. Maybe one of my great-greats in Somerset, England, Ireland, Sweden or parts unknown contributed it. Our roots go back a long, long way.

Arundel Castle, home of the Dukes of Norfolk

*The owner’s manual blithely assumes the owner will do this at intervals. To do so, it’s necessary to remove the oven door, either have long arms or crawl into the oven, remove some weird-shaped screws at the very back, lift out the steel plate that forms the bottom of the oven, clean the gas apertures, replace the plate, re-light the oven pilot, and replace the door. No doubt some people can do it. I can’t. I’ll happily pay a gas stove repair person to come out every five years or so rather than buy a new, complicated range that would have a life expectancy of twelve or thirteen years.