Blog A Go-Go

In which you might be feeling a little morbid

If you're in the mood for something deliciously creepy--and about forty seconds long--I have the perfect book. Cherise the Niece by J. K. Benton of Happy Bunny fame is a picture book of the gory (Gorey?) kind. It tells the grim fates of the many aunts of Cherise, a little orphan girl with a penchant for mischief. I read about it first in the Murder by the Book newsletter and instantly e-mailed the store to order a copy. It is darkly hilarious, and as many others have pointed out, it will remind you at once of the Gashlycrumb Tinies. I intend to start giving copies to expectant aunts...as a friendly warning. http://www.jimbenton.com/cherise.html 

In which I have a poppy

A corn poppy to be exact. When I was in Houston, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and was instantly smitten with this piece of art http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.artchive.com/artchive/d/dongen/corn_poppy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/dongen/corn_poppy.jpg.html&h=749&w=623&sz=46&tbnid=ddu6MEGjtXQJ::&tbnh=141&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcorn%2Bpoppy&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=2&ct=image&cd=1 I don't know what it is about her, but she reminds me of something I've seen before that I found charming. She is a young woman with secrets, I can just tell. I was lucky enough to find a print in the gift shop--again, that weird Houston retail magic intervened for me--it was the very last one. I haven't framed her yet, but I'm thinking plain black would suit her nicely.

(Finally, I remembered who the Corn Poppy looks like: the illustrations in Cameron Tuttle's Bad Girls books! Thank goodness, that was driving me mad...)

In which I have the perfect red lipstick

I have made no secret of my quest for the perfect red lipstick. It is astonishingly hard to find. The closest I came was with Besame's Besame Red--lovely, rich, adorable packaging, superb customer service. I do highly recommend them, and I thought I would never stray.

Until now. Poppy King, the irrepressible Aussie who started her own lipstick line fresh out of high school, has started a new line, Lipstick Queen. And Oh. My. God. The concept is pure genius--there are two groups of lipsticks. One, with about 10% pigment, is called Saints; the other, with 90% pigment is called Sinners. I ordered a Red Sinner and a darker Rouge Saint. The Sinners give full, MATTE coverage, which is almost impossible to find. It's glamorous and dangerous and reminds me of movie stars of the 1940s. The Saints are much more sheer, but still gorgeous, with a lovely stained effect that makes it look as if you'd just eaten berries. I adore them both, and at $18 each they are an affordable luxury. Go check out Poppy's site at www.lipstickqueen.com and follow the links there to order directly from Barney's. (You might also want to sign up for the newsletters from Barney's. They're written by the fabulous Simon Doonan of Eccentric Glamour fame. As a side note, the customer service at Barney's is insanely good. They estimated the lipsticks would arrive well after July 1 because I chose the cheapest, slowest shipping. They arrived June 26. And if you're looking for a good "girl power" read, particularly if you're starting off in business and need a bit of girlfriend-type mentoring, Poppy has a new book out herself, Lessons of a Lipstick Queen.)

In which you might be tired of the Tudors

There's been so much said and written about the Tudors lately, that I wonder if Tudormania will shortly give way to Tudor Fatigue. If you're yearning for some nice thick royal biography to read and Henry VIII and his crew just don't do it for you anymore, try Hannah Pakula. I recently finished two of her books and they were divine. They were crisp and engaging, and she did an astonishing job of summing up the convoluted European politics at the turn of the twentieth century.

I read The Last Romantic, a biography of Queen Marie of Roumania--the traditional historic spelling, not mine. Marie was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, a half-Russian English princess who married into an unstable and extremely new ruling family. The other book, An Uncommon Woman, chronicles the life of Queen Victoria's oldest daughter, Victoria, Empress of Germany. (If you're not familiar with the dynastic influence of Queen Victoria, peek at a family tree and see just how many of her daughters and granddaughters intermarried with the royal families of Europe. Practically every country on the Continent referred to her as "Granny", literally.

Both of them are engaging reads, so do not be put off by the length of either. These are weighty books, but Hannah Pakula is a superb writer. They read as easily as novels, and sometimes a nice thick dose of history is just what you want after lots of lighter fare. (Rather like tucking in to a juicy steak after too many helpings of cotton candy.) In any event, reading the books back to back underscored how desperately awful it must have been to be married away, even for "love", when dynasties were at stake.

(Also, if you're in the mood to hear a little more about the process, you can head over to the blog of the delightful Jamie Carie and read an interview I did last week. Jamie is another RITA finalist in the Best First Book category, and a nicer girl you would never meet. http://jamieprose.blogspot.com/ Next week, I'll be posting links and info about all of the nominees, so be sure to check back!)

In which it is JULY

Yes, JULY is in all caps because I am just that excited. Why, you ask? Because July is one of my favorite months of the entire year--the month of the Tour de France. Besides the gripping drama of the race itself, I love the fact that for this one month, my life is predictable and patterned. There is order to my existence, dictated by the stages. Each morning I am up early to watch the coverage live at 7:00am on Versus. (The morning commentary is done by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, whom I adore.) Then lunch and work in the hottest part of the afternoon when I am not inclined to go out anyway. Then after dinner, the evening commentary gives a different slant on the stage events and updates on the injuries. Usually, that works out to about seven hours of Tour watching per day. (And if you noticed there is no room in the schedule for errands, grocery shopping, dinners out, or other excursions, you are quite right. I get very cranky in the heat and more so if I miss a stage. I stupidly planned an overnight trip to DC later this month and FORGOT to check the stage map for that day. If I'd been smart, I would have planned it for the rest day, but no. I will be relying on tivo to catch me up in the medium mountains.) This year's Tour starts in Brittany, historically a superb start. Check out the official site here: http://www.letour.fr/indexus.html 

In which you might be feeling quirky

If you're in the mood for something quirky to read--like Raffaella Barker's Venetia Summers books--you might be deeply satisfied by a dip into Mavis Cheek's Mrs. Fytton's Country Life. I love stories of reinvention, of ordinary people who, because of chance or circumstance, remake themselves, fashioning the bits and scraps of their lives into something new and better. Angela Fytton is just such a person. Discarded by her successful husband, she sets off for the country to create the life she's always wanted, a rural idyll to restore her battered spirits. What she gets is nothing like that, and that is the charm. It is an unexpected and clever book, populated with all sorts of eccentric and memorable characters and with a delicious, twisty ending. A lovely read.

In which I play hooky

I'm not here. Well, I am here, but not here. I am writing this entry a wee bit in advance because this weekend I was in Richmond. I had one day between flying in from Houston and heading out to Richmond, so no unpacking for me. Just a quick change of clothes in my bag before hitting the road. My father and I had tickets to the Indy car race at the Richmond speedway, and when we realized it was a night race, the whole family decided it would be more fun if we ALL went to Richmond and stayed overnight. So the plan is that we will have driven up together, Dad and I head for the race while everybody else swans around the hotel, ordering room service and watching "America's Got Talent" or some such.

Sunday morning--diner breakfast and then we're dividing up, my husband and daughter and I are heading to Carytown to shop the vintage stores while my parents head to cemeteries. No, that's not a metaphor. By the time you read this my parents will have spent the better part of Sunday exploring graveyards where my ancestors are buried. There is one beautiful plantation house that was located on the banks of the James River, complete with private cemetery. It belonged to our family, and a few others, until it was finally purchased by duPont. They moved the house down the river--where it still sits and is privately owned by a very gracious woman who permitted her butler to show us the downstairs--but the graveyard still lies on duPont property. They are very amenable to visits from family--there's just a bit of red tape to get through before they actually let you in. (E-mails and phone calls and maps have been exchanged in preparation for this excursion.) So between my parents cavorting in graveyards and my little family roaming vintage stores, I guess we're all exploring the past in our own ways.

In which I have a guilty pleasure

"Nashville Star". There, I said it. I haven't watched it before, I but I admit to being completely sucked in this year. I love when Jewel and Rich throw down at the judges' table, and I love the gasp that goes through the crowd when somebody has the face to cover one of the sacred cow songs like "Ring of Fire". The side effect of all this "Nashville Star" is that I have been listening to a LOT more country music lately. This used to be an ongoing source of dissension in my otherwise happy marriage. Let's just say my darling husband does NOT appreciate the steel guitar and leave it at that. But even he admits that my newest find is entirely worth listening to. Carter's Chord is a trio of sisters I found on itunes, and I have played their self-titled album so many times already the dog is almost tired of it. Almost. They are fun and interesting and they have some insanely tight harmonies, as Jeffrey Steele would say. Go check them out for yourself and see what I'm talking about. http://www.carterschord.com/index.php?page=home 

Note: I actually wrote this entry before I left for Houston on Monday. I just saw that Carter's Chord was a featured download on itunes this week, so you can have them for free!

In which I am home from Houston!

I am HOME! Houston was most excellent. Had a fabulous time with my womenfolk--although I did miss my husband and my father who stayed home to hold down the fort. (Apparently this involved painting projects and Chinese food.) This was the first three-generation, all-girl trip and it was forty kinds of fabulous. We hit the Galleria and I am SET for RWA in San Francisco now. No spoilers on the dress, except I will whisper the words "Neiman-Marcus" and "python print" and let you wonder. The shoes were my major score. I needed the most specific pair of shoes in the free world--3 1/2 inch heel, strappy black satin evening sandals with a thin sole. I must have looked in every shoe store in the Galleria before I stumbled into Jimmy Choo. (Technically, I was pushed. By my mother.) A delightful salesman welcomed me and, almost as an afterthought said, "Oh, and this table here is fifty percent off today only." I looked on the sale table and there they were, calling my name softly, like poetry. The most beautiful black satin slingback evening sandals with a thin sole and 3 1/2 inch heels. He went to find my size and they had ONE pair. Reader, I bought them.

As if Wednesday wasn't already fantastic enough, I had a SUPERB event at Murder by the Book. They are always gracious and lovely and we had a standing-room-only crowd to nibble scones and sip tea while we chatted about the books and writing in general. I got to sign books and see some people I adore--including my galpal Kristin who came with her adorable baby Will in tow and my godfather, whom I love fiercely and was completely surprised to see. All in all a fabulous time, and HUGE thanks to the fine peeps at Murder by the Book. (Is it time to come back yet?)

But the BEST part is that my cousin Lisa was there! Those of you who follow the Blog A Go-Go know that she recently received a bone marrow transplant at MD Anderson. She was released this past Monday, and though she still has to spend time at the medical center each day for drug therapy, she is out and about and doing AMAZINGLY well. Thank you so much for all your good thoughts, prayers, and encouragement. Cancer is a bitch, but she doesn't always win. My sweet Lisa:

And my darling godfather, Billy:

In which there is a new Samantha Brown series

I have mad Samantha Brown love. She's goofy and fun, and I think she'd be one of the best chicks EVER to take on a girls' weekend. She carries her own bag, never complains, and is equally happy to get up at sunrise for a hike or sleep in and hit the best stores--the perfect galpal. Anyway, she has a new series debuting tonight on the Travel Channel--"Samantha Brown: Great Weekends". (I have also seen it listed as "Passport to Great Weekends".) Tonight's episodes highlight Vegas and Austin, and the first airs at 10pm ET, but check your listings. Me, I've got the tivo set because I'm still in Houston. Or I'm stranded in Hartsfield saying very nasty things about the Atlanta airport. Either way, Samantha will be waiting when I get back.