Wrap-Up: Fall/December 2022

• Sanctuary by V.V. James
• Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
• Windwitch by Susan Dennard

MONTHLY TOTAL: 3
YEARLY SO FAR: 25

I don’t know if WordPress has simply gotten even more glitchy and annoying or if I’ve just forgotten how to use it, but it seriously might be time to find a new website provider. The only reason I used WordPress instead of Squarespace or Wix was because I liked the blog editor, but now I absolutely despise it so…we shall see.

Anyway, hello. I had a very busy and very terrible fall that culminated in two major life events:

1. I purchased a house and moved states.
2. My best friend died.

Both of these events completely halted my ability to think straight, for very different reasons, which meant reading was a struggle. All of this followed on the heels of my brain surgery and my doctor putting me on Ozempic, a medication that basically makes you stop eating and takes away your energy and brainpower. It also did not help that I was on deadline for my second book — technically, my deadline was for September, but I extended it twice, to be due in January, and honestly, I’m still not truly done, because my brain has given up, but c’est la vie. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Needless to say, I am very glad to be saying goodbye to 2022. Time is an illusion, etc, etc, but I crave the illusion of a fresh start. I’ll debut, I’ll start edits on book 2, I’ll hopefully submit a third entirely unrelated book to my editor, and…I’ll move on. I hope.

As for the books I read, they were all pretty good at distracting me. Love on the Brain in particular was a joy to read. I will read anything Ali Hazelwood writes, even if it’s quite literally the same tropes, character archetypes, and plots, because you can’t have too much of a good thing. I’m still reading Windwitch and hoping to finish it up before the new year; it’s been helping me get in the headspace to write my second book, and it’s also just really fun and has great worldbuilding.

I don’t have much else to say, really. I barely watched any TV, and what I did watch (The Watcher and Inside Man) I didn’t like. I watched a lot of films, weirdly enough, and my favorites were Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (SO sharp and dry), Don’t Worry Darling (yes, that one), and This Little Love of Mine (sometimes you just need mindless holiday romance cheer).

What else happened? Did anything else happen? I spent most of the fall going to and from the hospital, anticipating the inevitable, keeping my best friend company as her cancer continued to wear her down. And buying a house in CT meant finally moving out of NYC, after talking about it for years. CT is nice. It’s not ideal — it’s not the picture perfect cute Gilmore Girls CT vibe, because those vibes are too expensive — but it’s nice enough. I learned a lot about mortgages and home ownership in a very short time. A month ago I’d never even seen a pipe, and now I know you have to winterize them (my garage flooded two days ago).

Oh, I also went to Vermont in October, for the first time since the pandemic, to visit a dear friend, which was a nice little reprieve. A little less than nineteen days later, my friend died. It’s hard to conceptualize of much else that happened during that period without framing it around her death, and her rapidly deteriorating health. It is…very strange to watch someone slowly die. I very much do not recommend. My father died very suddenly when I was younger, and while it was a shock, I think I much prefer it to the agonizingly drawn-out ordeal that is death by cancer.

Anyway. New year, new beginnings, time heals all wounds, etc, etc. Let’s hope the aphorisms are true.

My debut novel, The Daughters of Izdihar, comes out January 10th. Buy it if you’re so inclined. If we follow each other on here, or engage in some way on social media, please don’t feel obliged to review, or to review positively. Negative reviews don’t bother me in the slightest, but don’t tag me in them, because that’s weird.

Onwards and upwards, hopefully.