Lemons, lilacs, leather...oh, my!

JENN McKINLAY: Okay, this might seem like a weird question but what are your favorite scents? 

I ask because I was making my monthly trek to the “smelly store” as the Hub calls it (more commonly known as Bath and Body Works) and they had a whole new lineup of candles and whatnot. Joy! 

Clearly, I have a slight problem with candle accumulation.

Now I know some people are scent sensitive and others think that burning candles is toxic and I get that, I do, but I have a husband, two dogs, and five cats. Y’all, I need to smell something besides man and critter in my house!

Hub generally tags along on this errand and unsurprisingly steers me away from the vanilla cinnamon cupcake candle scents to the more gender neutral eucalyptus and spearmint, which we both like. He's also the bergamot, leather, and distilled gin guy, none of which really work for me.

If I had to pick my favorite scents, I’m going with fresh laundry, coconut, and limoncello as my mainstays with crisp apple and balsam fir as seasonal faves. 

How about you, Reds? What scents bring you joy in life or in candles?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, I love this topic! I’m very scent sensitive, and Jonathan always howls with laughter when I say… Have you been eating Doritos? And he says I’ve had ONE! How do you know?

And if something smells like red onions it makes me really unhappy.

But happy smells, oh, what a wonderful topic. For candles, I love cinnamon, and coconut.

And oh, vanilla.

For fragrance like shower gel, my faves are lemon, and coconut. And sometimes freesia , but it’s not always the same fragrance, which is confusing.

There used to be a body spray called Gloomaway, which was a gorgeous kind of sugary Lemmon, which I absolutely loved. But they don’t make it anymore.

I use fewer candles than I used to, because someone told me they can make your ceiling sooty.

But by my bed I have a vanilla candle that is fragrance enough without lighting it. 

LUCY BURDETTE: Hank, Gloomaway??? What were they thinking?? No wonder they don’t make it anymore. 

My go to is lavender. EO makes a good line of lavender products, as does my favorite Alaskan company. When we burn candles, it’s almost always balsam fir.

But I’m also very partial to the smell of good food cooking and baking! Chocolate cake in the oven? Count me in! Roast chicken, same. Spaghetti bolognese–yes!

JENN: A spaghetti bolognese candle for those of us who don't cook? Maybe you're onto something, Lucy!

HALLIE EPHRON: Jean Nate? Does anyone remember that? I’m sure I have some… somewhere. Seems like it’s citrus-y. That and fresh baked bread (but in the oven… not in a candle).

And I used to love the smell of GAIN laundry detergent. Not so much now. I no longer want my clean laundry to smell unless it’s from hanging on the line outside.

RHYS BOWEN: I like fresh citrus scents. I grew up with 4711 cologne and still like that although I rarely use it. Actually I hardly ever use scents as I’m allergic to some. But give me baking bread, campfire smoke, the scent of a pine forest and I’m happy.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What a fun topic, Jenn! I’m super scent sensitive, so I don’t like a lot of candles, but there are some that I love. I bought a ridiculously expensive candle in Round Top this year because the smell was so divine. It’s called Tomato Season and it’s a combination of tomato leaves, cucumber, sage, and basil. That may sound weird but trust me! (And Trader Joe’s $4.99 Tomato Leaf candle is not even from the same universe…) (Tomato Season is made by a company called LAFCO if anyone is interested.) I also love a candle called Sea Pines by Mersea, which I burn every year around Christmas. And while I’m not usually crazy about vanilla-y/cookie type of scents, I have a candle called Pumpkin Bourbon that I’ve been nursing through the last few autumns. 

But my favorite scent of the moment is a bar of lavender soap made by my friend at the farmer’s market. Olive oil, goat’s milk, and lavender essential oil. I can’t wait to get in the bath every night. I’m convinced lavender reduces my stress levels.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Jenn, I’m laughing, because I call all the goodies from Bath and Bodyworks “smelly stuff.” Tell your hubs it’s not just him.

I love lemon scent, dating back to the first “grown up” splash I got for Christmas the year I turned 13. I would uncap it just to take a whiff. So I adore candles with sharp citrus scents, as well as florals like rose and gardenia.

The Maine Millennial, who got really into scented candles during the pandemic, also turned me on to them. Every Christmas I get a couple of the Bath and Body Works balsam candles - I swear, y’all, they really do smell like being in a pine forest - and I burn them to the bottom. She and my other kids have also been gifting me personalized Yankee Candles for special occasions. Here’s a delicious lilac scent (my favorite flowers!) from last Mother’s Day.

BEST CANDLE EVER!!!!

How about you, Readers? What are your go-to scents?

Happy Mother's Day--And to Mothers-in-Law, too!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Okay, here we go. I was about to say--we have a touchy subject today. And that made me stop and think--why is it touchy? But Happy Mother's Day, to those who celebrate. We love you and revere you!

But our guest today has a sidebar--the question of mothers in law.

Hmm.  I've had several mothers-in-law...:-). One in particular was...interesting. She was giving a bridal luncheon to introduce me to her friends, and the morning of the luncheon,  I arrived very early (with rollers in my hair, I remember) to help.

Welp, turns out she had taken to her bed, with some unknown ailment, and pronounced herself unable to prepare the meal. For twelve people. "You'll have to do it," she declared.

Me?

I was desperately trying to impress her, so I tried to look confident, and I said, "Oh, of course, poor thing, you feel better and I'll handle it.. What is on the menu?"

And she said, all fluttery,  "My specialty, chicken spaghetti."

I thought, great, fine, whatever that is, never heard of it, but okay.

I said: "Terrific, fabulous, where is the recipe?"

And she said: "Oh, dear, that does create a bit of a problem. There is no recipe, I just make it up as I go. It's..chicken. And spaghetti. In a casserole. I'm sure you'll work it out."

SHE MAKES IT UP??

Okay, fine, I think, it's chicken and spaghetti. "Lovely," I said, "It won't be as perfect as yours, I'm sure, but I'll figure it out."

So, I went downstairs and found her shelf of cookbooks. I pulled out Joy Of Cooking, thinking that there'd be something in there that would be enough like what she was talking about to make do, or that I could figure out from the way other dishes worked how to make chicken and spaghetti.

So listen to this.  I looked in the index, and there was a recipe for chicken and spaghetti! YAAY!, I think,  I am saved!

 But. When I opened to the page, it had all her annotations and changes. (Makes it up as she goes. My foot.)

Can you imagine the passive-aggressiveness of that one? Testing me???

Anyway, it was all fine. 

And--one more thing. She rallied, and attended the lunch. 

So.

More mother in law tales? The wonderful Ava Roberts is looking into the psychology of that very fraught relationship.

 

The Most Combustible Relationship!

  by Ava Roberts

I am lucky enough to have a fantastic mother-in-law. In fact, we are so close that I enjoy hanging out with her just for the fun of it; I would do so if she were not the mother of my husband and grandmother to my children. 

Not the case with my current character that I'm working on for my next book, about a woman who goes to stay with her in-laws under chilling circumstances (I can't say more now otherwise it will give too much away!). 

 I like the setting to be a forced extended stay, because a difficult in-law in small doses is one thing. But staying together under the same roof is a pressure cooker that strains even the best in-law relationship.

It happened with The Beckhams and their son. It happened with Prince Harry and Megan. The new spouse and the in-laws just can't seem to get along, both parties think they're right, and it ends with estrangement.  

It begs the question: why is the bond between a spouse and an in-law so combustible? 

Is it the loss of control, or the fear of being replaced?  Is it a power struggle? In domestic thrillers, the best villains don't carry knives; they carry the weight of their approval-- or disapproval-- that can be haunting. It’s the universal fear that the people who created the person we love might actually be the people who destroy our peace of mind. 

It’s the ultimate high-stakes gamble: when you marry the person, you inherit their ghosts.

In honor of Mother's Day, I hope that everyone is able to find a way to celebrate with their family. But for the sake of good fiction, bad in-laws are just too much fun to write about. 

I’d love to hear from you:

• Why do you think things go so wrong in these relationships?

• What is the worst thing a mother-in-law can say?

• What are the fatal poor choices a daughter-in-law can make?

Most importantly: What is the one comment from an in-law that would make you pack your bags in the middle of the night?

HANK: Oh, great questions! What do you think, Reds and Readers?

Ava Roberts is a clinical psychologist turned author who knows that the most unsettling secrets often lurk just beneath the surface. She is the author of The Summer House Murder, The Vanishing Neighbor, Juniper Isle, and the Thistler Thrillers series. Kirkus Reviews praised The Summer House Murder as “a whirlwind domestic thriller that’s also a pitiless anatomy of the costs of motherhood and sisterhood.” Ava lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two children, and an overactive imagination.

THE SUMMER HOUSE MURDER 

A summer trip to the Adirondacks is turned upside down when a woman’s body is discovered in the lake in this twisty thriller, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Paula Hawkins.

Sisters Esme, Piper, and Regina go on their annual visit to their remote summer house on Lake George expecting a tense vacation. Each has their own families to deal with plus their own secrets to hide. Esme, the oldest sister, is desperate to keep up appearances after discovering her husband’s infidelity with the one person who hurts her the most. Piper, the middle child, has a four-month-old baby boy and is too tired to keep playing peacekeeper to her siblings. Regina, the youngest, is a sarcastic rule breaker with a secret to hide that could cost her everything.

After tension boils over into an ugly fight late one night, the sisters go off in separate directions. Like most of their blowouts, they think they’ll cool off and resume the trip like normal the next morning. Only this time when dawn comes, a young woman’s body is discovered in the lake. As a criminal investigation narrows in on their family home, it becomes clear that the sister’s web of lies and secrets is inextricably linked to the woman in the lake.

A tense and fast-paced thriller, The Summer House Murder will leave readers breathlessly turning the page until they reach the thrilling conclusion to this twisted family drama.

When Real LIfe Meets Research

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, gosh. What a thought-provoking post today from author Lynne Squires. I wonder how many of us have stories like this..but that’s not the question she has for us at the end of this touching essay.

See what happens when one discovery in a her life--developed not only into a novel, but into understanding and compassion.


When Real Life Meets Research

By M. Lynne Squires

After my mother’s passing when I was in my 30s, I found out she had been committed to an asylum for depression when I was just a year or two old. Mental health issues were treated differently then. What would be addressed today with medication and therapy, in the 1950s still subject to more arcane methods, from “fresh air cures” to lobotomies.

I was able to request the records for her stay there. There were meager notes about her time there, but enough to know she received shock treatments before her release.

Now in my 60s, I began a story about a new mother with auditory hallucinations and depression, inspired by my mother’s experience.

When I started writing fiction, it never occurred to me the research that would be involved. I thought research was the denizen of the nonfiction author. That misconception was debased early in my make-believe world creation journey. In the past few years, I have found myself down rabbit holes about the history of safety deposit boxes, how cross-stitch samplers came about, and more recently, the origin of the phrase “above the fold” in reference to newspaper articles.

I often find research for historical fiction is best accomplished in viewing old photographs and postcards. The nuances the eye can observe are often the details a narrative might overlook. A recent deep dive centered around asylums from the 1950s and backwards through the 17th century. Photographs and postcards are plentiful, although I wonder who would be excited to receive a postcard featuring an insane asylum?

An actual visit to a long defunct asylum a few hours from my home was enlightening and disturbing in equal measure. Designed in such a way to promote good air flow through cross ventilation, I imagine when the number of patients swelled from the intended capacity of 240 exceeded 2,400, the air quality suffered.

My main interest was in researching reasons for commitment to an asylum. In the earliest days, they ranged from “reading” and “asthma” to “laziness” and “vicious vices.” Often courts approved commitment of individuals for assessment and treatment, leaving them for lengths of stay dependent on the whim of the facilities administration or medical staff. Families could drop off a child, spouse, or other relative at an asylum door and many times never return for them.

The setting for my book, River of Silence, is such an asylum in the 1950s. When finding photos of nurses in the 1950s, I could practically hear the squeak of nurses polished white leather shoes against black and white tile floors and feel the white uniforms stiff with starch. Legs were always encased in opaque white stockings and white caps topped each head.

In that era, patients diagnosed with depression and anxiety were usually given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Lobotomies were performed far more frequently than one might imagine. On a typical day, dozens might be administered one after another, without the benefit of any anesthesia. Pictures of the equipment used were horrifying. The lobotomy tools were the equivalent of a basic ice pick and hammer.

My protagonist, Anastasia, committed to an asylum against her will learns the horror of being there, the helplessness of staying there, and the battle of trying to escape. Her story is told through the connected experiences of various people. Her family, friends, hospital staff, and other patient’s narratives come together to illuminate the picture of how mental health was dealt with over a half century ago. To tell Anastasia’s story through her eyes alone would not encompass the depth of her experience.

In telling this story, I realized the value of seeing how each character’s narrative enriched the story by weaving in details of setting and experiences outside the main character’s view. I wanted, in essence, a novel told in short stories where different elements were given space to expand and contribute to the overall story arc.

And FYI, possibly my favorite character is Agnes, a feisty, thin-as-a-rail patient, whose constant disheveled appearance belies her razor-sharp wit. If you must be in a new unfamiliar situation, you’d want an Agnes in your corner.


So Readers, at my age, writing about the 1950s hardly seems to be historical fiction, yet here we are. Stories set in what era do you most enjoy reading?



HANK: I agree–how can the fifties be historical fiction? Or the sixties? Yikes. What do you think Reds and Readers?

River of Silence is a story about a woman, Anastasia, taken away from her husband and infant daughter and committed to an asylum in the 1950s. Her story is told from multiple perspectives: the patients, her physicians, nurses, an orderly, an aide, and fellow patients. Within their stories is woven the world in which Anastasia finds herself. She undergoes electric shock treatments so common at that time. Her struggle to return home is difficult, punctuated with cruelty, misunderstanding, and despair.

She becomes friends with two women far different from her friends in her life at home. With nothing in common, the three make tenuous steps toward forging a relationship. A sane act in their uncertain world, the three come to care for, support, and defend each other.

The mental health world in the 1950s was in transition with antipsychotics being a newly introduced treatment for mental disorders. Some doctors embraced change, and some eschewed it. Anastasia struggles with the fear of falling prey to her old-school physician who believed lobotomies were a fallback cure for any patient he deemed difficult or incurable. He seems to dislike her, accusing her of not talking or interacting, and she fears the worst. A young physician fights for the patient's right to utilize new treatments. He's aware of the high mortality rate with lobotomies.

Anastasia starts teaching the women on her ward to crochet, and through that, she becomes engaged with staff and patients to the doctor's begrudging satisfaction.

The present-day last chapter has Anastasia's daughter preparing to sell her mother's home. She ruminates with her friend about her mother's journey and her eventual return home.

M. Lynne Squires, an Urban Appalachian Author, writes fiction, essays, and dabbles in poetry. Her first novel, River of Silence is forthcoming in May. She has penned four books, and her work has appeared in numerous journals, such as Change Seven and The Ekphrastic Review, and multiple anthologies, including the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and Fearless: Women's Journeys to Self-Empowerment. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is the 2020 Pearl S. Buck Writing for Social Change Award recipient. She writes at her home in Appalachia beside her furry overlords, Scout and Boo Radley.


RIVER OF SILENCE (currently in pre-order) is available at mountainstatepress.org. The release date is May 31st.