Lilian Darcy: New Year's Indulgences

Every New Year, like many people do, I make resolutions. They’re all about working harder, eating better, getting fitter – all the hard, challenging stuff.

This year, I’ve decided to change things around a little. I’m not going to focus on my resolutions, I’m going to plan my indulgences.

1)     Spend More Time Outdoors

I’ve really been enjoying this lately, whether I’m out in the open air gardening, walking or cycling. I’d like to move more of my regular activities out of doors, when possible. I’d like to eat, read and listen to music out of doors more often in 2015. And maybe sometimes just sit.

2)     Read More

As a writer and editor, reading has been a professional requirement for a long time. Now that I’m moving into retirement, I’d like to read more for pure pleasure and let go of that critical professional perspective that can get in the way of reading enjoyment. I’d like to read more non-fiction, more classics, more books-that-I-wouldn’t-normally-pick-up.

I also want to jump into the kinds of familiar reads that I know I’ll love – books like the Bachelor Auction series from Tule Publishing that’s launching in February.

3)     Do Some Jigsaw Puzzles

I haven’t treated myself to this indulgence very often in recent years. About ten years ago, my husband gave me an enormous jigsaw puzzle,18,000 pieces in total, divided into four separate sections of roughly 4,500 pieces each. I’ve only ever done one of the sections. Last Christmas I started a second one, but packed it away before I’d put much of it together, feeling that there just wasn’t time. This year, I’m going to get it out again and complete it, and so what if it takes months? I might do a few smaller puzzles, too, for light relief.

That’s all I’ve thought of so far, but I fully intend to think of a few more indulgences and embrace them.

How about you? Don’t give me the R word, Resolutions, I want to hear about your planned Indulgences for 2015.

Hope you have a great year!

Lilian Darcy

P.S. If you’d like to indulge yourself with a free ebook, The Sweetest Thing, the second book in my Montana Riverbend series is free on all major ebook platforms.

Lilian Darcy: Great Holiday Reads

I’m writing this while most Americans are sitting down to their Thanksgiving dinner. We had ours last night. Yes, we live in Australia where Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated, but my husband is American, so we do celebrate it in our family.

We had a big, golden, crispy-skinned turkey, and lots of baked vegetables – potatoes, pumpkin, parsnips, carrots, asparagus – and then for dessert there was pumpkin pie accompanied by a friend’s to-die-for home-made ice-cream.

We all sat around the table, and the kids are at an age now where they’ll do that. They’re happy to relax and chat instead of scooting off as soon as they’re done eating, the way they used to.

So I’m thinking about holidays. And I realize I don’t often use those big, festive holidays as themes in my books. I don’t think I’ve ever written a Christmas story. Which is weird because I do love all those big celebrations.

I do want to alert you to some great holiday reads that others have written, however.

Top of the list would have to be Jane Porter’s The Kidnapped Christmas Bride. Yes, it is every bit as fast-paced and sizzling and dramatic as it sounds, and yes, the cover matches the mood perfectly. As well as the drama, there is layer upon layer of real emotion, and celebration, and family, and change, and a love between two people that’s survived more than its share of challenge. You will read this one in a single sitting, while not even hearing your family talking to you.

A close second is Megan Crane’s Come Home For Christmas, Cowboy. The passion and emotion in Megan’s stories is so intense, you feel as if you’re living inside her characters and you don’t want to come back out again. It’s like jumping into a chalk pavement picture in Mary Poppins, only adult-themed. Dare and Christina belong together but they’ve lost their way, and it takes her strong stance and a big, warm family Christmas to help them find each other again. I loved this story.

My third recommendation is actually four stories, all centered around the theme of Christmas in New York. Four friends who’ve grown up almost like sisters, four stories of second chances and lost and found love. Each story is very different and can be read alone, yet together they create such a vivid picture of the diversity and magic of Christmas in one of the world’s best cities. It’s a magical series altogether. The individual stories are This Christmas by Jeannie Moon, All I Want For Christmas by Jennifer Gracen, A Light in the Window by Jolyse Barnett, and Goodness and Light by Patty Blount.

Finally, if you’re ready to skip past Christmas and on to Valentine’s Day and chocolate fantasies, my own women’s fiction novel The Sweetest Thing is free on most major ebook sites. I hope you’ll like it. 

Amazon

www.liliandarcy.com

The Pet Death - Lilian Darcy

What is it with vacations and creatures in this family? There seems to be some kind of cosmic conjunction between one or all of us being away and either traumatic pet death or traumatic vermin invasion.

Tomorrow, I’m going away for a week. Complete break. No checking email. New horizons. Fresh air. Fine food. Pile of great books to read. (Note to self – must cull pile, cannot read eleven books on one week vacation.) Top of the pile is Jane Porter’s “Odd Mom Out.” That one is not getting culled. (Note to self – must not spend whole afternoon deciding which books to cull; have other things to do).

Anyhow, so I’m going away, so of course this triggers a Pet Death. Last time we had a Pet Death, my daughter was away on camp, worried the whole time about absent and much-loved cat who was, unbeknownst to us, in our vet’s freezer. He’d been run over. A kind man, whom I wish I could thank, brought him in, in case his owners called in search of him. We found out what had happened the day after daughter returned.

The Pet Death before that took place while I was at the Novelists’ Inc conference in San Diego in March, which meant that my husband had to handle traumatic euthanasia of terminally ill chicken himself. Chicken euthanasia is a man job, but when the man in question was born and raised in New York, where chickens come frozen and wrapped in plastic, I fully appreciated the courage involved.

Yesterday, we had another terminal chicken, one of the three especially precious ones my daughter considers hers, so we’ve had lots of tears here. I called my husband at work and told him what his man job would have to be when he got home. Then I called him again to tell him he didn’t have the man job any more, because the chicken had taken care of the problem on her own. It’s not a good sign when you see them lying stiffly on their side with their feet in the air. Rest in peace, Chicken, you laid beautiful eggs and had a good life pecking around in our back garden.

So now you’re wondering about the traumatic vermin invasion. I will not detail the many spider occurrences. I’m okay with the shiny black, small and highly poisonous ones with the red stripe down their backs. It’s the big, hairy harmless ones that give me the horrors. My most traumatic vermin invasion (so far) was The Large Rat. Husband out of the country (of course). Two in the morning. Loud shaking and rattling sound issues from en suite bathroom. Rat is caught in slats of exhaust fan. Rat somehow squeezes through. Brief silence, then loud plop and splashing sounds. (I’m sorry, this is the most awful blog, are you still reading?) Rat is trapped in toilet bowl. I cannot bring myself to rescue it – I cannot envisage it being grateful for my effort – I do not wish to be bitten or climbed. It is way too big to flush. I take pillow and quilt, close bathroom and bedroom door, sleep on couch. What will I find the next morning when I slide open the bathroom door? Worst case – no rat… therefore where is it? Pretty near worst case – live rat on floor making immediate break for cover between my feet. Best case – rat drowned in toilet. Fortunately, we had the best case. I considered decreeing getting dead rats out of toilets to be a man job, but then bravely tackled it myself, encasing hand in two plastic bags.

Okay, so I’ve sent rewrites to editor, updated website, done laundry, made about six different lists, we’ve had the pet death, so I’m just about ready to leave. Boy, am I looking forward to it. Boy, am I hoping there are no rats, spiders or terminally ill chickens anywhere near our motel. Cross your fingers for me, please…

Lilian Darcy

http://www.liliandarcy.com