scripsi

Tunnel of Love

Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

I love the light. Living in Sweden, summer means white nights, and there is something special walking outside at night, with the stillness and the scents, but no darkness. I love soft summer rains, like today, when the air smells wonderful, and the sounds of raindrops on the roof makes me feel sleepy and content. I love spending time in the summer house in the archipelagio outside Stockholm, in the house my grandfather built, and my grandmother filled with art. Now my mother is adding her own. There is no better place in the world for me to be.

I’m not poetry minded, so no poem.

Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.

Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Journaling: I will try to actually write the posts about the Agatha Christie books I’m currently rereading. As well as continue talking about books that have special meanings for me.

I have lots of things to sew. Currently a Regency petticoat, and after that a Regency ball gown for a ball at the end of August. I’m also working on a Liberty of London aesthetic dress. I also need to change a couple of everyday clothes that don't fit me anymore.

Creativity: I’m still trying my way in making paper flowers. Here, have a tulip.

Writer’s meme from all over my f-list.

The last sentence you wrote.

And to her joy, both she and Vasily were to attend the Hoogovens Tournament in the Netherlands shortly after New Year, which would give them nineteen days together.

2. A character whose POV you’re currently exploring.

Beth Harmon from The Queen’s Gambit and Karen from All About Eve. Because I can never write on just one fic at the time.

3. How you feel about your current WIP.

Of the two I actively write on, I feel good. Of the ones that I haven’t written on for a very long time, varying degrees of guilt.

4. A story idea you haven’t written yet.

Several. On the top of my head I have ideas for Grimm, The Mummy and The Queen’s Gambit.

5. First sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP.

I don't have any unpublished WIPs… I have unpublished chapters, or rather chapters I'm still working on, though.

What made being married to Addison so difficult was what wasn’t there.

6. The word that appears the most in your current draft (wordcounter.net can tell you).

I’m sure it can, but I can’t muster up the energy to check. I don’t think it would be very interesting anyway.

7. Your preferred writing fonts.

Whatever is default. I don’t care, as long as it isn’t difficult to read.

8. If you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

A sequel to my Mummy-fic Ghosts. I have the whole plot mapped out, it’s the writing out that takes time.

9. Start to finish, how long did it take you to write the last fic you posted?

No idea. I never time it.

10. What is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

Probably a couple of years, but I’ve never timed that either.

11. A WIP you’d like to finish someday.

All of them. When, is another matter…

12. A trope you’re really into right now.

I’m not sure I can say I’m really into it, but marriage of convenience/forced marriage is looming large.

13. A fandom you’re thinking about writing for.

Grimm. Not sure I will write it, though. I’m having a lot of fun thinking out a plot for a Rosalee Calvert/Sean Renard-fic, but I doubt anyone would be very interested in it, so it may just live rent-free in my head instead.

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

I never really pinpointed exactly what it is that triggers my inspiration. I like strong female characters and morally ambiguous male ones, but there are plenty of media I really love that I never feel the urge to write for. Like Sens8 which certainly contains both and that I love so much, but when it comes to fanfic ideas, I have none.

15. Favorite weather for writing.

No idea. I never even thought about that.

16. Favorite place to write.

At work. I realize how that sounds, but my work largely is me having to sit in front of a computer waiting for things to happen. And mostly things don’t happen, and as long as I stay put I can do whatever I want to occupy myself, as long as I can drop it at once. I do all my writing and other computer activities at work and barely touch a computer when I'm home.

17. Talk about your writing and editing process.

I start with writing scenes and snatches of conservation I know I want to include. I’m not a very linear writer but go back and forth until the whole fic/chapter is complete. I usually do spellchecking continuously. When I need a little pause, but don’t do any major editing until I’m done. I usually read it through, and then run it through some kind of free grammar checker. If I have a beta, I then send it to them. And when I get it back I go over it again.

18. If you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic.

I don’t.

19. The most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic.

17th century medicine for a Versailles-fic.

20. In what year did you publish your first fic?

2003. Which means I’ve been writing for 22 years, as I have been writing for a year before I got the nerve to publish it. On LJ and fanfiction.net. And it was a Hook/Wendy Peter-Pan-fic.

21. When did you publish your most recent fic?

Last chapter on a WIP in February this year. Last WIP I started was in September 2021, and the last finished fic was in February 2022.

22. Do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? How do you get past that?

I do, as I often write about pretty traumatizing things, like non-con. I don’t want to upset people, but I know some people get upset just by the fact that people write it, not how it is written. I try to be respectful of my subject, and I also make sure the fic in question is tagged accordingly, and often also have an AN in the beginning with warnings.

23. Pick three keywords that describe your writing.

Historical, fantasy, female protagonists. Ok, that was four words.

24. How do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

I try to not force myself, but I also try to do something creative every day, even if it’s just a very tiny thing.

25. Besides writing, what are your other hobbies?

Reading and sewing, both everyday clothes as well as historical costumes. I also enjoy other creative pursuits like embroidery, beading and, very recently, making paper flowers.

26. Are you able to write with other people around?

Yes, people around and talking is not a problem. But music is too distracting

27. Your favorite part of the writing process.

Coming up with the story, and being done!

28. Your least favorite part of the writing process.

Getting to the point that I start writing. I’m very good at finding other things to do. When I started, I always wondered what the fuss was about.

29. How easy is it for you to come up with titles?

Quite easy. But I often use quotes from published authors and poets.

30. Share a fic you’re especially proud of.

A gen Penny Dreadful fic;A Place In the Shadows. It turned out exactly as I had envisioned it, which is rare.

As usual, almost half a month until I get to my monthly reading post… Oh well. I read more again, which is nice, but I seem to have developed a habit of picking up books, reading half of it, and then forgetting about them. I always read more than one book at any given time, but this is ridiculous! Anyway, in April I finished these books, all new to me:

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny. This is the 14th book of The Inspector Gamache series, which I have been slowly reading through the past 2 years. I read the first four books years ago one after another, and grew tired of them, so when I went back to them I I decided to pace myself. I re-read the first books and then continued, and have enjoyed them. In case you haven’t read Penny, she is a Canadian author, and most of the books centers around a village, Three Pines, close to the border to the USA. It’s pretty much an ideal place, with a bistro serving yummy food (don’t read if you're hungry), friendship and art. And of course murder. In this book Inspector Gamache finds himself the executor of a very strange will of a woman he never met. There is a very new murder, but also a very old mystery, which was intriguing, but I still had a hard time getting through the book. Partly because the mystery didn’t pick up steam until after ⅔ of the book, but also because of a sub-plot about fentanyl smuggling which has lasted several books, and that I don’t care for at all.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. Someone recommended this book to me and it’s been in my to-read pile since forever. When I finally picked it up I finished it in two days, reading until 3 in the night. It has been a long time since I did that. Easily the best book I have read this year.

Opal is a young woman working a dead end job in a dead end town in Kentucky. Her main focus is to get enough money to get her young brother to a good school and eventually a better life. But she also has a fascination for Starling House, a mysterious manor house built by the equally mysterious Eleanor Starling who in the late 19th century wrote a very strange children’s book, before she disappeared. Needless to say Opal finds herself entangled with Starling House in a very Gothic story. I loved everything about this story, from the plot, the language and the characters. I also found the ending satisfying, which I often think is the weakest spot in Gothic novels.

The Ten thousand Doors of January also by Alix E. Harrow. As I already had this book by Harrow, I went straight to it after Starling House. It’s set in the early 20th century and follows January as she grows up in her wealthy guardian house while her father, who works for him, travels the world to bring back artefacts. Though January is well treated, she chafes agaínst the restraints put on her. She also, once, found a door to another world, though that door is immediately destroyed. One day she finds a book about a girl who also finds doors to other worlds, and as January’s world is turned on its head, she slowly realises she has a very real connection to the book.

I didn’t like The Ten thousand Doors of January quite as much as Starling House, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I did, a lot, and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Build A Flower by Lucia Bakrazarand Pappersblommor (Paper flowers) by Sofia Vusir Jansson. Both are non-fiction books about how to make paper flowers from crepe paper. There’s this amazingly talented woman in Sweden that makes paper flowers that are so lifelike, I felt inspired to try to make themselves. So far I have produced a poppy, which I’m pleased with for being the first try ever. Not that I need a new hobby, but at least it’s a fairly inexpensive one, and for a sewist it’s quite the thrill to finish a project in an hour… I plan to do a couple of rehearsal flowers, trying different ones, and eventually create a flower arrangement for a decorative pot we have that is cracked so you can’t have live flowers in it. Both these books were informative and easy to read.

Ever since the TACO acronym hit the news, I've had this Modern Talking parody running rent free in my head. So I will be genereous and share it...

Watch on YouTube

I just realized I haven’t mentioned DW yet, but I have of course watched it. In general I think it’s better than the last season. I adore this Doctor! And though I like Ruby, she sometimes felt like a rerun of Rose. I love Belinda, though. She’s a great character and I hope she will stick around for more than one season.

And now Mrs. Flood’s secret is revealed!

Spoilers and a prediction musing under the cut.
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I loved fairy tales as a small child, and I continued to read and love them long after my friend outgrew them. My parents had a book on Vietnamese tales, and one with Swedish ones, and later I found Andrew Lang’s Fairy books with tales collected all over the world. I was fascinated that tales like the Cinderella story had many different versions. In the Swedish one, for example, Cinderella went to three balls, dressed first in silver, then gold, then in a bejewelled gown, and though she dropped the shoes, it wasn’t made of glass. She also only had one stepsister, and the story didn’t end with the wedding. No, the stepsister pushed Cinderella into the sea, where she was going to be forced to marry a sea monster, while the stepsister made herself look like Cinderella. Luckily the prince noticed, and managed to save his bride, though not before she was turned into a serpent that he had to dip into three baths, winter, milk and water, to save.

When I was around 10, my mother took a university course on children’s books, and read Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, which I picked up and which had a profound impact on my ability to comprehend and analyze my reading. I’se been a long time since I read it, so I’m quoting Wikipedia on it.

Bettelheim analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology in “The Uses of Enchantment” (1976). He discussed the emotional and symbolic importance of fairy tales for children, including traditional tales once considered too dark, such as those collected and published by the Brothers Grimm. Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

I’ve also realized I missed a book in my list on books which impacted me, namely One Thousand and One Nights. My father’s parents has a lovely edition in a set of 6 books, which I used to read every time I visited. I was very happy when they gifted the set to me when I turned 16. It’s a 1920s edition with gorgeous illustration by Gudmund Hentze. Also abridged- too racy sequences are edited out, though the book helpful points out that even if the edited text is “very amusing,it doesn’t conform to our time’s view on morality”. It’s also not all of the stories, though I’m unsure how many there should be.

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I haven’t done this in four years, so it will be interesting to see the changes.

I currently have 123 fics on AO3 divided between 27 fandoms. There are only four more in each category, compared to four years ago. But then I haven't been writing much, so not surprising. Also, nothing new since The Queen's Gambit has sparked my inspiration.

My top five fandoms
1.Doctor Who, 32 fics
2.Peter Pan, 17 fics
3. Versailles 8 fics
4.Harry Potter, 8 fics
5. The Queen’s Gambit, 6 fics

Number 5 is new, removing the fandoms Penny Dreadful and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

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Not very surprising, the earlier books that made an impact on me were picture books. Historien om någon (The Story About Someone) written by Åke Löfgren and illustrated by Egon Møller-Nielsen. And The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My by Tove Jansson. They were both published in the 50s, 1951 and 1952, and haven been out of print since then. Funnily enough they are both mysteries, and both have very interactive layouts, which excited and intrigued me as a small child. Reading the books now still makes me relive those feelings.

In Historien om någon we get to follow the mysterious Someone, who has taken grandmother’s ball of yarn, and leaves a yarn thread through the house. On the way someone drinks all the milk, and does other kinds of mischief, and finally, in the attic, it’s revealed to be a kitten called Nisse.

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I was a little surprised that four books on my influential book list are books with a horse focus. The Horse and His Boy by C. S Lewin, Melka by Joan Penney, Dick och Dalli, which i now realize has been translated to English, it’s called The Snow Ponies by Ursula Bruns, and Flambards by K. M. Peyton. And they weren’t the only horse books I loved as a child, I was also an avid fan of Walter Farley’s Black Stallion-books, and My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara. I’m surprised because I never was horse-mad as a girl. In fact I am afraid of them, and though I find them beautiful to look at, being near one makes my heart beat very fast, and my mouth runs dry.

The Horse and His Boy is of course part of the Narnia Chronicles, though it’s quite different from the others as it’s completely set in the world of Narnia, though actually not in that particular country. I really loved Bree teaching Shasta to ride, and I also like Aravis a lot, and her journey. Their adventures in Tashban and the ride through the desert was something I read with the same excitement, every time I reread it- and I’ve probably reread this Narnia-book the most. Also, Bree is a great flawed character and drama queen.

Melka and The Snow Ponies were books my father had as a child, and I first came to them because he read them for me. Melka was written in the 1930s, and is about a horse, Melka, born in a Sudanese village, where she has some foalhood adventures before she is sold to an English family and is brought to a city. She gets a close friend in a donkey called telephone, and grows close to the boy who rides her. As she is found to be very good at jumping, she is stolen and dyed brown (she’s a white horse), but is eventually reunited with her huma. In the end the family goes back to England, and Melka ends up living in a manor stable in the countryside. I haven’t read this book since I was a child, and I’m not sure I dare to read it again. I’m not sure how well the depiction of Sudanese natives has stood the test of time…

It's been a very long time since I read The Snow Ponies as well, but I remember it as a very funny book. It's about two teenage girls who live with their grandmother and aunt on a stud farm where they raise Icelandic horses and Shetland ponies. They are mad about Vikings and get very excited when their cousin Ethelbert is coming for an extended stay, as they think having a Viking name must make him like one. But Ethelbert is a spoiled hypochondriac and his presence a nuisance more than anything else. I guess it comes as no surprise that Ethelbert, who is pretty much a soulmate to Eustace in the Narnia books, will be forced to do a hard look at his own actions, and change. But with horses, instead of dragons.

Flambards is really the first part of what I read as a trilogy as a child, because those were the only ones translated to Swedish but it’s actually a series of four books. I read the last one as an adult, and didn’t care for it much. Anyway, it’s set before, during and after WWI, and is about rich orphan Christina who is sent to her uncle in the British countryside. He is very posh, and also impoverished, and Christina eventually realizes the hope is that she will marry her cousin Mark, to get the manor house Flambards back to its glory days. Everyone there is horsemad, except her cousin Will, and Christina soon grows to love horses and Flambards as much as Mark does. Pity Mark is such a bastard. I regularly return to the three first books in this series, and there was also a television series I remember liking.

I’m always so late with these posts…

I have been better at concentrating on my reading lately, even if I’m still far from my usual pace. And I only managed to finish two books, namely part 1 and 2 of Shadow of the Leviathan-series, The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. Several people on my f-list had read and liked them, and so did I. Basically they are crime novels in a fantasy setting, with the main character, Dinios Kol, being the Watson to the very strange, but brilliant detective Ana Dolabra. I guessed who the villain really was early on in both books, but I usually do, so that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the mystery.

I also liked the fantasy setting, which I found original, and a bit unsettling. In this world the country is invaded by gigantic sea monsters once every year, wrecking havoc until they are killed. And their dead carcasses are used to help enhance humans in various ways. Kol, for example, has perfect recall, others have their sense of smell or sight improved, and so on. I found Kol a likeable protagonist, and I very much look forward to part 3.

In my previous post you can find a link to the 102 books I feel have affected me the most. Mostly fictional, and a lot are books I read quite young. And as I love to talk about books, and listing these have made me think about them a lot, I will amuse myself, and perhaps some of you too, with talking about some of these books in particular. And first out will be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

I’m lumping these two books together because no other literary characters have had so much impact on me personally. If I was to name my role models, then it would be Jane Eyre and Harriet Vane. I read them when I was around 13-14, and they made a deep impact on me, and has, I know, had a direct impact what kind of person I wanted to be.

I came to Jane Eyre through the 1983 TV-series with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke, which I loved with a passion, and made me hunt down the book. It’s still the adaptation I think is the best, as it covers nearly all of the book, while most movie adaptations just focus on the love story. Anyway, I read the book, and feel even more in love with Jane. I’ve often seen Jane being accused of being too meek and wishy-washy, but I think that's so wrong. She is quiet, and clearly an introvert, but she has a very strong sense of self. Even as a small, abused child she has a sense of self-worth, and she never budges. She has integrity and independence, and even if she loves Rochester deeply, she never allows that to derail her from what she feels is right. If she had been meek and weak-willed she would have submitted to him, but instead she leaves. I’ve always loved that about her, and I still do.

I’ve never changed my perception of Jane, but I’ve profoundly changed my view on Rochester. Teenage me found him profoundly romantic, nowadays I think he is rather horrible. He has a sense of right and wrong, which dictates some of his actions, like taking care of his illegitimate daughter, but he is also perfectly willing to deceive Jane to get what he wants. There is also that scene where he seems on the verge of actually raping her. In my teens I thought Jane overreacted a bit when she fled, but as an adult I think she is acutely aware of how much power Rochester has by being a rich male, and how utterly helpless she would be if he decided to keep her against her will. No, I'm not a fan of Edward Rochester anymore. (I don’t, however, blame him for his treatment of Bertha. From a modern POV he does treat her horribly, but if you consider how mentally ill people were treated in the early 19th century, he is actually treating her much better than most. Mental asylums were hellholes without any actual treatment, and even though Bertha is locked up, there is no indication that she lacks food and comfort, and she has an one on one attendant, even if Grace Pool isn’t completely reliable.)

I found Gaudy Night because after reading my parent’s collection of Christie in the bookshelf which contained crime novels, I moved on to the books after, which happened to be Sayers. (Then I moved to the books in front, which is how I started on Raymond Chandler.) My parents only had Strong Poison, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon, and as I had no idea the books had an internal order, I chose the one which the title I liked the most. The Swedish translation is “Kamratfesten” which means something like “a feast of friends”, and it appealed to me. And I didn't get half of what happened in it. I got the actual mystery, but all the discussions that went on that seemed to have little to do with it, mostly went over my head. But I still loved it. Somehow I realized that I would be able to unlock the book if i had been older and more experienced, and so Gaudy Night was the book I grew up with. I re-read it at least once every year for at least a decade, and little by little the book fell into place for me.

The last bit was when I finally read it in English and realized the Swedish translation is missing several scenes. Scenes that often are references later on, which makes for some confusion. If you haven’t read Gaudy Night, the book is really a discussion, on several levels, and including the mystery, of a woman’s place in society. Is an equal relationship possible? Can a woman have both a career and marriage? Basically every conversation in the book revolves around it, and we are given several viewpoints. And, sadly, a lot of it is still relevant though the book is 90 years old.

Harriet Vane with her honesty and integrity has been as important to me as Jane Eyre. Harriet isn’t flawless, she struggles with low self esteem and a temper, and I love her so much. She has always felt so real to me, And opposed to Rochester, Lord Peter Wimsey has remained a favourite romantic hero.

It says something about my stress levels that I can’t finish the books I start. My usual pace are one or two books finished weekly. This month I have finished three… Agatha Christie's The Hollow that will get its own post.

The Tomb of Dragons by Katerina Addison. I liked it, but I’m glad I re-read the previous books in the series, as there are a lot of references to the previous books. Actually, all the books in The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy follow so closely to each other that they could be read as one book in three parts. It feels like it came to a natural conclusion, but I still want more. I like Tara and would love to read more about him, but I also feel that the stories of his friend the opera director and his colleagues still have stories that need to be told.

Dorothy Gilman The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. I read one Mrs. Pollifax book in my early teens, but had no idea it was a series until someone here on DJ mentioned it. They are Cold War thrillers, with this the first book published in the late 1960s. Mrs. Pollifax is a widow who is rather bored, and decides to do something about her childhood dream of becoming a spy. And so she finds herself in Mexico to pick up a secret package for the CIA. And everything promptly goes wrong. This was not the Polifax book I have read, and I enjoyed it, though it’s very much a product of its time. Americans are heroes and Communists are baddies. But Mrs. Pplifax is a charming and resourceful character and I enjoyed the book..

I’m currently reading, on and off in all too short snatches; France Hardinge’s Fly By Night, Ben Aaronovitch The masquerades of Spring, Dorothy Gilman The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, Louise Penny’s The Kingdom of the Blind, Jenny Kiefer’s This Wretched Valley and Donyae Coles’ Midnight Rooms.

After watching, and not liking, the new adaptation of Towards Zero, I have been thinking a lot about Agatha Christie’s books. And I think I’m going to embark on a re-read. I have read all her novels written under her own name, some multiple times, but not for the last decade, or so. I have been thinking of doing a reread before, but always felt I ought to start with her first one. The problem is that I don’t like The Mystery at Styles much, so I never felt the urge to get started. But really, why should I read them in publishing order? Only the Tommy and Tuppence books have an inner chronology anyway. So instead I’m going to read them roughly in the order of how much I like them. And I may not reread some I don’t care for much.

I read my first Christie when I was 10. It was Death in the Clouds, and I got interested because the cover showed a giant wasp in front of a plane. I was definitely too young for it. I remember enjoying the beginning when they were in the plane, and I really enjoyed the description of what the passengers had in their handbags and pockets. But the rest when Poirot interviews the suspects, I found it very boring. But a few years later I saw the 70s version of Murder on the Orient Express, loved it and promptly found it in my parents bookshelves, and was hooked. I quickly went through the Christie’s we had, The ABC Murders, Sad Cypress, Cyankalium and Champagne and Hickory Dickory Dock. I don’t usually remember where I find the books I read, but somehow remember my first Christie's. I found Nemesis, Sleeping Murder, Three Little Piggies, 4.50 From Paddington, Appointment With Death, Posterns of Fate and Mrs. McGinty Is Dead at our local library. From both sets of grandparents I found At Bertram’s Hotel, A Caribbean Mystery, Death On the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, A Murder Is Announced, Lord Edgware Dies and A Pocket Full of Rye. I also started to collect titles from used book stores. In my late teens I started to read books in English and switched to buying the titles in English instead of Swedish. The last Christie I read was The Hollow.

Over the years Christie has got a lot of slack for being a bad writer, but I think she is the opposite. She’s an extremely economical writer, basically everything that happens in her books is relevant to the mystery. But it takes real skill to be able to pare down your writing to the bare essentials and still be able to write a compelling story. And her writing is compelling. She wouldn’t still sell, if people found her books dull. Many of the Golden Age writers are forgotten today, but there is a timeless quality over her books that makes them easy to access. She’s not perfect, of course. Many of her books show the prejudices of her time, which can certainly be galling. And though I don’t think her characters are the cardboards they are sometimes accused of, she does use stock characters over and over again. The grumpy patriarch/matriarch, the vamp, the downtrodden spinster, the never-do-well, and so on. But just when you think you have her pegged, she turns round her narratives and surprises you.

I think reading Christie in my teens was good insofar as all the detective tropes she uses were new and exciting to me. Which they were for her readers when the books were first published. Because very, very often, Christie was the one who invented them in the first place. So I look forward to this reread, starting with my all time favourite; the Hollow.

If you enjoy podcasts, I can really recommend All About Agatha (can be found on Spotify too). It goes through every single Christie novel in depth, and most of the short stories as well. They also include discussions on the various adaptations. A word of warning, though. One of the hosts died very suddenly a few seasons in, and I found it a bit shocking to hear.

Not really everything I have watched, just what has stayed in my memory a bit more.

Season 2 of The Law According to Lidia Poët. An Italian show on Netflix about Italy’s first female lawyer in the 19th century. In real life she was barred from officially being a practicing lawyer, though she still worked as one in her brother’s legal office. In the show she also solves crimes with the reluctant help of her brother, and the more enthusiastic help of her brother in law. I find it a charming show, even if Lidia is a thoroughly modern woman in a 19th century world. The costumes are pretty good, though better in season 1. On the other hand I like the love interest of season 2 better. But the relationship I enjoy the most is the one between Lidia and her brother who constantly exasperate each other, but they still love each other and are always there to help. Though I can’t sew while watching this show as I need to read the subtitles.

Inspired by this I went on to re-watch Il Commissario Ricciardi, another Italian show. Set in the 1930s, Ricciardi solves crimes somewhat helped by the fact that he sees ghosts. I really like this show despite having a triangle drama, something that usually bores me. It’s saved here because both women who are in love with Ricciardi are so decent, as is he. The adorable introverted girl next door and the rich and famous opera singer are both really nice women, instead of the usual when one has to be a backstabbing bitch. The costumes are excellent too, and I really like the supporting cast. If you can find the show, I highly recommend it.

We finished season 2 of The Night Agent. From a slow start it got a lot better, though I found the hero with the troubled backstory pretty boring. But Rose is a lovely character and I also liked Noor enormously. Both season 1 and 2 have a lot of good female characters.

Also finished the last season of Father Brown, which was pretty boring. I know it isn’t meant to be a deep show in any way, but the original sidekicks were much better than the current ones. They had defined characters, while the current housekeeper is constantly changing to suit the plot. In one episode she is a talented ballroom dancer, in another a talented writer, and so on.

These questions were written by ange420.

1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
Well, I’m Swedish, and ever since Sweden became a Protestant country in the early 16th century, records have been very good. So I can trace back to that time in all the branches of my family tree. But I have an aristocratic branch, and there I can trace it all the way back to Charlemange and beyond to the 7th century. (It’s not very unique to descend from Charlemange. About 25% of people with European descent do.)

2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
One of my ancestors was a POW in Russia after the Battle of Poltava in 1709. When he returned home, he painted two maps over Moscow and it’s surrounding, which I found online a couple of years ago.

3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
Legacy names aren’t a thing in Sweden, and to my eyes they feel a bit cumbersome and clunky. But I like naming after relatives. Probably because I am myself. My first name is the same as my paternal grandfather’s mother. And in my mother’s family the eldest daughter is given the same second name, and I’m the gift generation carrying that tradition. If I had had a daughter I would have continued that tradition, as it is now, my niece got that name.

4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. A traditional family structure, for sure. My parents married young and are still married. I’m a cis het woman and married to a man, but I don’t think of myself as traditional beyond that.

5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
My sister and I always made gingerbread cookies with our mother before Christmas, and though my son is an adult now, he always comes around to do the same with me.

A bit belated as a good chunk of March has gone by. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate when reading right now, so I have jumped around between books more than usual, and finished fewer.

New books
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths. This is the first book in a new series. Ali is a police officer in her 50s who works for a cold case unit in London. Only they actually go back in time to solve the crimes. A high-ranking politician pulls strings for the unit to look into his great-great-grandfather who was rumored to have killed several women in the 1850s But instead of an hour in the past, Ali gets stuck in time, and while she is, the politician is murdered and her son gets accused of the crime. I always enjoy Griffiths books, and I liked this one too. Historical mysteries are always my cup of tea, and despite the fantastical premise, the book still felt grounded. Ali is a likeable character, and I always like it when middle-aged women get to be the hero. I also appreciate that Griffith clearly does her research. The description of 1850s clothes was very accurate, which pleased me. I look forward to continuing the series.

Open Season by Jonathan Kellerman. It’s been a long time since Kellerman’s Alex Delaware-books have been anything formulaic, so sometimes I wonder why I still read them. Perhaps because it’s nice to read things that don't surprise you at all. This one was entirely as expected. An oddish kind of murder that makes Alex's police friend Milo call him in. Interviews with surrounding people, broken up with eating. Alex spending time with girlfriend and adorable dog. The murder being a psychopath serial killer, though no one, before Alex, realized there was serial killing going on.

Rereads
The Brimstone Wedding by Barbara Vine. I never liked any of Ruth Rendell’s novels written under her name, but even if I don’t like all of her Barabara Vine novels, those I like I really like. The Brimstone Wedding is one of those I like, but I haven’t reread it for many years. Last time I was the same age as Jenny, in my early 30s, and now I’m a generation older. Makes my perspective a bit different. Anyway, the Vne-books aren’t typical crime novels, even if many of them contain a murder. This book certainly has a mýstery, but it’s also a book about friendship. Jenny works as a nursing assistant at a home for old people, where she befriends Stella, who is 70 and dying from cancer. Initially Stella is very reserved, but eventually she starts talking about her life, and Jenny gets the feeling there is something she really wants to tell her. One says Stella asks Jenny to check out a house she owns. A house, Jenny soon realizes, has stood empty for many years, showing signs of having been abandoned very quickly.

The House of Lost Shadow by F. G. Cottam. As a young man in the 80s, Paul offers to help his girlfriend out with a paper. While researching Pandora, a socialite and photographer active in the 1920s, Paul gets a number of spooky encounters, culminating in a horrific visit to an abandoned house, which shatters his life completely. Fifteen years later he learns that a group of students have visited the same house, leaving one of them dead, and the rest psychotic. And, of course, Paul is the only one who can help.

Cottam is a good horror writer, very atmospheric, and he is often even good at endings, which is often the weakest point in horrors. He also makes heavy use of one of my favourite plot devices where an old mystery is slowly revealed through archive materials. I’m a sucker for that. I don’t think The House of Lost Shadow one of his better books though, possibly because it’s one of his earlier works. The 1980s sequence works well with Paul researching and obsessing over Pandora, but the present day parts feel a bit disjointed. And the ending is rather Deus Ex Machina. I also feel weirded out by Cottam using real life persons as the bad guy. I guess Alisatir Crowley is pretty mythologized by now, but he also elevates an author, Dennis Wheatley into a supernatural villain. Wheatley, who wrote many books with occult themes isn’t very well-known today, and Cottam might as easily have made up a fictive character. In later books Cottam makes up a fictitious occult cult, The Jericho Society, which works much better as villains, and The House of Lost Shadow is part of that canon, even if the cult isn’t mentioned in it. Which is why I re-read it, as I recently read Dark Echo which partly ties in to this one.

I watched the new Agatha Christie adaptation of Towards Zero. It’s one of my favourite Christie books, so I really wanted to like it. Well, the settings and costumes are beautiful. I didn’t mind any of the casting. But it suffered from extensive changes of the basic plot, and I don’t understand why so many modern adaptations of Christie do this. It wasn’t as bad as The Pale Horse, but it sure didn’t work well. I think it’s because Christie’s plots are very tight, basically everything you ever learn about a character, or the things that happen, are essential to it. Even clothes descriptions are either clues, or points to essential characteristics. So if you change something in the plot, then you have to do a lot of additional changes to make the plot work, and in the end you are juggling a lot of eggs, and more often than not, it all ends in a mess. And often not necessary, because there is so much unsaid in a Christie novel that you can add a lot of stuff without changing the basic plot. Like making Mark black in the recent adaption of Murder Is Easy, or moving the timeframe to the 50s instead of 30s. The first change works because Mark is already an outsider in the little English village, so that change basically just underlines that. And the second change doesn't matter much as the original novel has few markers that says it’s set in the 30s anyway.
Spoilers below the cut.
( Read more... )
So all in all I was underwhelmed. I’m well aware that things that work in books may not work in screen adaptations, but I found most of the changes here just weird, and not well grounded into the story.

Borrowed from thisbluespirit

Rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Most hits and second most kudos: The Might of his Strength with 12751 hits and 354 kudos. (The Mummy-fic, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay)

Third most comment; The Number of Vices with 45 comments. (The Queen’s Gambit-fic, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov)

Fourth most bookmarks: Ghosts has 73 bookmarks. (The Mummy-fic, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay)

Fifth most words: Man’s Greatest Joy has 14348 words. (Peter Pan, Captain Hook/Wendy Darling)

The fewest words: Warnings For Curious Children with 98 of them. (A Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Gen)

And here is the state of my fic-writing in general. I’m currently working on two WIP’s. Passions of Some Difference (The Queen’s Gambit, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov) and Sable Coats and Razorblades (All About Eve, Karen Rickards/Addison DeWitt). Both are completely mapped out and have large chunks already written. I hope to finish them soon-ish.

The Might of His Strength is still a WIP, but I’m struggling to finish it. My original ending didn’t work out and I haven’t been able to knit it together in a way that feels right. Most annoying, but hopefully I’ll get there eventually.

And while rewatching Grimm I have got a fic-idea I don’t think anyone would read, but is very persistent, so I might write it down anyway. It’s Rosalie Calvert/Sean Renard which is A. Not a pairing anyone writes, and B. I would need to get rid of Monroe, which no one would want to read.

I have several other ideas for fics that are all mapped out, but need to be written.

Death In Paradise: Camille Bordey/Richard Poole
Dracula/The Historian: A sequel to Clara and Sophie.
The Borgias: Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia/Micheletto Corella
The Mummy: A sequel to Ghosts. Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell. Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay
The Queen’s Gambit: A prequel to Paris Redux, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov

So if I can only keep my writing mojo going, I will have plenty to write about.

I want to gush a little about an art exhibition I saw yesterday. The Swedish artist Tyra Kleen died in 1951, leaving her artwork to the Swedish House of Nobility on the condition no one was to look at them for 50 years. So even if she was an important artist in her time, she was basically forgotten. There have been smaller exhibitions since then, but the one I saw yesterday is the most comprehensive. She was born in 1874 and lived in both Paris and Rome, as well as travelled extensively. She was a feminist and never married. Apart from her art, she also wrote books, and was an independent ethnographic researcher. She was also interested in the occult. I really love her art, and the exhibition was amazing.

It’s very picture heavy under the cut, with art related nudity and some horror motifs. The slightly wonky pictures are one I took myself yesterday.

( Read more... )

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Towards Zero

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Tyra Kleen