Back To It

Holy shit, another year has gone by, and suddenly it’s 2025. The hobbit husband and I had an absolutely beautiful time on our honeymoon in Oregon the first week in January. I miss it so terribly and can’t wait until we can move back. I dream all the time of the moss, the lichen, the ferns that grow in those ancient forests, and the towering presence of the evergreen trees. I miss the verdant hills, the roses, and the perfectly cool summer nights. I miss our friends, I miss the restaurants. I miss the Gorge and the Coast. I’ve always said I want to end my days in an old Victorian house in Astoria, OR, looking out at the ocean in my rocking chair.

Someday.

Anyway. I started in on the sequel to Prohibited, a book entitled Captivated, back in November basically right after I hit publish on Prohibited, and I got some good headway on the manuscript before I decided to put it aside and write The Christmas Devil instead. It was a fun little diversion, but once I was done with it, I was pretty creatively and intellectually exhausted, having published a 120k novel and two novellas over the course of two months. I decided to take a break all the way through December, until we returned from our trip to Oregon. There’s always that lingering fear that when you take a break from a book you’ll return to find it gone, but that wasn’t the case at all. By the end of December I was getting really antsy again and thinking about the book, back to puzzling things together in my mind. I was tempted to read back through the manuscript of Captivated, but I waited until after our trip. I’m a fan of delayed gratification and I was not disappointed. I’m really happy with what I have and the time away from the manuscript also gave me insight into things that are working really well, but also things that can be changed or added. I’m really excited to be working on it again.

I don’t feel like all is well with the world unless I’m working on a project. It took me years to learn how to use writing as an escape. I’d read statements made by authors when I was a teenager about how they escaped into their writing and I would despair. Writing was always painful. I kept doing it, but I couldn’t stop dragging mortification with me every step of the way–mortification at how bad everything I wrote was, mortification at the very thought that I could do this. It really kept be from finishing things, which was detrimental to my progress as a writer, as a whole. I kept trying to stop writing, swearing that I was done with it, that it was a childish distraction. But I always came back to it. And I’m glad I did, because I finally got over myself and learned to tell my internal critic to shut the fuck up until I need them. There has never been anything in this world as important to me as books, and I am so grateful that I am now in a position to create my own.

Ironically, lately, I’ve been completely blocked when it comes to reading romance. I have several books written by wonderfully talented friends to read, but nothing in the romance genre is sticking in my brain right now. Instead, I’ve found a good deal of release in reading thrillers. I fucking love a good thriller, man. I’d love to write a romantic thriller someday. A well-tailored thriller is one of the most pleasurable reads on the planet. I don’t necessarily need the ending to be a total surprise. As long as the story feels intricate and well-delivered, and the characters and their relationships are compelling, I’m here for it. I especially love thrillers with more literary prose. Gillian Flynn is the queen of this. I also recently discovered Melissa Albert (though her books are actually what I would call paranormal thrillers), and her prose is gorgeous. I read her book The Bad Ones and I absolutely loved it. I didn’t realize it’s technically YA until after I finished it. She has another book I’m looking forward to reading, but as a rule I never read authors’ books back to back unless it’s a series, because I don’t want to burn out on an author I enjoy. 

I also read Everything You Never Told Me by Celeste Ng and my god was that book gorgeous. It’s not a thriller per se, but the story does situate around the mystery of how a death occurred. And to get to that answer, the author unravels the complexities of a Chinese-American family living in the suburbs in the 1970s. I ugly cried, it was so fucking good. Absolutely stunning. I would read anything Celeste Ng writes. Something that I found exceedingly interesting was the fact that she chose to use “head jumping” as a means of POV, a convention that isn’t very popular anymore at all. It makes sense in the context of this book to keep the pace moving, to keep the story compelling, not to drag through whole chapters from one person’s POV when it wouldn’t necessarily best tell the story. The story belongs to the whole family, and the head jumping really gives the impression that it’s their story, individually and collectively, whereas the use of individual POVs, I think, would have slowed it down quite significantly and also fractured the illusion of togetherness, even in their individual experiences of isolation. Absolutely lovely book. I hope it wins some awards. I signed up for the Bookbub deals and I have been extremely pleasantly surprised at their offerings, this being one of them. There’s usually one “literary” novel, one thriller/mystery novel, and the rest are romance in their daily deal emails. I’ve found some pretty good stuff for a couple of dollars that I’m filing away for when I went to read it. The monstrous hydra of the TBR just keeps growing heads. 

Things I Am Enjoying:

The kittens are getting bigger all the time. Growing longer and leaner, turning into terrorist adolescents, getting into anything and everything they can think of, and still I’m hopelessly, completely lovesick for them. 

I found a mumu (or what I call a mumu) that is a soft black rayon that veritably floats around me as I walk, and reminds me of an 18th century shift, but with spaghetti straps. I admit I cannot force myself to wear anything else in the house. Queenly racoon attire.

Mexican Coke is becoming an obsession. I quit drinking soda years ago and only indulge in Mexican Coke on occasion, but lately it’s become a hyperfixation. Who knows how long that will last, but I’ll try to have some control over myself in the meantime so as not to anger my pancreas.

Andy Serkis reading LOTR is an absolute pleasure and delight. I listen to it mostly while I’m working on art projects, which I’ve slowed down on lately quite significantly because of my fatigue, but I’m also hoping to get my head around digital drawing so I can produce my own character art, but this will also give me an excuse to continue working my way through the books. He narrates The Hobbit, as well as the Scimarillion and I won’t rest until I’ve worked my way through all of them.

Making soup in the winter time is one of the most intensely delicious pleasures in this life. One of my favorite recipes is a beef and butternut squash stew that is rich, hearty, and flavored with rosemary and cinnamon. I got it from a blog like a decade ago and sadly do not remember the source. The hobbit husband made it last night and added a touch of cayenne pepper, which I’ve never done, and I must say I enjoyed the kick. For your pleasure:

1 lb of stew beef

2 cups of butternut squash, cubed

3 stalks of celery

3 carrots

1.5 cups of sliced mushrooms

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

Chicken broth and/or water (enough to cover, maybe 3 or 4 cups)

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

1 cinnamon stick

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 bay leaves

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Sweat the onions and garlic in some oil or butter. When they’re ready, add the beef and begin to brown it. Add the rest of the chopped vegetables, and then season with salt and pepper. If you intend to add cayenne pepper, now is the time. Add the broth and the balsamic vinegar (do not skip the vinegar, it makes everything better). Add cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and the rosemary (stripped and chopped). Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, stirring regularly. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot to get all the tasty brown bits. When the carrots are tender, remove and serve with warm bread and butter. Should take about 30 to 45 minutes. 

May you all have a beautiful New Year. May 2025 give us new opportunities, new friendships, new insights, new pleasures, and new adventures. May your smut be the smuttiest, and may your TBR be never endingly stuffed full of the best, juiciest reads. 

For updates on Captivated and my new taboo romance, The Fisherman's Wife, be sure to sign up for my newsletter on my website! My newsletter subscribers will have access to information before anyone else, including the cover reveal I’ll be doing at the end of this month! I will also be sending out an excerpt from the book itself the following month, as well as free bonus content related to Prohibited, all of which is only accessible to subscribers. It’s free and I promise not to spam your inboxes more than once or twice a month. 

Take care until we meet again, darlings.

xoxo,

Madz