Kimberly Hirsh

🔖 Read You are having a midlife crisis. It’s fine.

This is an interesting pairing with The Cut’s The Case for Marrying an Older Man.

The former points out that a woman partying at midlife is not, in fact, a revolution. Which pairs fascinatingly with the latter’s framing of being a young artist supported by a partner as a brilliant life hack. I’m curious what the author of the latter’s midlife crisis will look like.

Finished reading: Shadow’s Seduction by Kresley Cole 📚

It took me a long time to get into this one and it’s not as strong as a lot of the other Immortals After Dark books, but I still ended up liking it.

Finished reading: Shadow’s Claim by Kresley Cole 📚

I really liked this one, the way the main characters interact with each other is both sweet and hot. I’ve only got 4 books left before I’m caught up on the Immortals After Dark series.

Don’t buy any plants today, y’all.

Finished reading: Sweet Ruin by Kresley Cole 📚

“She’d thought there was no greater connection than destiny decreeing them joined. But there was—the choice they’d made to love each other.”

Loved it.

Nap first or eat first? The Kimberly Hirsh story

Happy First Contact Day, y’all! Only 39 years until warp flight & meeting Vulcans! 🖖🏻

📚 When I’m catching up on a long-running series, I sometimes forget that there are people who, for example, couldn’t read 19 Immortals After Dark books in a row and, in fact, had to wait a year or more for the next one to come out, and that I, too, can wait.

Finished reading: Dark Skye by Kresley Cole 📚

Other people seem to hate this one but I like it pretty well. Lanthe and Thronos’s story is epic, spanning years and continents. Lives ruined. Blood shed. Worth a try if you’re making your way through Immortals After Dark.

Did you know that April is School Library Month? It’s true! Did you know that I’m trained as and have worked as a school librarian? Also true!

Finished reading: Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas 📚

A lovely historical about an author and a publisher who fall in lust and then love. Her body is described as voluptuous, bountiful, abundant, generous. It’s clear that these are attractive things for her to be. Quite spicy. Content warning: miscarriage.

Finished reading: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 📚

A lovely romance novel with an autistic heroine. I highlighted a lot.

Finished reading: Matilda by Roald Dahl 📚

We went to see Matilda the Musical and I loved it. I’d watched the Netflix movie of the musical and years ago the movie with Mara Wilson, but I’d never actually read the book. It’s a lovely book but I think the musical is even better.

Finished reading: MacRieve by Kresley Cole 📚

This one is beautifully done as always. There’s a traumatic backstory of childhood sexual abuse for the hero and the way it impacts his relationship with the protagonist broke my heart. But of course there’s a happy ending because romance. ♥️

🔖 Read Why I Celebrate The Spring Equinox As The Real “New Year”.

I really love this. I want to live more in line with the seasons. Spring is a great time to make the changes so many people want to make in the new year: eat more produce, move around more.

Finished reading: Lothaire by Kresley Cole 📚

Of course if you’re reading Immortals After Dark you must read this one. You simply must.

I’m celebrating (?) the Ides of March a day late with an Italian Night Club sandwich from Jimmy John’s and Roman Raspberry Talenti Sorbetto.

(True facts: the Ides falls on the 15th only in March, May, July, and October. The rest of the year it’s on the 13th.)

🍿 Watched Yes Day.

This is a super fun family movie! I love it in no small part because of Jennifer Garner and Jenna Ortega but also it’s just super fun.

Let me be clear, when I say “baby,” I mean “big kid.” We took M to his first author event a couple weeks ago. It was awesome. Adam Gidwitz has a new book out. It’s called Max in the House of Spies. It’s about a German Jewish kid whose parents send him to London in 1939 and he falls in with British spies while he’s there. Also a dybbuk lives on one of his shoulders and a kobold lives on the other.

We first encountered Adam Gidwitz because of his amazing podcast, Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest. (M’s favorite episode is Hans, My Hedgehog.) Gidwitz is a former teacher who now works as a storyteller and author. He’s written the A Tale Dark and Grimm series and the book The Inquisitor’s Tale, and he is the co-author of the Unicorn Rescue Society series. In that series, kids travel around the world saving different cryptids. For each book, Gidwitz teams up with an author who is a member of the culture that the kids are visiting. They’re super fun and a great way to learn about folklore around the world.

Gidwitz talked about a family friend who had been one of the children sent away from Germany ahead of World War II and how the story of that friend inspired him to write this book. He said he felt it was an important book to write now because he thinks it’s an important time to look at Germany before the Nazis came to power and ask, what is it that makes the people of a country vote for leadership they know is wrong? What makes them willing to sacrifice justice for the promise of security? I think he’s absolutely right that these are key questions for our time.

Gidwitz shared the story of how he became a writer: he wanted to teach his students about ancient Egypt and couldn’t find a book to go with the lessons, so he started to write one. He’d write a chapter, share it with his students, and then they’d say, “Then what happened?” He’d tell them, “I don’t know!” and go home to write the next chapter. With a lot of positive reinforcement from his students, Gidwitz decided to quit teaching and write full-time. He didn’t get an agent with the Egyptian book. (He called it a “burner book,” explaining that many authors have at least one book they write and learn a lot from but don’t get to publish.) But he did when he started digging into Grimm’s fairytales.

Gidwitz is super entertaining and a great storyteller and doesn’t look anything like I imagined him. (I imagined him looking like Joshua Malina’s character, Jeremy, from Sports Night. I have no idea why.)

After he talked about his books and answered questions for an hour, there was a signing. When we got up there, he told M., “You’re a lot younger than most of the kids here and I wasn’t sure how you would do while I was talking, but you did great.” (M. is average height but tiny with giant eyes so it’s easy to mistake him for younger than he is.)

Finished reading: Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre 📚

Read this billionaire romance because it’s the next Fated Mates read along. It’s very well done & deflates the billionaire fantasy without taking all of the fun out of it. Definitely check the content warnings before reading.

I know there are things to do in life besides play Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but I don’t care to do them. 🎮

Finished reading: Dreams of a Dark Warrior by Kresley Cole 📚

This one took me a little while to get into but once I was in, I couldn’t put it down.

To quote @cheribaker@writing.exchange:

Don’t wish us Happy International Women’s Day. Instead, help to vote out the ghouls who deny women’s agency and treat us like walking wombs. Ask your male friends to do the same.

That would make me a happy international woman indeed. 😎

Finished reading: Demon From the Dark by Kresley Cole 📚

I really enjoyed this one and tore through it. Give me a sad, traumatized couple of people who find a new family in each other and I’m happy. 😍

New glasses, same as the old glasses except they actually fit.