Sending Best Easter Wishes

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy Easter to those who celebrate today from all of us at Jungle Red! 

I imagine we are all celebrating the coming of spring, even if some of us are only seeing tantalizing hints. We are burgeoning here (such a good word!) The trees are cloaked in green, the Japanese maples are blazing red, and the roses are in their spring full flush. It is glorious!

Unfortunately, this means that the tree pollen is also burgeoning, and that is not nearly as pleasant. At the moment, it's elm pollen, although the pecan will be joining it any day now. Everything around our house is covered in a film of green powder. The birdbath, pond and patio fountain are all scummy and filled with tiny elm seeds. A few minutes outside enjoying the roses means sneezing, runny nose, and itchy eyes. Apparently the DFW area is way up there on the "increasing allergies" list. I certainly don't remember such an onslaught when I was a child. 

It's also mad planting time here, as we try to get things in pots and in the ground so that they can get started before it gets too hot. I brought back some beautiful bougainvilleas from our trip to Round Top. I've never seen that deep orange or the gold before and am looking forward to getting them in hanging baskets on our deck.

Since then I've made several "packed car" trips to local nurseries!

The backseat is totally stuffed as the cargo space was already full.

All this is on the to-do list for next week, but today we are looking forward to Easter lunch at my daughter and son-in-law's. There will be ham, a quiche and a ham and mushroom strata from our local bakery (Bresnan's, if anyone wants to check out the goodies, just for fun,) as well as a gorgeous carrot cake from a new French bakery here. It all sounds delicious, but the best part is just relaxing and spending time with our favorite people.

REDs and readers, are you celebrating today? If so, what are doing--and what are you eating??

Jonelle Patrick--Let's Talk Comfort Reads

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What fun to have the lovely Jonelle Patrick visiting us all the way from Tokyo this morning! I have no idea what time it is in Japan, but Jonelle is a treat any time of day. She has a new book coming out on April 21st, THE SAMURAI'S OCTUPUS. 

I can't wait to learn the significance of the title, but today she's here to chat about something else. Here's Jonelle!

LET’S TALK COMFORT READS

 

Good morning, Reds and fellow Readers! It’s me, Jonelle, waving at you from Tokyo.

 

The divine Deb kindly invited me here today because I have a new book coming out in April, but first there’s something else I’ve been dying to ask the Reds and Readers about.

Did you open your email this morning and save Jungle Reds for last, knowing it’ll be a welcome antidote to whatever fresh outrage just screamed at you from the headlines? Like me, do you top up your cuppa and come here to be reassured that smart, thoughtful people still care about books and writing and each other? That there are still kind people on this earth who listen to each other, offer condolences in times of loss and sadness, encouragement to those with health woes, and joy at every new book release and award? I don’t know about you, but for me, Jungle Reds is one of those safe havens and islands of goodness I’ve come to rely on in this weary world.

But what do you do in the middle of the night when you need something more to whisk you away from your cares and worries? That’s what I’m here to ask about today.

 

Reds and Readers, what do you look for in a comfort read?

 

 

Sometime during covid I stopped reading thrillers—a genre I used to consume by the truckload—and started seeking out the kind of books that will gently but firmly lure me away from staring at the ceiling at 3:00 a.m. and worrying about test results or fretting over the problems of the world. I’m pretty sure the Reds and Readers are world-class experts on comfort reads, because so many of you write them and we so often recommend them to each other.

 

So…what defines a comfort read for YOU?

 

What must-haves do you look for in a comfort read?

 

What no-fly zones must a comfort read absolutely avoid?

 

What are your favorite comfort reads (and why)?

 

To get us started, want to hear mine?

 

Must-haves: Writing and plot so immersive I need to set a timer if I’ve got somewhere to be; a setting/situation that’s very different from the reality I’m escaping; a satisfying ending (everyone gets what they deserve, good or bad)

 

No-flys: Graphic violence or cruelty; evil triumphing over good in any lasting way

 

Favorite comfort reads: Mysteries have always been my all-purpose comfort read—especially if they take place elsewhere and elsewhen (i.e. not in the present-day USA)—because puzzling over a crime I know is going to be solved in 350 pages stops me from obsessing about the problems that are tougher to solve in real life. I’ve also started reading more historical fiction, because whatever dire straits and evil leaders and wretched conditions the characters have to endure, I know for a fact we survived that era. That the pendulum always swings, humanity lurches forward, and evil goes out of style again.

 

My latest go-to comfort reads:

 

The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A Letter of Mary by Laurie King

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming (this whole series, to be honest. Eek, have I developed a vicar fixation?)

Matrix by Lauren Groff

 

So tell me, Reds and Readers, what about you? What do YOU look for in a comfort read?

 

Jonelle Patrick writes what she reads. Her new mystery, The Samurai’s Octopus, takes place in Japan’s Yoshiwara pleasure quarter in the 1780s, where the shōgun rules with an iron fist but women hold all the cards. It’s a place where those with the most power must beg favor from those with the least, and one resourceful girl growing up at the House of Treasures just might bring down a high-ranking murderer if she manages to find the mother she’s never known. If you’re my long-lost twin when it comes to comfort reads, here’s where you can find out if The Samurai’s Octopus checks all your boxes too…

DEBS: Wow, what great questions! Thank you, Jonelle. I can't wait to see what everyone answers! 

Oh, and Jonelle, just wanted to add that your cover is gorgeous! I can't wait to dive into this book!

To Mark or Not to Mark

DEBORAH CROMBIE: In our recent What We’re Reading post, I mentioned how much I loved Niall Williams’ TIME OF THE CHILD. What I didn’t say was how desperately I wanted to underline so many of his phrases and sentences, not only because of the lyrical beauty of his language, but because many seemed so profound and life-affirming that I wanted to remember them. BUT. I was reading my daughter’s new hardcover copy, and there was no way I was going to mark in that book. Even in pencil, which could have later been erased. I did stick in some post-it notes, but that’s not quite the same, and I was too engrossed in the story to get out a notebook and copy things down.

Even in my own books, and even with books I don’t intend to loan out or give away, I’m very reluctant to do any damage to a printed page. When did I get so squeamish? I certainly wasn’t in college. As a biology major, I’d be lucky if half my pages weren’t fluorescent yellow or pink with highlighter. And marked up with pencil and pen.

Of course, I can highlight passages if I’m reading an e-book, but somehow my brain doesn’t process that the same way and I seldom go back to look at what I flagged.

For all my delicacy, I will confess that I do sometimes dog-ear paperbacks… Never hardcovers, though!

How about it, Reds? Do you have an aversion to defacing (oh, such a harsh word!) books?

RHYS BOWEN:  A non-marker here. The good thing about Kindle is you can highlight. The bad thing is it’s hard to scroll back and forth when you’re reading and wonder “ who was Martin?” 

Like you I wrote in all the margins of my books, highlighted, multi color etc.  But now books feel sacred. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Being married to a rabid book collector broke me of my habit of dog-earing page corners to mark my place. These days I do write in books when I find something that particularly strikes me. But in pencil. And I’m thrilled… tickled… and delighted when someone brings me to sign  a copy of my WRITING AND SELLING YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL with its pages dogeared and festooned with multi-colored Post-Its. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I don’t think you’re going to find many of us on JRW who mark up their books, Debs! Like you, my textbooks looked like an electrical wiring diagram - different color highlighters, phrases underlined, starred and circled (in different color inks!)

Now, my colorful book reading habit arises from the fact I never, ever have a genuine bookmark at hand, so will use almost any piece of paper to indicate where I need to pick up the story again. Of course, if I DON’T go back to the book for some time, I can find odd things - long-discontinued coupons, ripped out columns from the newspaper, old photos, and, worst of all, an uncashed birthday check from my mother. (I had NO idea where it had disappeared to, and had to apologize SO many times…) Clearly, I need to treat bookmarks like reading glasses, and just scatter them everywhere.

LUCY BURDETTE: No markings on mine either! I do sprinkle bookmarks around like your reading glasses Julia. It also bothers me if I loan a book to someone and see it upside down and open so the whole thing gets bent. Especially if it’s signed!

On Kindle books, I’ve never highlighted anything and it always puzzles me to see dotted lines under some sentences. I guess those have been highlighted by lots of readers?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I read a lot of advance reader copies, mostly in preparation to interview the authors, and I constantly mark in them and dogear the pages.  They are not to be kept, anyway, although I do keep them, but they are wonderful resources for me. I could not do an interview without that.  A finished book, no, I don’t annotate. I use whatever I have handy to be a bookmark, often a scrap of paper because I don't know what happens to bookmarks, they go wherever the others socks go. I do have to tell you though, that in an interview I attended, Ann Cleeves said she marks up every book, with great joy, and that it is part of her reading experience. 

And I have reading glasses everywhere. (Though they all always seem to wind up in the same place, and I have to sprinkle them again.) 

DEBS: That's so interesting about Ann, Hank, and something to think about. I would have enjoyed TIME OF THE CHILD even more if I'd been able to go back and reread bits I really loved.

And it makes sense that for you, reading ARCs is "homework." That's why you're so good at what you do!

I've had many much-loved bookmarks disappear into the ether. So aggravating. Now I sometimes use pretty blank cards from Trader Joe's–less easy to lose and at $.99 not a disaster if you do. I have been on a fox kick with my current book, so am enjoying this one.

And what can you get for $.99 these days??

JENN McKINLAY: I mark up my non-fiction like I'm taking a class. Highlighter, underline, and notes in the margin. I don't with fiction but I do dog ear the pages in paperback or hardcover. I'm not very precious about them unless they're signed by the author. Hub is a bookmark guy and he never marks them up. He considers books much more sacred than I do. 

How about it, dear readers, do you "annotate" your books?

What We're Watching

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Now that we've totally filled our TBR lists/stacks, how about a catch up on what's filling our time when we're NOT reading.

In our house, we are glued to The Pitt every week. I have loved Noah Wyle since he was baby John Carter on ER, but even so I never imagined he would do something this good. The acting (from the entire cast) and writing and directing are fabulous, and the show is a look at America today that tells you more than any news story. And the camera work! Watch, if you will, how the scenes are set up, how the camera pans from one group to the next as the scenes change. It's really brilliant. Alas, after today there are only two episodes to go. Will Dr. Robby get to take his sabbatical?  

We are also watching a series called The Capture on Prime, starring Holliday Grainger, whom you may know as Robin Ellacott in the series adapted from Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike novels. I'd read that The Capture was the best police series since Line of Duty and halfway through season 1 we are gripped!! It is currently in the third season and if I had the time I'd be bingeing it.

From Wikipedia, which gives a better summary than I can: "The series is centred on DI Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger), a fast-track Metropolitan Police detective drawn into a vast conspiracy involving real-time deepfake technology, mass surveillance and manipulated video evidence." Yikes!

It will definitely make you want to avoid CCTV cameras!! 

And since you can't be serious all the time, I am enjoying the spring season (how many ever this is...) of The Voice, my guilty pleasure. Coaches this season are Adam Levine, John Legend, and--yay!!--Kelly Clarkson, my favorite Dallas girl. (Actually, she's from Burleson, which is a suburb of Fort Worth, but close enough.)

Also, we are watching the new season of The Rookie. Yes, I know it's preposterous, but it's also funny and sharp. We've watched every season for eight years and are very attached to the characters.

Fellow Reds, what's on your screens these days?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, we saw The Capture, and loved it! We are in PARADISE, so clever and smart and scary. Total escapist, in a way. Or terrifying.  YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS with Jon Hamm (who is not my fave, but he is so good in this!) Also THE MEMORY OF A KILLER, about an  ice-cold mob hit man (leading a double life as a middle-class husband/ copier salesman) who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. (what could go wrong?) Such a good premise! 

RHYS BOWEN: At the moment TV has to be super distracting and not in any way stressful. So Britbox. Escape to the Country. Glass blowers. Etc. luckily there have been two major tennis tournaments I’ve watched non stop 

LUCY BURDETTE: The only thing I’ve been watching is the new season of The Lincoln Lawyer. It’s comfort viewing in its own way, and not as silly as it was getting in the last season. (Lorna, in those silly new lawyer outfits drove me crazy.) I will have to ask John about The Capture and start it with him if he hasn’t seen it. 

We are also watching basketball–both of our UCONN teams made it into the Final Four, the men capturing the slot in a last minute 3 pointer that had all the tension a writer could want! The following weekend will be the Masters so that will keep us busy too:).

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Everyone I know is raving about THE PITT, so I guess I’m going to have to give it a try. I DO love Noah Wyle.

As usual, I’m going to put in a plug for Kdramas. I just watched two fantastic shows back to back. TEMPEST, streaming on Hulu (or Disney+) is both an international political thriller and an amazingly heart-pounding romance. Part of the story is set in DC’s State Department, with John Cho (love him!) as an undersecretary trying to stop a nuclear attack on the Korean penninsula. It’s only nine episodes (many Kdramas are 16) so it’s a terrific way to dip your toe in.

For something more immersive but equally riveting: CRASH LANDING ON YOU available on Netflix. This show has everything: mystery, intrigue, humor - loads of humor, heartbreak, delightful found families and, most importantly the best couple chemistry you’ll ever see from Hyun Bin, playing a stern-outside, marshmallow-inside North Korean officer and Son Yi-jin as an heir to a fabulously wealthy corporate family who, as the title says, crash lands on him after a crazy paragliding accident. The chemistry was real - the stars got married after the show was released and now have a three-year old! 

Jenn, if you haven’t seen this already, I think you’d love it.

JENN McKINLAY: I loved CRASH LANDING, Julia!!! So good! Very interesting to see the differences in North and South Korea. My recent fave K-Dramas are VINCENZO, Italian mafioso who is also Korean - very edge of the seat action with a solid bad guy, and ROMANCE IS A BONUS BOOK, set in a publishing house where their love of books and writing was just so nice and refreshing. Love me the K-Dramas!

Hub and I are watching ROOSTER, starring Steve Carrell as an author in residence on a college campus, very fun. And we just finished The LOWDOWN, starring Ethan Hawke, small town newspaper writer/bookstore owner in Tulsa who gets embroiled in political crimes. Also, excellent.

HALLIE EPHRON: I've been looking forward to seeing PROJECT HAIL MARY on the big screen and my daughter Molly and I went last weekend. The theatre was packed and the movie was a lot of fun. Highly recommended. In the meanwhile I'm slowly streaming the rest of RIOT WOMEN. It's heavy/heady stuff and requires many deep breaths between innings.

DEBS: Such fun suggestions! I love John Cho so will definitely check out TEMPEST, and ROOSTER and THE LOWDOWN sound fun.

How about you, dear readers? Tell us what you're watching!

Round Top 2026--Debs' Pictorial Essay

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Last week I made what has, since 2017 (and excepting 2020,) become my annual trip (which I've written about several times!) with my daughter to the Spring Antiques Show in Round Top, Texas. What is more fun than a road trip with one of your favorite people!! (Just for a little brush up on Texas geography, Round Top is in central Texas, about halfway between Austin and Houston and a good ways south of Dallas. The drive takes us about four hours.) 

"Round Top" is actually a collection of venues scattered around the tiny town, but the jewel--and one of the few ticketed venues--is Marburger Farm. But golly has Marburger changed in the last decade! The March issue of D Magazine led with "The Dallasification of Round Top," meaning it is now considerably less about antiques and more about designers and fashion. Here we are in our Round Top duds.

I'm barely scratching the surface in my hat (absolute necessity because of the sun) and bandana, while Kayti is totally rocking it, squash blossom necklace and all.

In 2021, a Dallas real estate developer bought Marburger Farm, and the spring show was the soft launch of some of their changes. They've moved existing buildings, installed more permanent tents, put in walkways and landscaping and a new permanent covered food area--that last one is a big improvement! We liked most of the changes, but some of our favorite vendors were missing. 

A view of the new "square."

Inside a new tent, which are now three aisles instead of two.

Now if they would just put in giant fans! It was so hot.

Here's something I would have bought if I'd had money (a lot!) or space.

These panels were original artwork, not photos. I especially loved them as Rick and I have been watching the Beatles Anthology and had just seen the boys wearing those gorgeous Sergeant Pepper's costumes.

And something I could have bought and regret NOT buying:

This was a vendor's personal collection of much-loved Jan Karon novels, which I adored but hadn't thought of in years. The vendor only wanted $40 for the entire set, but I was worried about space in the car--and space at home, so after looking at them twice, I passed them up.

Here are some things I would NOT have taken for any amount of money.

I mean, seriously, who would want that? And it was a couple of thousand bucks!

Ditto this one.

And this one, although if you were going for kitsch...

Not for sale--the local law enforcement.

Last year there was a theft and a chase!

Day 2 we visited The Compound, a new venue that we absolutely love. Check out the website! It is so charming, with great vendors and a beautiful setting.

Also, Blue Hills, one of long-time Round Top faves. We also managed something on our Round Top bucket list: Champagne from the vending machine in The Compound! Here's Kayti with the Champagne machine last year.

And in the little area seating nook, this year. We visited with some nice ladies from Dallas while we sipped from our plastic cups.

There was no Feast in the Field at Rancho Pillow this year, but we were happy to hang out at some of our favorite restaurants in Round Top. Here's the patio at Prost, which has a huge outdoor wood-fired pizza oven. The evenings were gorgeous, and the sky was so bright, away from our big city light pollution.

We missed a couple of other venues we like, and Junk Gypsy, but we ran out of time. We really needed three days!

My big finds were not antique-y--a couple of Peruvian alpaca pillow covers for our living room sofa, a kantha, and some plants. Oh, and a very pricey tomato, cucumber, and sage candle!

But who knows what next year might have in store?

Dear Reds and readers, are there any road trips in your future? And do you like antiquing--or "junking" as some folks are more likely to call it?

Mark Pryor--Fact or Fiction

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm very happy to have our Jungle Red friend Mark Pryor back on the blog today! His new book, THE MOST MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP IN PARIS, is out today, and not only does it feature one of my favorite fictional detectives, Hugo Marston, but it's the first book in a spin-off series! How can you beat bookshop, Paris, and a handsome ex-FBI profiler? Oh, add chocolate! And Mark's special expertise, as he will explain.

Mark Pryor:  Fact or fiction? If it's really weird, it's probably true...

I will be doing a fair few book events over the next month or so, and I can guarantee one question will be asked of me at each one. And, to be clear, it's a question I love answering because I'd ask it, too:

"Do you use any of your real-life criminal experiences in your books?"

Oh, let me back up and be clear: those "criminal experiences" do not involve me committing crimes (not that I'd admit to, anyway!), but refer to my sixteen years as a prosecutor and my current profession, a criminal defense attorney.

In that time, I've handled dozens of murder cases, and thousands of other criminal cases, everything from the theft of a watch from Target to gang-related robberies and assaults and... well, if you can think of a type of crime, it's probably landed on my desk. 

So what's my answer? Well, I'm a lawyer so it's not a straight Yes or No, of course. It's both, and here's what I mean.

Yes: what I use is my knowledge of the investigative process. When a crime happens, usually murder in the case of my books, I know what steps the police take to secure the scene and collect evidence. This lets me set a genuinely accurate process in place but also, if I choose, allows me to insert mistakes (or clues) by whoever is investigating. I don't have to call a detective or rely on Google (or, heaven forfend, AI) to get it right. Or wrong, if that's what I'm going for.

No: the truth about most real-world crime, murder included, is that it is one of two things, either (1) grubby, sordid, and "unsexy" in the sense that it wouldn't be at all interesting to read about. For example, a man strangling or beating his wife to death in a drunken, jealous rage. Horrific and tragic, and I don't mean to minimize that, but novel-worthy? Probably not. If not in that category then those few cases that aren't dismal and gross, well, to be honest they are (2) often so weird and bizarre that if I tried to put them in a fictional story, you'd throw that book across the room with an anguished cry of "Ridiculous! That could never happen!"

Two quick examples of this: Picture a recycling plant and the large conveyor where people are sorting the types of recycling, when someone ponders aloud, "Would you look at that - why would someone recycle a mannequin?" and someone closer to this odd sight hits the "Stop" button while pointing out that it's not a mannequin at all. The investigation was quick - mail and papers around the body led police to a specific street address, where blood in a recycling can matched that of the victim, and a nearby surveillance camera captured the killer dumping the body. It also captured what was beside the recycling bin: a trashcan. And in case you didn't know, if you put a body in a trashcan, it goes to the dump and is never seen again.

Which is to say, if I write a novel where my murderer is standing there, a body over his shoulder while deciding whether to use the trash can or the recycling bin, and he goes for the recycling, you would be understandably irritated and incredulous. But it happened. And is why he was caught. 

Second example: a 1985 murder of a beautiful young mother, beaten in her apartment by a person or persons unknown. Here are some of the oddities associated with that case, and why writing it as fiction would render a story contrived and unbelievable:

• At the time, the police collected a written alibi statement from the jealous ex-boyfriend (and as we all know, it's always the jealous ex-boyfriend!), but never checked it;
• Twenty-five years later, a phone call out of the blue pointed police to that ex-boyfriend, the call coming from his current jealous wife (!);
• The cold case detective, Tom, and I visited the scene of the crime, and the woman living there was an absolute carbon copy of the victim, she looked startlingly like her;
• Tom then found the alibi witness, still living in her same neighborhood in Austin;
• That witness remembered the suspect, but not if she was with him at the time of the attack, but told Tom she used to keep a diary of her life;
• She literally went up to her attic and found the diary for that week, and busted the alibi (helping lead to a conviction at trial);
• The suspect's wife then did an about-face and sided with her husband at trial, throwing a dramatic fit when the guilty verdict was read.

All of that was pretty interesting and exciting to be involved in, no question, but if I stitched that sequence of events and coincidences into a novel, you'd be rightly skeptical. 

Which, I suppose, brings us to that famous saying, that truth is stranger than fiction. Is it? Not always... but when it is, it's too strange even for mystery novelists and our ever-discerning readers!

DEBS: Mark, these are great stories! But I agree, not very good for book plots. My husband is a former cop and would agree with you that in real life most criminals are really dumb. Fortunately for us, if not for fiction.

I'd much rather read about fictional crimes, especially ones set in Paris!

Here's more about The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris:

Hugo Marston, former head of security at the U.S. embassy in Paris, has retired and is ready to realize his lifelong dream of owning a mystery and antiquarian bookshop. But when a blackmail scheme targeting a chocolatier leads to murder, Hugo is again called to investigate in the first Paris Bookshop Mystery.

And more about Mark:

Mark Pryor is the author of the Hugo Marston series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. With nine books in the series thus far, THE MOST MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP IN PARIS is the first in a new spin-off series. It sees Hugo Marston still in Paris, and with the same characters around him, but instead of working at the US Embassy Hugo has opened his own mystery bookshop!

Mark also authored the Henri Lefort trilogy, historical mystery novels set in 1940s Paris, and has two books set right here in Austin, the psychological thrillers HOLLOW MAN and DOMINIC.

Away from books Mark is a former prosecutor, and now a partner at a criminal defense firm in Austin, Texas. He began his career as a journalist in England, where his beat was also crime-related - the police blotter. He has been a guest analyst on CourtTV, and appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours, NBC's Dateline, and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood