Any way you go there's a road to be stronger
I am home from Readercon. I am lying on the couch with Hestia curled up on the nearest cushion, watching that vague after-sunset spectrum you get on clear evenings: stone-pink, sand-gold, apple-green, smoke-blue. I am covered in fur from her attentive brother, who as soon as I sat down on the bed to talk to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch planted himself purringly in my lap and kneaded his many claws in possessive happiness and groomed my hands and my chin and any of the rest of me he could reach, because I had been gone for four days and I smelled like people who were not my cats. I am also slightly covered in curry noodle from dinner at Dakzen with choco_frosh, but their yen ta fo and khao soi were worth it. My last panel of the convention, with the priceless name "Our Bodies, Our Elves: Sexual Awakenings in Epic Fantasy," turned out to be about five panels in the same fifty minutes, but it was fun and kept spinning new questions and I was strongly recommended Cecilia Grant's A Lady Awakened (2011) afterward based on something I had said about wanting to see more value-neutral bad sex in genre fiction, so I guess it's time to revive my het-romance-reading skills.
This was a good convention. I did not see everyone I wanted to see—or as much of everyone as I wanted—but the panels I had worried about went well and I did not burn out on enjoying conversation until the very last hours of this afternoon and people enthused about my forthcoming book, which is just stunning. I bought books and had nice food. I want to sleep for a week and I won't get the chance, but right now I am surrounded by cats (Autolycus has taken up a nearby position) and I am under no obligation to do anything for the rest of tonight. Even make rice pudding, which I had thought of doing, but might disturb the cats.
Forget the Sleepless Shores has its first review on Goodreads. And it's positive.
This is all right.
spatch planted himself purringly in my lap and kneaded his many claws in possessive happiness and groomed my hands and my chin and any of the rest of me he could reach, because I had been gone for four days and I smelled like people who were not my cats. I am also slightly covered in curry noodle from dinner at Dakzen with choco_frosh, but their yen ta fo and khao soi were worth it. My last panel of the convention, with the priceless name "Our Bodies, Our Elves: Sexual Awakenings in Epic Fantasy," turned out to be about five panels in the same fifty minutes, but it was fun and kept spinning new questions and I was strongly recommended Cecilia Grant's A Lady Awakened (2011) afterward based on something I had said about wanting to see more value-neutral bad sex in genre fiction, so I guess it's time to revive my het-romance-reading skills.This was a good convention. I did not see everyone I wanted to see—or as much of everyone as I wanted—but the panels I had worried about went well and I did not burn out on enjoying conversation until the very last hours of this afternoon and people enthused about my forthcoming book, which is just stunning. I bought books and had nice food. I want to sleep for a week and I won't get the chance, but right now I am surrounded by cats (Autolycus has taken up a nearby position) and I am under no obligation to do anything for the rest of tonight. Even make rice pudding, which I had thought of doing, but might disturb the cats.
Forget the Sleepless Shores has its first review on Goodreads. And it's positive.
This is all right.
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I live and I made rice pudding with leftover rice so it just needed cinnamon and vanilla and custarding! And then two little cats tried to convince me I had made it just for them! Normalcy restored.
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Best panel title ever, heeeeee!
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Josh Jasper named it!
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Likewise! You were one of the people I would have liked to see more of, but I'm glad we had the chance to hang out as opposed to wave frantically in passing. And you bought me a necklace full of pearls.
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Thank you!
*offers pets, scritchies, and a lap to the purry kneadypawed fuzzies* Your Autolycus, especially, sounds like a prime example of a lovebug.
He is an amazingly affectionate little cat. He staked his claim on me when he was two weeks old and has never yet ceased to remind me.
(He was the runt of the litter, a tiny black-fluff handful of unknown sex. We were warned that the runt cried whenever anyone picked it up and I should not feel insulted when the mother cat came and rescued it. I picked it up. It emitted a squeak or two and then began grooming itself, relaxed and comfortable on my lap. The mother cat did not make a move. The next time we came to visit, the runt ran right to me, climbed on my knee, climbed on my shoulder, fell asleep on me. I knew then that I had a cat.)
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Likewise! Next time you have more spoons, say hello.
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It makes me extremely happy! There are a couple of glitches in it, but I feel it is churlish to fight with people who give you four out of five stars. I have no idea who the reviewer is.
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You're welcome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
The author (who can be found on Twitter @JeannelleWrites) has one previous novel, A Verse from Babylon (2005), which draws on her own family's history in the Vilna Ghetto during World War II. It's probably my favorite Holocaust novel. I don't mean that ironically or back-handedly at all. It is about art in a time of atrocity, it has queer people in it, and it is responsible with its dead. She is at work on the sequel to The Covert Captain as we speak. I am reliably informed there will be a road trip, a house party, a non-binary romantic lead, and some other surprises.