I have journeyed far and wide, searched through stores and catalogs and even kickstarter, searching for the perfect pillow. My demands are not too grand or onerous, I think. I believe myself to be perfectly reasonable, searching for a pillow that allows me to sleep and wake again refreshed, without a sore neck, shoulders, or spine. Alas I have come so close, even believing I have discovered The One, and then to find in a week or a month, that the pillow was leading me on, pretending to be perfect, mayhap hiding its extra fluff, sucking it in until it could no longer manage and then bursting into a giant puff all. Or supporting my neck and head at just the right angle, holding its breath until it could no longer and then slowly deflating into a torpid puddle. There has been down, chunked up memory foam, spaghetti memory foam, gel, fiberfill. There has been gussets and no gussets, King size and standard size. Strange bumps and shapes and traditional rectangles. Firm and soft and medium and medium firm and medium soft.

And yet, my neck and shoulders and spine continue to ache.

Woe unto me. Woe. Where is The One? The pillow destined to make me the happiest of women? What will I have to sacrifice to obtain it? First born? My soul? Where is my fairy godmother to deliver me into sleeping bliss?

Thank you to those of you who told me about the format problems with The Witchkin Murders ebooks. I’ve notified my editor and I *think* the corrected files are uploaded. If you have bad files, do redownload and let me know if they are correct. And I’m really sorry this happened. We don’t know what FUBARred them. And really, thank you so much for your patience.

Once again, I have lost. Was walking the dogs today in a lovely big park with tons of oak trees, a creek, lots of meadows and tall grasses, and squirrels. Lots of squirrels. The dogs find these highly entertaining and try to yank my arms out of their sockets as often as possible. However, the dogs had little to do with today’s events.

We were walking along a little stretch where there are lots of squirrels and the dogs were running back and forth to eagerly look at them. I was walking along, entertained by the puppies, when I stepped in a squirrel hole. These little guys excavate like crazy and while they do run up and down trees, the live in holes.

The hole I stepped in was really a divot because it had been filled in mostly, which actually made it all the more embarrassing when I fell. Like a freaking tree. I sat myself up and discovered that my left knee was all scraped up and painful. I managed to get up and get dusted off, and limp off into the sunset, so to speak. When I got home, I found I had the beginning of a really impressive bruise on the inside of my left wrist and heel of my palm. It’s growing bigger and more impressive every moment.

And lo, once again, Di lost in the game of Di versus . . . Whatever.

I want to mention that I do have a new book out,  called The Witchkin Murders and it’s a fantasy police procedural with some romance. If you’d like to read a couple of chapters for free, click here.

Also, today is my 29th wedding anniversary. My son graduated High School last week. So happy things!

I recently read The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White. It’s a romantic suspense, and I’ve got to say, it’s just about a perfect book.

First, the back cover blurb:

Want a chance to support me in a different way and also get some cool chances to read things in draft and before anybody else sees them? Then consider joining my Patreon! It’s a lot of fun. Today I posted the first two chapters of the second Mission: Magic book, The Elf Job.

Magicfall is actually the same world as The Horngate Witches books. These books are entirely separate with new characters. Here’s what it’s about:

Four years ago, my world—the world—exploded with wild magic. The cherry on top of that crap cake? The supernatural world declared war on humans, and my life went straight to hell.

I used to be a detective, and a damned good one. Then Magicfall happened, and I changed along with the world. I’m witchkin now—something more than human or not quite human, depending on your perspective. To survive, I’ve become a scavenger, searching abandoned houses and stores for the everyday luxuries in short supply—tampons and peanut butter. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, but anything’s better than risking my secret.

Except, old habits die hard. When I discover a murder scene screaming with signs of black magic ritual, I know my days of hiding are over. Any chance I had of escaping my past with my secret intact is gone. Solving the witchkin murders is going to be the hardest case of my life, and not just because every second will torture me with reminders of how much I miss my old life and my partner, who hates my guts for abandoning the department.

But it’s time to suck it up, because if I screw this up, Portland will be wiped out, and I’m not going to let that happen. Hold on to your butts, Portland. Justice is coming, and I don’t take prisoners.

About the book:

An unlikely pair, an impossible mission, and a hilarious hunt for somebody to love.

Henry was only tasked with fixing the leaky office pipes. So, when a crazy woman barges in and confesses all her secrets like a challenge, he’s faced with two choices: Tell her he’s not the man she’s looking for, or roll with it.

Rachel knows there’s something amiss about her new shrink–he’s far too handsome for starters–but she’s desperate to straighten her life out. With only three weeks to find a date to her best friend’s wedding, she’s willing to try anything. Even rely on a complete stranger to help her find love.

My take:

I’ll be honest. I was a little put off at first by Cassy, who I was afraid would be a more prominent character in the book, but luckily, she wasn’t. Mostly she was really obnoxious and Rachel took it laying down in the beginning, which I found annoying. But then she walks into the office and she’s so funny, and so real, and she’s not at all flat or one-dimensional. She’s got some hangups as we all do, but she’s also talented and smart and not at all a doormat. AND she stands up to Cassy at the end, which made me very happy.

I like Henry. Clearly he was an asshole and knew it, but meeting Rachel made him reevaluate himself and his friends. It wasn’t an instant transformation, but one where he grows into love, same as Rachel. His family is amazing, and I’m really hoping Taylor and Neil figure things out. His friends are both obnoxious and wonderful, which I found delightful.

Nobody was perfect, and Henry showed his true colors in a dramatically embarrassing and realistic moment and I may have fallen a bit in love with him at that point, too.

The story is well written, fun, breezy, real, and feel good. It’s fast and I really love Rachel and Henry as people and as a couple. Definitely read this book. I’m going to look up other books by Fray for sure.

Today brings you three Di versus events, all of which, Di lost. Okay, the blackberries were a bit of a draw.

First:

In a case of Di v. the dog harness:

Merlin rolled over on my foot while I was scratching his tummy, and he scraped a plastic buckle over the top of my surgical toe scar from November. It, uh, hurt. You know that paralyzing hurt where you can’t swear or do anything but hope it goes away before you pass out? Like that. Nerve pain sucks.

The weird part is that it sent a reaction through the rest of me and now I’m still shaking (literally) a bit, and my head is throbbing. The foot pain has calmed, but walking isn’t a real treat and I’m guessing shoes aren’t my friend right now.

From the second Mission Magic book, a little chopped out snippet:

“So when Arcadia decides you’re a threat and starts lobbing magic bombs at you, you’ll what?”

He gave a knife smile. “I will open up the heavens and rain hell down on earth.”

I stared, trying to figure out if that was a euphemism or not. “What does that mean?”

“It means that no matter what happens, people are going to die. I can push the hatchlings toward Arcadia, but when they attack me, the hatchlings will go wild. I’ll be killing anyone who comes at me. The hatchlings will run wild and all these innocents will become the banquet the elves destined them to be.”

For a few minutes I’d had a slender hope that with So’la’s help, things wouldn’t go worst case scenario. Now I had to wonder if anybody could be saved at all. It was too much to hope that So’la would be willing to sacrifice himself for anybody else. He wasn’t the type.

“Do you have a point?”

“I do.”

“Get to it then,” I said curtly. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, my body rigid with tension. What the hell was I going to do? How was I going to keep all these innocent people alive? And all the Arcadia personnel?

Dear R.J. Blaine. What’s wrong with you? You’re making our mom neglect us. She kept reading that stupid book—Hypnos—and hardly noticed us. Breakfast was late. Dinner was late. We went to bed late. She barely pet us or talked to us like we weren’t even there. We’re practically skin and bones, right now. So we’re writing to ask you—please, please, please, stop writing books. They are too distracting and she doesn’t need distracting. We are the goodest of boys and deserve better than her lackadaisical care of us. She’s supposed to be at our beck and call 24/7. But your stupid books suck her right in and she wouldn’t put the book down no matter how much we licked, barked, played, or nudged. Those ALWAYS work.  We checked her Kindle. She has MORE unread books from you. We tried to delete them but we have no opposable thumbs. If you don’t comply, we will be forced to take drastic measures. Nobody wants that. Well, Merlin does but he’s naturally violent.

Sincerely,

Crowley, Merlin, and Vodood