My mother sent me a Christmas gift of the first two in a series of eight novels, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, and I'm so glad she did! I'm afraid Richard Osman will have to take a step back -- Beth Brower is my new favourite author. I broke two of my self-imposed rules and ordered the volumes 3-5 off Amazon (the first rule being to only buy secondhand books and the second rule being to boycott Amazon, which I've successfully done for over a year). But Amazon was apparently the only option to acquire these books, and I couldn't stand the thought of not continuing with the series. And Amazon would deliver to the church, where I was staying for five weeks, ostensibly on a writing retreat. An internal struggle ensued, a dose of guilt, a load of rationalization. Could I justify buying them off Amazon after forcing my family to do without American-grown sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner? Wasn't I the person who did without celery for months until I could grow my own, because no Canadian celery was to be had?
I threw caution to the wind and placed the order.
I gobbled vols 3-5 in just a few days, and then broke the rules again ordering the final three volumes in the series, because, well...Because. Adrenalin up, I manically read 7 other books while waiting for them to arrive, including Hazel Prior's excellent Penguins and Veronica series, lent by a friend. As soon as the last three Brower books arrived, I abandoned everything else I was supposed to be doing, including cooking, walking, writing, cleaning, and sleeping, and dove in again. This morning I've finished volume 8. I'm saturated with lovely words.
When you find a character with a humorous voice, carefully crafted development, fiery personality, and poetic phrasing, you start to think of them as real. You want them to be real. I expect to look up from my book and see Emma dancing past the doorway. I'm genuinely sad I won't be able to meet Islington face to face.
I feel my own language use is sadly lacking, now, and need to up my game...er, improve my articulation. 😁 My writing plods from A to B in predictable, efficient ways. Beth Brower sings.
