I’ve just finished A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray and I’m itchin’ to jot off to the library to pick up the next book in the trilogy right this very minute. Years ago I was a Regency devotee. Then my reading preference shifted towards chick-lit, and lately I’ve begun to notice a preference for Victorian-set novels. From Tasha Alexander to Deanna Raybourn, now to Libba Bray and even R.L.LaFevers, I adore them all. But they’re all dark and mysterious–something is always lurking. Who’s writing the lighthearted Victorian novels? (Feel free to actually tell me if you know). I might be tempted, but I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t be bouncing around the genres so much: Regency historical -> magical chick-lit -> humorous Victorian?? Probably not in my best interest.

And while I love a good Gothic (Mary Stewart, is, after all, my hero), I don’t think I could write one. I couldn’t be that mean to my characters–I think I’d try to smooth things over and shelter them from all the bad decisions. But getting back to AGATB and Libba Bray, I think she did it beautifully. Her writing style is lush and inventive, and her imagery is spectacular. Somehow she managed to make a bitchy little debutante someone we could respect and cheer for and admire. And I can’t wait to see what sort of tortuous ordeals she’s dreamt up for the next installment in the Gemma Doyle trilogy.

When I was a kid, my family drove from Houston to Tucson every summer in a Chevy Citation, my sister, brother, and I all in a row in the back seat. We always toted along our books and kept busy playing the typical car games and singing songs. Still…it was a long 1000 miles. But in the summer of 1982, one song carried me all the down I-10. I LOVED Ebony & Ivory by Stevie Wonder and Paul MacCartney and sang it over and over ad nauseum. It may as well have been The Summer of Ebony & Ivory.

And now, on the cusp of the new season of one of my favorite shows, Psych has brought it all back to me in all its glory. Enjoy!

Nothing much of interest to post today, although I do feel compelled to notify you all that in reading this blog, you are evidently reading at a genius level:

Who knew, right? Pat yourself on the back. And here you thought this was brain candy (or mindless drivel…)

Today was my third time to take Tae-bo at the YMCA. It’s very intense (at least for me), and by the end of it, I’m as bright pink as a watermelon Jolly Rancher, but still I keep returning. At my first class, the instructor, a tiny, uber-flexible cracker-jack of a Japanese woman named Hero, trained by Billy Blanks, announced that everyone should go at their own pace: ‘Piece of cake,’ she said. She followed that comment with, ‘And that’s why you’re here, right? To have a piece of cake?’ Sounds sort of happy-go-lucky, right? Well today I guess she cranked things up a little, because while telling us to lift our knees and pull down our arms in a standing crunch, she says, ‘Imagine you’re taking a head and pulling it down to crack on your knee.’ Hmmm. Perhaps a touch of pent-up hostility. Now I’m going to have to resist trying this move on people who really irk me.