Three for Tuesday

It's that in between time right now. I've turned in 2nd draft revisions for FINDING PARIS to my editors at Balzer and Bray. A-WORD is in arc form and on not quite ready for last pass proofreading before it becomes a book. Common Core Educator's Guide for the Sweet Dead Life series (more on that soon) is back at Soho Press. And I'm digging out the office and transitioning to new projects and catching up on my life.

So a quick three today while my head settles:

1. Just finished SAVE THE ENEMY by Arin Greenwood. I read the arc, but the book has been out for a few weeks from Soho Teen. LOVED this one. Zoey Trask is an amazingly funny, wry narrator with a mother who's been murdered, a libertarian father who's been kidnapped, and a younger, autistic brother Ben who may or may not be getting messages from the dead mother that can solve the mystery of the murder and the kidnapping. Plus a cute guy named Pete who also has some secrets. A DC setting, more or less. Political intrigue. Libertarian humor. (who knew?) And a clever, if not a bit too repetitious use of the Passover song Dayenu. Yup. You have to read it. You really do.

2. Been watching a lot of Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies. Tis the season after all. Snow Bride gets two thumbs up. Snow Globe Christmas made no sense at all, except that it was about the 4th or 5th  of this oeuvre to include a main character who gets hit on the head/bewitched/cursed and ends up living a life that isn't hers in order to be happier/better in the life she actually has and runs around part of the time in her pajamas. Any thoughts on these films and these tropes is more than welcome. There was another one (I've blocked the title right now) with Jennie Garth where she has a concussions and ends up saving her small Illinois town from the big bad conglomerate and finding true love. It was better. Way better. I think that is saying a lot.

3.  Comcast has given us 6 free months of HBO. GIRLS better start up again soon, that's all I'm saying.  And in other TV news: I need to catch up with my DVR'd eps of Vampire Diaries and Sleepy Hollow. Also Scandal. And I think we can all agree (by we, I mean other Bravo addicts) that on this season of RHOB, Brandi is mean to Joyce but Joyce is a sneaky mean one herself; Kim rarely seems sober even thought supposedly she is; everyone's got a dog that poops in their mansions; and in general non-Housewife news, the ep of Watch What's Happening Live where part of the cast of Downton Abbey visited with Andy Cohen was the kind of 30 minutes of television that dreams are made of. I am telling you!!  Also, we are finally watching season 2 of Homeland. So don't spoil season 3 for me! One thing is still true: NO ONE cries like Claire Danes. NO ONE!