FREE STUFF!

JENN McKINLAY: As you can see, we are giving away SEVEN books to one lucky reader! Click this link – GIVEAWAY – to enter to win the six books shown plus one mystery book! FREE BOOKS, ya’ll, does it get any better? No, it does not!

Now being a thrifty sort, I LOVE free stuff. When I was younger (read poorer), I took everything that was offered to me that had the right price of FREE. This is why I have an upright piano in my house that, once the Hooligans stopped taking lessons, no one has played except Hooligan 1’s Plus 1 when she visits and I adore her for that! Now that I am older and more discerning, I curate the freebies that I accept such as my in-laws gorgeous dining set from Copenhagen – yes, please, and thank you! Other stuff, not so much.

How about you, Reds, how do you feel about free stuff?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s like, gift with purchase. SO irresistible, even if we know i’;s not a gift!  Or the points we get at CVS. I know they make the stuff more expensive (my opinion at least) so it’s a wash for them, but oooh, free points so I can get free stuff.  Airline miles, too, so fabulous.  (I cannot bring myself to use them, though, and have no idea what I’m saving them FOR, which is annoying. ) And all those little bookish trinkets we get at conferences–I have so many canvas bags! And pens.  But..they were FREE! 

Anyway! We are so happy with all of you that we decided to have some summertime fun and offer YOU free stuff!  And we’re thinking we’ll do this again.That’s why you’ll see on the entry form that we’re calling it a quarterly giveaway.

LUCY BURDETTE:  Hank, I do not get those CVS points, do not understand how to use those at all. So I just throw the receipts in the trash. Airline points are tricky because it’s very seldom you can actually use them. I encourage John to use them when he’s going somewhere with multiple flights like skiing from Key West. One thing I do adore is free books! Particularly something I desperately want to read anyway. We hope you will feel that way about this giveaway! And by the way, come to the Reds and readers Facebook page and chat about Jenn’s Hallmark debut, Thursday, July 30! I can’t wait…

HANK: Lucy, you throw those receipts in the trash? Even if they say Extra Bucks? Nooooooo.. And yes, free books. The total scourge. How can anyone resist?

HALLIE EPHRON, who is still trying to give away an upright piano (no takers) that my kids learned to play on. No takers.

CVS coupon deals? Meh. Every time I go to CVS I try to use one of those deals (25% OFF ON YOUR NEXT PURCHASE!!) and it turns out whatever I’m shopping for doesn’t qualify. 

Having said that, I love it when the grocery store offers two avocados or mangos or cucumbers for the price of one. But two 5-pound bags of potatoes? They’ll sprout before go through them. Still, I take that “free” extra bag and drop it in the food donation bin on my way out of the store. 

RHYS BOWEN : The one I don’t get. But one pair of shoes get the second free. Who needs two pairs of identical shoes? In my early marriage/ raising a family days I loved  free stuff. Who  else collected Green Stamps? They paid for kids Christmas presents. These days I’m happy to pay. I do get and use airline miles. I’ve books trips to Europe for several family members on my miles. I currently have 249,0000 miles on AA. 

 

I don’t claim most freebies. I feel other people need free stuff more than me  But I do love a bargain!

JENN: I am also a flyer miles collector. Love upgrading my seat to one with legroom every chance I get!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ditto here on the CVS points. I am just annoyed by all the extra paper added to my receipt. Airline miles, on the other hand, have made trips to London and back much more comfortable over the years. I will take those upgrades, although they're not exactly "free" these days, even with mileage.

Otherwise, I'm not so big on free stuff these days. I'm trying to get rid of stuff, not add to it!

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I adore free stuff (well, except for the $15,000 cat.) I occasionally have dreams where I get to go through some sort of thrift shop and take anything I want. Seriously, I don't know what that says about me, but I do. My first time at the American Booksellers Conference in NY, I took EVERY advance reader copy I thought I might be remotely interested in - and then had to stagger back to my hotel from the Javits Center carrying approximately 500 pounds of books, sine there wasn't a cab to be had anywhere.

 

I have learned since then. Like the rest of you, I've gotten a lot more picky as the count-of-items-owned has increased but my storage space has not. It's still a delight, but it has to 1) actually be worth it (do I want to spend the money on the skin are to get the "free" gift-with-purchase) and something I need (buy-one-get-one-free is my trip-up here.) 

 

I'm still a sucker for free books, though... 

Your turn, Readers, where do you stand on free stuff?

The Cover Fairies

LUCY BURDETTE: In general, I have been very lucky with the book covers developed by my publishers. My agent refers to these as the good book fairies. Though I don’t have final cover approval, my contracts usually include some initial input. (I’ve talked about how the artwork has changed from the ideas I’ve sent here and here.) they’ve not always turned out exactly as I imagined, but I do expect that the publisher people know more about sales and marketing than I do so unless I really hate it, I go with it. This fall I got word that A SCONE OF CONTENTION, and DEATH ON THE MENU had been selected for Harlequin’s book club. I would get a small royalty and they would put out a new addition with a new cover. That all sounded good! last month the publisher sent the cover for SCONE:





Of course I knew what this was: a Heilan coo, a Scottish breed of rustic cattle indigenous to the Scotland Highlands. However, these animals have a very small cameo in Scone—think background wallpaper. This was cute, but I wasn’t sure this artwork would draw new cozy mystery readers. Ps, what has the animal gored? I think it’s supposed to be scones or baked goods, but I hope it wasn’t… The victim.) in this case I did not have any cover consultation rights so all I could do is think that it would make for a great blog!

RHYS BOWEN: These days I have complete cover input and approval. For my big stand-alones, there is a lot of back and forth and haggling between me, who knows what my book is about and marketing (who are all twenty-something computer geeks who only go by algorithms) but in the end we come up with a good compromise. Sometimes it’s brilliant right away. The Tuscan Child we all loved instantly. The upcoming book, The Rose Arbor, has had many title changes and thus covers before we are all satisfied.

In contrast the Royal Spyness series has had the same illustrator since day 1. I know him. He lives in San Francisco. He asks me what I want and voila. There it is. Perfect.





My very first series, Constable Evans, when I had zero clout, was the artist’s impression of Wales and all the covers had sheep or goats on them. Perhaps this is a requirement for a cozy mystery in the UK. Cozy fans love cats, therefore also have a soft spot for sheep, goats and highland cattle!

HALLIE EPHRON: I got sent two possible cover illustrations for two DIFFERENT books that were nearly identical - a massive steam-punk-looking padlock on a field of blue/black. Perfect if I’d written Bluebeard. The first cover sent me for my updated writing books was a murky green forest. (I said to them, it’s a WRITING BOOK!)

“Please, start over.” And they did.

But I confess I do love Highland cows and if they’d sent me a book cover with one of them, even though my books have none, I’d have been tempted to rewrite the book to shoehorn one in.

Rhys’s book covers are a good study in how the different subgenres are telegraphed by the cover styles. Very effective.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, gosh, Lucy, I am still laughing over that creature–which I will admit when I first saw it, I thought: WHY does Lucy have a buffalo on her cover? Okay, I get it now, but I am distressed by its nose. And the things on the horns. I would ONLY (but instantly) buy this if I knew it was YOUR book.








This is the UK cover of TRUST ME. It’s so UK! First, the publisher did not want me to be Hank Phillippi Ryan, and wanted a more instantly female name. Okay, so much to discuss about this, but here it is.

What I am fascinated by is the cut line. “She may be a bad mother, but is she a killer?”

I’m not sure that’s the way I would have gone with it, but I always try to remember that publishing execs in other countries are aiming for THEIR readers, not for me.

(I did get a wonderful email from the woman who posed for the cover–which is somewhere in my photos and absolutely unfindable.)

As for my current covers, it’s a wonderful collaboration, and truly fun and rewarding and fascinating, and my publisher’s art department is genius. AND I am allowed to say no. So that’s great.

JENN McKINLAY: I am fortunate that I have never had a bad cover, not one, not ever. Like Rhys, I am fortunate that the publisher asks me what I want and then the art department delivers something that’s so much better than my wildest expectations. Now I am going to burn a candle to the cover gods because I don’t want to jinx myself. LOL.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, the more I look at your Highland Cow, the more adorable I think it is. (He? Do the girls have those horns, I wonder?) But I'm not sure that I would instantly get that this is a food-themed cozy mystery.

I've had such a checkered career with the Cover Fairies. I had NO say with the first few books. While the first two were charming, they looked like English historical cozies, not contemporary procedurals. But #3, LEAVE THE GRAVE GREEN, was absolutely awful. Where would you say this book was set?





Not in Henley-on-Thames, where a body is found in a lock. Or in the gorgeous green and mysterious Chiltern Hills, or in the world of the English National Opera, where part of the book takes place. Sigh. I feel fortunate that anyone bought it.

I do have cover approval these days, thank goodness, but it's very much a collaborative process. For a while my publisher used my photos, which was great fun, but then they went for a "bigger book" look. I know we always love our most recent books best, but I do think that my latest cover is my absolute favorite of all of my books.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’ve been blessed by the cover gods in that none of my published books has had a clunker. After the first book, Minotaur settled on a “vaguely foreboding rural scene” theme which has worked well.

However, when ALL MORTAL FLESH was in the process, someone had the bright idea to rebrand the cover to emphasize the obviously popular romance angle, and I got a couple artists’ concept mock-ups that I refer to as “my vampire covers.” One has the face of a beautiful woman in her twenties, staring toward an off-screen sunset, with a gorgeous guy in his thirties, also in profile, right behind her. This, I understood, was to represent Clare, a 36 year old with a “plain face” “all points and angles”, and Russ, a rugged 50 year old with graying hair and glasses. Huh.

The second one was even worse, if you can imagine it: it took the male model away and had the woman’s face, still in profile, hovering over a very pointy church spire, giving the effect of a giantess about to suffer a horrible injury to her soft palate.

Lucy, I swear, I looked everywhere for these pictures; I think I must have deleted them in horror. The cover they eventually used was based on a sketch I did, after a fairly heated discussion, seated at the St. Martin’s booth at the old BEA (How I miss it! Yes, the Javits Center was awful, but still.)

Question of the day: Reds, tell us about your most unusual (or other adjectives) cover.

Readers tell us about a cover that particularly drew you in or repelled you from reading a possible book.

Top Posts of 2023!

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE!!!

 JENN McKINLAY: I'm a big one for end of the year tallies and whatnot. I like to look back, see what was accomplished and what is left to do. In the case of this blog, I like to review what posts of ours resonated with our readers and which ones didn't.

Not for nothing, but according to the stat machine of Blogger, the Jungle Red Writers had 1.7 M views and 26.8 K comments just in the past twelve months. Whoa! 

What a year it was! We covered everything from Barbie to the World Economic Forum to beans! Your comments and the stories you shared with us made our posts even more engaging and we thank you for joining us and bringing your wit and wisdom to the party. 

As we launch our new venture Reds and Readers (click the name to join) TOMORROW on Facebook (it's a new place for giveaways, live chats, etc.), we look forward to even more shenanigans in 2024! Make no mistake, we will never give up our blog, but we do want to be able to chat with our community, our readers, our friends, a little more easily and it's our hope that this group will do that! So come on over and check it out!

And now here are some of our top posts from 2023 to revisit: 

Hallie : CONNECTING WITH THE MURDER VICTIM

Hank: SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT BARBIE?

Rhys: RHYS ON RULES

Lucy: LUCY IS COUNTING BEANS

Debs:  THE ICONIC TOMATO SANDWICH

Julia: DAVOS FOR THE REST OF US

Jenn: WHEN LIFE BECOMES A SITCOM

So, Readers, what were some of your favorite posts from last year? What do you think we should talk about next?

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HAPPY READING, EVERYONE!!!

Bring it, 2024 -- And by "it" I mean BOOKS!

JENN MCKINLAY: It’s that time again, Reds, to tabulate the total of our bookstore gift cards received during the holiday season (woo hoo!) and plan our purchases for 2024! So, what are your most anticipated reads (excluding the Reds because of course we’re on the top of each other’s lists) for the coming year?

I’ll go first:

ONCE UPON A MURDER by Samantha Larsen

I absolutely loved, loved, loved the first in this new series - A NOVEL DISGUISE - An impoverished woman masquerades as a male librarian to an earl to keep the roof over her head, set in 1754. Brilliant!

ONE OF US KNOWS by Alyssa Cole

I really enjoyed WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING and am eager to see what this author does next for a suspense/thriller read.

JUST FOR THE SUMMER by Abby Jimenez

I've read all of Abby's books - she is fantastically funny, poignant, and delightful. I will read anything she writes, even her grocery list.

All right, Reds, your turn! What titles are you most looking forward to? 

HALLIE EPHRON: Top of my list: I’m looking forward to reading a book that slipped by me this year, a memoir by Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me. 

It’s Bringley’s first book. In it he tells the story of how, after his younger brother died, grief-stricken and lost, Bringley quit his job in publishing and took a job at the Met as a guard–where  he found the time and space (and the beauty of the works of art) that he needed to grieve and heal.

I love the Met. Spent untold hours there when I was an undergrad and an art history minor at Barnard. I’ve become intimately acquainted with grief in the last two years. I don’t know how I missed this book when it came out but I’ll be making up for that in January. 

RHYS BOWEN:  with various health concerns looming over us, including a new knee for me sometime soon I need good suggestions for comfort reads!

But I am looking forward to Jackie Winspear’s last Maisie Dobbs novel. That will be bitter-sweet reading as I’ve enjoyed Maisie’s journey.

LUCY BURDETTE: Rhys, have you tried the Lane Winslow series set in western Canada? I just finished the first, A KILLER IN KING’S COVE. After a slow start, I loved the book.

I’m also hoping Santa brings me Richard Osman’s THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE, and François-Régis Gaudry’s LET’S EAT PARIS. And I’m finally going to read ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, which is already waiting on my nightstand.

JENN: I loved ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE but haven't watched the Netflix version - afraid they'll ruin it. Anyone see it?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm looking forward to Deborah Harkness's THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE, the long-awaited fifth book in her All Soul's series, but that's not out until July. A little sooner is Natalie Jenner's, EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, out in May. And I am hoping there will be a new Ben Aaronovitch Rivers of London novel in 2024, although I haven't seen anything about a release yet. 

In the meantime, maybe I will get to the copy of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE on MY nightstand!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am about to devour my idol Lisa Scottoline’s THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS, which I know will be fabulous. Oh, what else–Soon I’m going to interview Elizabeth Gonzalez James about her new THE BULLET SWALLOWER, which is billed as a magical realism Western. What?  Yup. It is fabulous so far!   SWIFT RIVER by Essie Chambers, so looking forward to it. And the wonderful Mary Kubica’s new SHE’S NOT SORRY. One more? Michael Koryta, one of my favorite authors ever, has a new novel which he’s written as Scott Carson called LOST MAN’S LANE. Cannot wait! 

(Don't you love how our choices are different?)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, I didn’t know about the Michael Koryta book - he’s one of my faves, so thank you or the heads up!

As one of our resident SF fans, top of my list is THE MERCY OF GODS by James S.A. Corey, the pen name for the writing duo that brought us the brilliant Expanse series. Humans become the captive and unwilling helpers of their alien conquerors as the latter attempts to dominate the galaxy. No one does realistic political space opera like these guys, so I’m already pre-ordered, and the book doesn’t come out until August.

And my most anticipated “haven’t read it yet but will in 2024” is YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang. I think Jenn has read this? It’s gotten major attention since it came out at the beginning of last summer, but of course, I’m always reading a year behind or a year ahead…

JENN: Yes, I did read Yellowface. Let me just say, it is a wild ride. There is some very cutting observations made about publishing that I enjoyed tremendously.

All right, Readers, your turn. What are you most eager to read in 2024?

A KILLING OF INNOCENTS - Celebrating Deborah Crombie's #19!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: This week we have not one but TWO Jungle Reds launching new books. Yesterday, Hank's THE HOUSE GUEST. 

Today, Deborah Crombie's A KILLING OF INNOCENTS.

I am completely out of breath from I’m reading this wonderful new novel--Deb’s 19th (YES 19th!) Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James mystery. I feel as if I’ve been watching a high-wire act. It’s absolutely brilliant the way Deb weaves the stories together so that the investigation of a heartstopping murder--in this case the stabbing of a trainee doctor in London’s Russell Square--is just the beginning.

Multiple characters narrate, one handing off seamlessly to the other. The marriage and family drama of Duncan and Gemma and Kit and Toby and Charlotte provide a steady counterpoint. These are real people living messy complex lives. When death occurs, it matters.

The characters feel so real. So I have to ask Debs, do they in some form actually live in your head while you’re writing? What about between books?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Yes, they do. I feel as if Duncan and Gemma and all the crew are leading a parallel life that I just get to tap into for the little segments of time that we see in the books. I can’t imagine not writing and not having this other world constantly running in my head.

HALLIE: In each of your books, you introduce at least one brand new character to an ever-expanding cast, creating new sources of tension and possibility, as well as as-yet-unexplored setting, along with a new backdrop. In the last series novel, A Bitter Feast, I was fascinated by the the goings on behind the scenes of a gourmet restaurant. Another book tapped into the young music scene.

What were the neighborhoods and backdrops that you researched for this book, and did what you learned affect how the murder mystery unfolds?

DEBORAH: When I moved Duncan to the team at Holborn Police Station several books back, it was partly because I knew I wanted to set a book in Bloomsbury.

Bloomsbury has such fascinating historical and literary associations. Think the British Museum, the Bloomsbury group (Virginia Woolf, Rupert Brook, etc.) Charles Dickens lived in Bloomsbury, so did Charles Darwin for a time. Dorothy L. Sayers lived early in her writing career in Mecklenberg Square (which we managed to get on the map!) and then later she lived for many years just behind Holborn Police Station. The book also takes us into neighboring Soho, which has a very different character.

London is an amalgamation of villages and each neighborhood is very different.

HALLIE: Was there a new character you introduced or a backdrop that you think you’ll continue to write about?

DEBORAH: Although she’s not a new character, we saw a lot more of DI Jasmine Sidana in this book and she will definitely continue to play a major role. 

I imagine we’ll see more of Lucy McGillivray (why did I give a character a name that’s so hard to type??) I know a good bit more about her than we’ve seen. I’d like to see more of Duncan’s case manager, Simon Gikas, too. 

As for the new characters, I loved the bar owner Darrell Cherry, and especially Howard Quirk, the retired auction house appraiser. We may see more of him and Wallace, his border terrier. Oh, and I loved Destiny Howard, Wesley's sister, and I already have ideas in mind for her.

And I think we’ll definitely see more of Bloomsbury and Soho.

HALLIE: Another commenter wrote: “It's a perfect balance of police procedure and the couple's personal life that involves parenting three children while working demanding jobs.” Never mind Raymond Chandler’s “A really good detective never gets married?”

It’s so clever the way you manage to tie up the loose ends of the murder mystery while leaving complicated and dangling threads in Duncan and Gemma’s personal life to be addressed in the next book.

How do you keep two stories in synch – the family’s ongoing drama and the murder investigation within a single book?

DEBORAH: This is a bit of a “which comes first, the chicken or the egg” question. I usually have some ideas about what’s going to happen in the characters’ lives and will adjust the murder investigation plot to fit. And vice versa. It’s different with every book.

HALLIE: And I admire your ability to switch narrators all the time, seamlessly. As a writer, is there a trick to switching gears so that the thoughts you put on the page are in a specific character’s voice?

DEBORAH: I do think about backgrounds and accents when I’m writing a character. But mostly, their voices just develop as I’m writing the viewpoint. I hear them in my head, which makes me sound a bit bonkers.


HALLIE: Even for this 19th book I know you had to do research. Where did that take you for this book?

DEBORAH: One of my jumping off points was the history of the Victorian cholera epidemics in Bloomsbury and Soho. I was fascinated by a book called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson about the discovery of the cause of cholera by Dr. John Snow in Soho in the 1850s. People thought cholera was caused by bad air, and Snow proved it was carried by their drinking water, which was contaminated by the sewage pouring into the Thames. It was the beginning of the science of epidemiology, and of huge importance to public health.

My original plot revolved around someone deliberately infecting people with a contagious virus, which I decided was unworkable. Weirdly, I was plotting this in late 2019, and I’m really glad I didn’t try to go in that direction! We do get a little of the cholera story but not as much as I’d have liked. Sometimes the plot doesn’t cooperate.

HALLIE: Where do you think you’ll take your characters next?

DEBORAH: It will definitely be London, partly in some areas I haven’t written about before. To say anymore would be a spoiler!

HALLIE: THANKS, Debs! And congratulations on today's book launch! 

You're probably deep into writing the next book. As for me, I'm looking forward to hearing more about DI Jasmine Sidana. She's got a prickliness I admire. Any thoughts from the rest of us about characters or neighborhoods we'd like to come back to in a future Deborah Crombie book?

JUNGLE RED COCKTAILS at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore

 LUCY BURDETTE: Did you join us earlier this fall when all of the Reds got together for a chat at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore? No? Don't worry, Barbara Peters is hosting us again--but even better, with holiday cocktails this time! And you could do some of your Christmas shopping at the same time...

Here's the rub: Should we all sip the same drink or go it alone? And what recipe should we use? (Something red of course.) Luckily, my pal from golf mystery days, Fritz Schrank, has just published a book of quarantine cocktails. And he offered three of his favorite suggestions from his new ebook Quarantinis: Easy and Fun Cocktails for When You’re Stuck at Home, by Fritz Schranck....

Bacardi Cocktail 

According to Liquor.com, a popular drink in the post-Prohibition era. 

2 oz Bacardi white rum

0.75 oz grenadine syrup

0.75 oz lime juice 

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake for 30 seconds. Strain into a coupe or martini glass. 

Irish Redhead

This version of the popular cocktail is derived from restlesschipotle.com. 

1.5 oz Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey 

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp lime juice

0.5 oz grenadine 

ginger ale 

cherry garnish 

Combine whiskey, juices, and grenadine in a rocks glass with a large block/ball of ice. Top off with the ginger ale and cherry garnish. 

The whiskey is hard to detect, making it easy to convince yourself that another one or two or three would be just one. 

Rye Billionaire 

A crushed ice version of a recipe from Liquor.com. The Hawaiian Punch-like appearance is a bit misleading. 

2 oz Reservoir Rye

0.75 oz lemon juice

0.5 oz grenadine

0.5 oz Demerara simple syrup 

0.25 oz blackberry bitters

lemon wheel garnish 

Combine first five ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake for 30 seconds. Strain into an 8-oz goblet and fill remainder with crushed ice. Add the lemon wheel garnish.

And one last idea--I made this to celebrate the launch of A Deadly Feast--it's a campari spritz (at the beach) and it was delicious!

1 ounce C​a​mpari

3 ounces Prosecco

Club soda or sparkling water

Sliced  Orange

Maraschino cherries

Fill up​ a​ pretty glass with ice. And the C​a​mpari followed by the Prosecco, and​ finally​ add club soda or sparkling water to taste. Garnish with sliced oranges and maraschino cherries. Retire to the beach or the pool or your armchair to sip and read… 

What do you think Reds? Votes? Other suggestions? And here's the link to our event 12/12 at 5 pm EST. Hope to see lots of you there!

(And here's the link to Quarantinis by Fritz Schrank!)

How We Live When the World Goes Mad

LUCY BURDETTE: Gosh this has been a hard week in our country. It's hard to stay positive when the bad news and bad behavior keeps piling up from all directions. Rather than sink lower with our collective despair and worry this morning, I decided to try a different direction.

Several things have happened lately that have made me wonder about whether there’s anything positive to learn from this downtime during the pandemic. I’ve heard rumors that some people are using this enforced down time to figure out whether life has meaning as it stands, or whether the activities and priorities we used to have need reevaluation. While we were still in Key West I noticed this beautiful Volkswagen. It reminded me of how I had planned to travel everywhere in a VW van after high school. I spent a lot of time designing the inside of the van with built-ins, including a bed and a miniature kitchen. I never did own a VW van, and I really don’t want one now. But I am eager to get back to traveling. We had a wonderful trip to Paris and Ireland planned, and I’m just as excited as ever to reschedule (sometime!) I still want to see New Zealand (maybe more than ever) and some other places. And we will desperately miss our time with kids and grandkids, though we are doing a yeoman’s job of staying in close touch over Facetime.

Last week, our Key West minister (also my dear friend and character Steve Torrence) asked this question in his message a week ago: Is this crisis an opportunity to see what we’re really made of? And another similar thought, that might be either jarring or reassuring: “Look around, this is how you live when the world falls apart.“

And finally, Ali Beale, the yoga teacher whom I love and have been following online since the world’s been shut down, asked a similar question: Are there things you’ve learned you are happy to do without during the pandemic? Or maybe other activities or dedications to take up?

There you have it, questions for the day: Is this horrible crisis causing you to rethink your life? Appreciate exactly what you have? Plan major changes? Simply carry on? (IMHO, this has been a horribly difficult time so there are no wrong answers!)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I think my brain has been working on this question subconsciously, Lucy. I had a half-awake dream a while back where I was given the chance to go back in time and re-do things. I woke up with four ideas of what I would have done: be more proactive about health (there was a lot in the dream about me yelling at Ross to wear sunscreen…) have better and more consistent writing habits, tackle the small needs-to-be-repaired issues in my old house before they became big issues, and save for retirement (Ross took care of that while he was alive, but now I have to carry on.) 

Then, of course, I realized these were all goals I can and should focus on right here and now. I knew that, but having them float up into my head from the bottom of my brain made it feel like a revelation. I suspect this pandemic is giving a lot of us time to work on our issues, whether we realize it or not.

RHYS BOWEN: Definitely appreciate my life and my husband. We hug each other and he says “I’m so glad I have you.”  He would never say things like that in a normal world! He’s British and not a great expresser of emotion. I also find that I can appreciate my situation, with enough space around me so we are not on top of each other, lovely views, enough to eat, not to have to worry about money… and realize how many people are desperate. I try to help where I can--food bank etc.

The thing I’m finding hardest is not being able to plan. Usually by this time we have our summer trip to Europe all lined up, a couple of conventions for the fall, my book tour in August...and now an empty calendar. I’m supposed to be co-guest of honor at Malice next year with Julia and who knows if that will happen? I am being very good at social distancing now but can I keep it up for six months? A year? Five years? These are things that haunt me at night. When will I crack and go into Macy’s? (if Macy’s still exists?)

Actually one thing I find I can do without is shopping. I open emails from Chicos and all the other places I have shopped in the past and I think “why bother. I have enough.”  Will that continue, I wonder, or will I go on an insane buying spree at the end of this--throwing out all my old clothes and buying an entirely new wardrobe. 

HALLIE EPHRON: So funny because the one thing I find I truly miss is shopping! We have a Marshall’s nearby and my escape when wit’s end is in sight, is to go see what’s new there. They have new merchandise daily. I rarely buy, but the diversion is welcome.

Like Rhys, I am so appreciating my husband and grateful that I’m home-bound with someone whose company I truly enjoy and who adores my cooking. It helps that he’s good at jigsaw puzzles. We’re on our 6th. 

At the end of the day, I’m surprised at how contented I am NOT to be traveling. My husband and I have traveled since we were first married, all through having babies and on to teenagers and after. I’ve been to the places I felt I *needed* to go, and being home is o-kay… for now. 

As I say, most of all I feel fortunate and grateful. It helps that I can look forward to my daughter Molly living in a rental nearby for the month of July. Plus a ton of ‘virtual’ events. And though I don’t think it will be soon, there’s a glimmer of an end in sight with treatment (first) and eventually a vaccine. In the meanwhile I look forward to becoming an expert ZOOMer.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm definitely appreciating my life and my husband. I'm appreciating the fact that I can see my daughter and granddaughter over the fence--but I really really miss being able to hug them. That's the hardest thing for me. Otherwise, I have to admit I kind of like the peacefulness of not rushing around all the time. I've always had a hard time sticking to a schedule, so the fewer interruptions, the better, as far as my writing goes. And as I have a book due in a few months, I'm really seeing this lockdown as a blessing in disguise.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Debs, I am so envious.  I was truly off my game for about a month...staying up really late, and then waking up early. I kept thinking--save food, save food. I couldn’t read, and certainly couldn’t write. I was doing my reporter work from home, which is hurray, safer, but extremely complicated.  I’m better now, or on the way to being.  I have never worked this much, ever--with zooms and everything else, and I love love love that we can do it, but I have not had a day “off” for 78 days.

SO differences: I look at my clothes and shoes, suitable for a lifetime of on-air and in-person appearances, and have two thoughts. One--What did I need all those for? And two--I miss the fun of wearing them. Shopping? No. I don’t need one more thing, ever.  I wonder whether that change will stick. I hope I get the chance to find out. I looked at my book tour suitcases this morning, all in a closet. Don’t need those, either. And, I realize, I’m truly okay with that. 

Jonathan and I are in a fine place, with a back and front yard, and a lot of room, and we have a tiny herb and vegetable garden, now, besides all the flowers, and we take walks. We have always been very careful and respectful and caring of each other, but that, for both of us, is greatly increased. It’s very sweet, and we are both aware of it, but really don’t discuss it. He’s incredible about things like emptying the dishwasher, and vacuuming. Without a complaint or any martyrdom. He says he’s happy to be in “our safety bubble.”  (Which, like Rhys’s John, is not a typical Jonathan thing to say.) 

We have not set foot out of our yard. 

So I am trying to write now, and trust the future. I pretend my deadline is still my deadline. I pretend everything will get better. I do a lot of pretending. 

LUCY: Your turn now Reds...What have you learned while the world goes mad?