Hooligans Know Best...Sometimes.

 

JENN McKINLAY: The above picture is where I spent a good portion of Monday--when I was not chained to my desk cranking out the words to meet my impending deadline. Why? Well, the Hooligans arranged it because they are wonderful lads who think their mom is a workaholic (ME???) and they're worried about my stress levels. 

Full disclosure. I am not a massage person. The last time I had one was in 2003 when I booked a massage at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC because I was flying in from Phoenix on the red eye. I had a meeting with my Harlequin editor and I wanted to look refreshed instead of like a piece of petrified wood exhumed from the desert. 

How did it go? Great! I fell asleep to the sounds of taxi cab horns and other city noises only to wake up face down on the table watching the drool from my mouth splat on to my massage therapist's shoes. How does one recover from a moment like that? With a big tip!

Needless to say, I was a little nervous that history would repeat itself. I mean the table is heated. You're just asking for me to fall asleep like a very large cat. Thankfully, I did not. I did consider paying them to let me nap for another hour after the massage but work called...as it always does. 

This massage was definitely more successful than the last. I had jacked my knee during Saturday's 5K, and this morning I woke up all better! Yay! So, I'm rethinking making time for more self-care, partly because they gave me coupons for two free massages (I think the knot in my shoulder - a hazard of the writing life - which thwarted my therapist LeAnn was the impetus for the coupons. LeAnn will not be defeated)! and partly because I'm a woman of a certain age and frankly, I need all the help I can get. 

Since booking the massage, I've gotten much feedback from some folks who love them and others who are horrified by the thought of letting anyone touch them--and both responses make perfect sense to me.

Reds and Readers, where do you fall in the massage opinion poll? For or against? Anyone else drool on their therapist? Just me? 

Weddings Gone Wrong By Jennifer J. Chow

 JENN McKINLAY: I am delighted to have our friend Jennifer J Chow back on Jungle Reds today! She pens one of my absolute favorite series and her latest STAR-CROSSED EGG TARTS looks to be another top-notch delightful mystery. If you're looking for a hint about the subject, check out the gorgeous picture below! 

(Yes, it's WEDDINGS)!

Now here's Jen to tell us more about it!

JEN J CHOW: You look forward to the special day when you get to marry your beloved…and then something goes awry. I’ve definitely had that happen. My musicians called me the wee hours before my wedding and told me they were still at the airport…on standby. All the time I was prepping, I wondered if they’d make it on time (yes, they did!). 

I also made trouble of my own at my cousin’s wedding. She’d failed to let me know she would be asking relatives to come up front and acknowledging them; as we took turns, I realized they were all giving her red envelopes. And I hadn’t brought any with me! 

Other mishaps at weddings I’ve attended have been minor: the bride and groom showing up super late to the reception because of photo taking, last-minute flowers needing to be swapped in for the originals, and people stepping on each other’s toes while dancing. 

A few atrocious cases I’ve read about online: a hostess carrying a cake, tripping, and falling face-first into it; a mother-of-the-bride saving money and doubling up on her daughter’s wedding, using it for vow renewals; and a very nervous groom vomiting all over his bride. 

But the worst I can think of? Finding a dead body at the wedding. Hidden under the cake table, because of murder. Which is exactly what happens to my protagonist in Star-Crossed Egg Tarts. 

BUY NOW

What’s the worst thing you know of that’s happened at a wedding? 

About the Book:

Felicity Jin returns in the second book in the heart-warming and deliciously mysterious Magical Fortune Cookie series from Lilian Jackson Braun Award-nominee Jennifer J. Chow.



Jin Bakery has been asked to cater the Lum-Wu outdoor wedding at Pixie Park. The day of the ceremony, Felicity is finishing the “cake” of tiered egg tarts as the wedding party arrives for the ceremony. When one of the groomsmen, Miles Wu, doesn’t arrive, Felicity’s best friend and local florist Kelvin generously steps in for him and the wedding goes smoothly―until cake cutting time.

That’s when Felicity finds Miles’ dead body beneath the table with her egg tarts display, stabbed by Kelvin’s gardening shears. 

With the detective’s sights on Kelvin, Felicity starts sleuthing away to prove his innocence, revealing dark secrets about all the wedding's attendants. They each had something to hide―and a reason to quiet Miles forever. To make matters worse, Felicity’s powers of prediction are on the fritz thanks to the emotional turmoil of a surprise visit from her estranged father.

When the groom gets poisoned at the send-off party and winds up in a coma, the stakes are even higher, not to mention Felicity’s feelings for Kelvin are beginning to feel more than friendly. Will Felicity’s magic return in time to catch the true culprit and rescue her budding relationship with Kelvin?

https://read.macmillan.com/lp/star-crossed-egg-tarts-9781250323255/

Author Links:

https://jenniferjchow.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JenJChow

https://www.instagram.com/jenjchow/

Bio:

JENNIFER J. CHOW writes cozies filled with hope and heritage. She has been a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award. The first book in her Magical Fortune Cookie series, Ill-Fated Fortune, was highlighted in Book Riot, Criminal Element, and Woman’s World. Jennifer is a past president of Sisters in Crime and an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Mystery Writers of America. She regularly blogs at chicksonthecase.com. Connect with her online and sign up for her newsletter at JenniferJChow.com.

You Pierced What? Welcome to Mid-Life!

 JENN McKINLAY: Well, hello, mid-life crisis!

Nose stud! Scale of pain from 1-10 with 1 being none, I'd say it was a 2.

I was on the phone the other day, catching up with my former college roommate, a person who has known adult me for almost 40 years. We talked about what was happening in our lives and when I finished, she said, “So, you’re writing fantasy novels, running 5Ks (see photo below), and now you have a nose stud (see photo above). Overall, how do you feel your mid-life crisis is going?”

Me and H2 - Rock and Roll 5K - it was 44 degrees!!!

I laughed and said, “This from a woman who is selling her house and traveling the country in an RV for the next few years to find her perfect retirement location?” She also laughed as we acknowledged we were both managing our middle years in different and surprising ways. (I have always loathed running and she never planned to leave CT).

Side note: neither of us have bought a sports car or traded in our husbands for a younger model. LOL.

My question to you, Reds, is what did your middle-age years look like, what did you do, or plan to do to embrace the next chapter?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Middle years….When was that, again? Remind me?  (Wait, I just re-read your opening paragraph. You have a nose stud? Did I know that?)  Anyway, my middle years are long gone, and I got through them with a strange but inadvertent combination of ignoring them and embracing them. I’m not sure I ever thought of “mid-life crisis.”  I was unmarried and unattached between the ages of 21 and 40, and happily so.  Married at 40, working 24/7 and truly loving it. There was nothing else I wanted to do, and nowhere else I wanted to be. I just wanted to be better at what I was already dong.  Then, after a bit of turmoil,  married Jonathan when I was 46. 

Hmm. I may be the ONLY person, come to think of it, who traded in her husband for an OLDER model. :-) 

So was that before or after mid-life?

I loved my mid-years, and valued them. I’m better now than ever, but I see it as so much of a process.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: How did I not know about the nose stud, either? Is this since the last time we zoomed? I say, “good for you,” and “ouch!”

Middle years? Oh, I did the classic. Wrote a novel. Got a divorce. (For the first time in my life I had my own money! Oh, it was so incredibly liberating!) Married slightly younger model. Bought a sports car. Started making trips to England by myself. (Can you shout “liberating!!!)

The writing, the husband, and the solo trips have stuck. The red sports car, not, alas. I had to come to grips with reality when the warranty ran out. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Mine was a gradual shift. (I’ve always had a keep-one-foot-on-the-dock-and-one-on-the-boat approach to change.) 

The big thing was that I started to write fiction. I’d started a freelance writing business which gave me the flexibility to write stuff that, for quite a long time, I did not get paid for. Meanwhile my daughters were flying the coop and my Jerry was our anchor. I was also letting my hair go gray and Jerry and I were ticking travel destinations off our bucket list. And buying another new white Honda Civic every so often to replace a 14-year-old one. I’m not a big risk taker. 

RHYS BOWEN: It’s funny that my next stand-alone, MRS ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, has the theme of midlife crisis. Dumped by her husband after being the model wife she takes off for the south of France and forges a whole new life there. (Maybe a bit of a living vicariously write?) Anyway my fifties were much better than my forties when husband was laid off and I had three kids in college. Last kid went to college. We traveled and I took the risk of switching from a reliable income writing YA books to writing what I like to read. The first Constable Evans novel got a teeny advance and a print run of 2500. I think it’s worked out okay. If I hadn’t switched I’d never have made all these wonderful friends and been part of this amazing community. 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I got my @$$ tattooed when I turned 36, does that count? Maybe I had an early start on the midlife "say yes to changes" thing, because that's around the time I started to write. 

 

In some ways, I agree with Rhys: my fifties were easier at times than my forties (I had a baby at 39, after all!) And my sixties (so far) are even better. I feel freer, more myself, and more willing to take risks than I was when I was younger. I can't see going in for a piercing, but I could definitely sign up for another tattoo... 

LUCY BURDETTE: whenever someone asks how I started writing, how I switched careers from clinical psychology to mystery writer, I say it was my midlife crisis. I don’t know how else to describe it that would make sense. It certainly wasn’t planned, but I’ve never taken the straight route to anything. The middle years were filled with angst, so I am really enjoying being settled with John and having lots of adventures writing and otherwise along the way.

JENN: In reading these answers, I am reminded of why I absolutely adore the Reds. We're all so different and so uniquely ourselves and there's no judgement just a lot of support. And the nose stud happened in December. Not planned - a totally spur of the moment - why not? - at the mall. LOL.

Your turn readers! What did/does/will mid-life look for you?