Hurry up and paint!

One of the things I do when I finish a painting is to sign and date it. Then I let it sit around for a while until I figure out some final changes and make them.

When I noticed that the calendar was winding down, it occurred to me that I still had two paintings that were "finished" and needed to be looked at. So that's what I've been doing this weekend. (Besides playing with/petting the injured kitty my neighbor found. Kitteh required surgery and is recovering here while I'm trying to find him a good home.)



Here's the Macdonald-Stewart Library building at McGill U in Montreal. I love Montreal's architecture, and some of the buildings at McGill are extraordinarily picturesque (if a little run-down). One of the best things about this particular building is that you arrive at it from downtown without having to hike up the mountain like you have to do for the rest of the campus. You're still breathing normally at this point.

9x12", alkyd oil on Gessobord, all materials archival. Gessobord means that you can pop this into a regular frame and not have to buy one of those deep ones that only take canvases. $125 US. Shipping is free to US and Canada.

Here's a painting, "Summer Hay," in water-soluble oils I began at Art of the Carolinas. It's loosely based on Lloyd's Dairy in Efland, NC, a favorite subject of mine. It's 24x12", done on a Gessobord, and all materials are archival. $200 US. Shipping is free to US and Canada.

I'll get back to more painting now...

Separate But Unequal

This column originally ran April 12, 2010 at comicbookresources.com .


Let us turn to the Book of Wondie. In the beginning, Wonder Woman was created as an Amazon. Back in the Forties her creator had an extremely limited pool of origin possibilities that would allow her to bound into the world as a feminist woman who could receive a fair bit of respect just for being herself. She could have been a cowgirl, but Marston went with the choice of Amazons, which also allowed him a base of mythology to work with. And the origin was good, amen.

By classic definition, the Amazons were an all-female society. I have heard many readers of late deriding the DC version for turning their backs on men in order to form that kind of nation. Those readers are showing their ignorance of the mythos.

While the no-men rule for Amazons in the Golden through Bronze Ages may be a little murky it its origins (GA Aphrodite went by the rule that men are violent and women are peaceable, and so she created the female nation to counter Mars/Ares’ violent plots), the Modern Era of Wonder Woman clearly shows us that the Amazons—well, the Themysciran Amazons—had no choice in the matter. Their gods created them as an all-female society (we are NEVER told why) and directed them to be exiled on a hidden island for their sins, and that was that. The Amazons had to obey.

Unfortunately this single-gender origin begat an ongoing sub-theme that continued even into the modern era: That women are good, men are evil, and that all are best off if they keep to their separate playing fields. This odd idea is a twisted echo of what is too often encountered in the world: that men are superior, women inferior, and that if men are contaminated with feminine ideas they are no longer worthy of respect.

The battle of the sexes has long been a source of drama and humor in fiction, but when used as a constant element in order to degrade an entire gender or over-celebrate another, it’s unhealthy and not entertaining in the least.

In the Golden Age Wonder Woman often demonstrated that violent, evil men would be so much better if they surrendered to Loving Authority—which was only available from a woman.

To make matters worse, the Amazons couldn’t even allow males to touch their island. Male cooties would bring doom to them! Also, if men tampered with Amazons’ bracelets, the action let loose insanity and uncontrollable rage. The Amazons lost their power because of men. Men are just bad news in every way, aren’t they?

Did any of the WW creative teams ever think that if they kept slandering the vast majority of their readers, there might be some kind of backlash or resentment toward WW? Do guys really like to be told they’re evil? That masculine qualities are bad? Let me tell you: women haven’t enjoyed being told the same thing about themselves over the millennia. Women resent it.

Yet with all this, from the first Wonder Woman’s basic theme has been that of empowerment of the disenfranchised. Often her readers and some creators have seemed to think that “disenfranchised” meant only women, but if you look a little harder you’ll see that WW stood up for just about anyone, no matter the gender, who was attacked because of close-mindedness.

Now, I can understand this separation of genders in the Forties. Society was very much like that, though it was just beginning to change, creaking around to a new stance. With the end of World War II, it tried to snap back and couldn’t. The genie was out of the bottle.

In the Sixties we had the Women’s Movement making headlines. Women, especially loud ones or ones in groups or ones in loud groups, were to be feared and ridiculed by all too many men. They had to be kept in their place, kept under control, lest men lose their power.

As the Movement became more mainstream, why was it that we still saw women and men so separated in comics when they weren’t in real life? Each had their own playing field assigned to them. Most comics readers were expected to know that if the women ever snuck onto the men’s turf, they’d quickly be put in their place and humiliated. In order for that not to happen, it was best if the women kept meekly to their own arenas. Wonder Woman often kept this separation in the spotlight and celebrated it.

How did Diana feel about the gender wars?


I’ll admit that comment was a one-time event. But it’s still astounding that it would ever see print. Its presence says much about the gender bigotry that all too often seethed below the surface in the book.

It wasn’t just Diana. DC as a company has often seemed to relish pitting men against women. They make sure they have their separate venues. WW lucked out because both the JSA and JLA needed token females, so she was associated for long years with each team and thus shared in the prestige there. When Diana left the JLA, her girly chair was filled by Black Canary. It was some time before the teams truly integrated by gender.

The more modern DC has seen a number of events in which the players were separated out by gender. Often these occurred in Wondie’s book, such as the Adjudicator arc in 1982, in which a galactic bigwig battled a gamut of DC’s more well-known heroines. During Phil Jimenez’s WW run in 2001, he had Circe turn all the male heroes into animals, while scads of female heroes from both forgotten series and successful gathered to save the world…and fight hordes of female villains.

As recently as Blackest Night we saw an entire legion of ring-bearers, the Sapphire Chicks, that was made up only of females who dressed in skimpy pink outfits, all just oozing luv. Of course no male in their right mind would deign to be a member of that group! The idea! Besides, it was pointed out that men don’t have the same capacity to love as do women. Uh… Say again? And does this mean that women don’t have the same capacity as men to feel some other emotion(s)?

What century is it again?

The Jimenez era of WW surprisingly ushered in male Amazons, fully integrated and welcomed as immigrants, and accompanied by thousands of male visitors and students to Themyscira. Imagine the intriguing possibilities this brought! Finally the “women are good; men are evil” theme must be eradicated within the pages of WW. We’d see how the genders working together could make a better world and better Wondie.

The male Amazons were done away with within the course of a few panels during the Rucka era and never spoken of again.

Guy heroes have guy villains. After all, it’s ungentlemanly to hit a woman even if she’s trying to blow your brains out. Of late, they’ve managed to have a handful of female villains as well and some have even turned out to be interesting and not just there to be “bad girl” romantic interests.

But Wonder Woman has been plagued with a high ratio of female foes from the beginning, so she could fight the women that her male cohorts couldn’t. Only Ares/Mars and Dr. Psycho come quickly to mind as WW’s male villains, and Dr. Psycho is a little person, which is a comic book way of telling us that he’s not quite a real man. (Comic books can be cruel.)

But Wondie not only has female villains by the score, she has them forming all-female teams. Villainy, Inc. was only composed of women in its first incarnation, and when it was revived late in the modern era, it was all women again. There was nary a male token in sight.


In the current third volume of WW, we have faced an opening arc in which villains ganged up against Wonder Woman. All of these were women, except Dr. Psycho, who is still a little person. An evil version of Herakles was also used (sometimes he’s good; sometimes he’s evil; writers can’t seem to hold his character steady), but not as part of the villainous, loosely-grouped team.

A few issues later we saw the nation of Amazons used as a bloodthirsty army that destroyed Washington, DC and many other places, massacring innocents as they went. Remember, they’re a group composed entirely of females. (It’s just been rewritten that this hellish army of tens of thousands was actually only about a dozen renegades. Right.)

The current Simone run has also placed an emphasis on separating out the genders. The run began with an all-female group of murdering villains, the Circle. They had a reason for not being inclusive, as they were Themysciran Amazons. The story progressed to include a group of villainous (or wannabe villainous) apes, all male. It then moved on to a large group of super-Nazis, of which two were female, which is extremely minimal integration.

We’ve also had ancient Greek warriors, zombies and all male, added to the WW cast. They first appeared as villains and were led by Achilles, who was just following evil orders from the mad/evil male god, Zeus. These Manazons/Gargareans now live on an island which no female can approach.

A new group of villains, the Crows, appeared: all boys, all up to no good in a murderous way. In the most recent issue of WW we meet an outer space captain who commands an all-female force and wants to decimate the Earth, except for 100 of its most accomplished citizens… who will all be women.

So the sexes are still kept very separate in the pages of Wonder Woman and within the DCU. What purpose does this serve here in the 21st Century? Doesn’t such a constant barrage of anti-male sentiment drive readers away? If we kept getting stories concerning groups of villains who were, say, all Black or all Asian, and if characters were allowed to complain over and over about how such-and-such race was inherently evil or good or if they were only subtly shown to be so, wouldn’t readers complain?

The reason the genders are so separated in the pages of the modern WW is not because of the gods’ whims, but those of her creative teams. Isn’t it time to end the segregation?

A Lesson Learned About Commissions

I was so pleased to get a portrait commission! It's been a long time since I did such and I wanted to get back in the swing of things. Along the way I learned and relearned a bunch of helpful stuff that I hope to incorporate into future paintings.

First and foremost: insist on a good picture at a decent size! Luckily, today's technology is a LOT better than it was when I first started doing portraits back right after college. Now I can scan a photo, take it into Photoshop, work with it a bit, and print it out at a large, viewable size. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to reinforce the importance of getting a clear shot to begin with.

Also, I need to make sure the client and I are on the same wavelength as to what they want. They're the one ordering the portrait. They're the one paying for it. And they and their descendants will be the ones looking at it for years to come.

So when I thought I'd completed this particular portrait (above), I congratulated myself on doing a good job. I'd changed some colors to make it more lively and so the figures would stand out more. I'd adjusted the composition so the figures could be larger. But when I sent a jpg to the client for approval, she said that she recalled the skirt not being red, etc.

One of my instructors once said that while the artist is interested in composition, color harmony, value, etc., the client just wants it to look like the subject. I'll take that a little farther: though the artist wants to make art, the client is more interested in preserving the memory. In a commissioned work, the client's wants are by far the most important thing. Without them, there is no commission.

So I've redone the portrait a bit, hoping that the client will prefer this version:


Live, learn, and keep those fingers crossed!

Did I mention...

Art of the Carolinas 2010!

This is the trade show/workshop weekend that Jerry's Artarama puts on every year in Raleigh, NC. I had a very good time there this year. Once again I tried water-soluble oil colors and have now made a definite decision on same. I learned about brushstrokes, got a new angle on putting a painting together quickly, struck up a few good conversations, and bought a lot of good, um, stuff. But I took far too many photos to include in a blog, so I posted under the "Travel" section of my website. If you want to hear my view about happenings at the largest art expo in the US, you'll have to click here!

I sing the feline electric

Bran-Bran
1995-2010

Bran was the kitten who never grew up. Oh, he got older, but he was always ready for action, always prepared to create a little deviltry. His little motor was permanently set on extra-loud purr. Vets had to blow in his face to get him to shut up so they could listen to his heart.

When I first got Bran from the shelter I thought he'd be Branstookah, reborn. I was wrong. He was actually someone from Obiwan's past. Bran worshipped his older brother. I have lots of folders of pictures labelled "Bran and Obi," and few labelled just one or the other.

I'd been hoping Bran would be a pal to Bella, who was now without her beloved Morgan, but Bella wouldn't have anything to do with him. So I went out seeking a buddy for Bran and found Molly. It turned out she was probably a week younger than what her owners said, still a little too young for adoption, and when I got her home she was much smaller than Bran. I'd thought I'd gotten a like-sized kitten.

So Bran, in his exuberance, terrorized her. He was always trying to play rough and she could only try to hide—until she got older and grew larger than little Bran. She would hiss at him like crazy, but still he'd try to play. They both might not like to admit it, but they had a lot of kitten adventures together. And since Molly idolized Obi as well, they were the Three Musketeers when he was around.

When I moved to the new house I also had to move seven cats. I stuffed 'em all (except the timid, much-put-upon Bella) into the master bathroom and closed the door so the movers could come in, so I could keep track of them, etc. But when I turned my back, Bran—always the smallest—had slipped UNDER the door and zipped out into the strange yard.

I almost freaked out. There was no knowing how far he would run, confused not to be in the home he'd known all his life. So carefully I walked toward him, trying not to frighten him. He stood in the middle of the forest and meowed at me piteously, then came to me. He knew who his Mama was.

As the herd dwindled down to two, Bran's bond with Obi deepened. The two were inseparable, except when Obi got jealous. On the rare times when Bran wanted to be petted NOW, Obi would either slink away in a huff or nudge him out of the way.

Bran liked to go out at night and come back in when he thought breakfast should be served, so I got used to Obi changing sides of the bed. He'd try to be on my left by the pillow, but when Bran came in and jumped to that spot as well, thinking nothing about two cats piled on the same point (it just made things friendlier, didn't it?), Obi would move to the right. It got to be such a routine that Obi eventually changed places in the middle of the night so as not to be bothered in the morning. Bran would come in, purr purr purr (the loudest purr you've ever heard) (except that Moosie, on the rare times he purred, was louder), and then pat me gently on the nose or eyeball to inform me that it was breakfast time.

At night he had an uncanny sense of time. As I sat at the computer, pretending to write my novels, he'd come in at 8 and start patting my leg, proceeding to a scratch if I did not accede to his wishes, and scratch and scratch until I got up and distributed snackies like a good Mama does.

I often called him "my little Duck," because he loved the rain. The worse the storm, the more he wanted to go out. And of course if Mama was home, he'd skip the kitty door and sit at the front door, looking back at me, awaiting valet service from his human. Once out, he'd give a quick look around and race down to sit under the back of my car. (Unless I saw him inside before I left for work, I always slapped the back of the car to flush him out of the way.) Don't know how he accomplished it, but even in the worst of storms Bran would come back inside without a drop of water on him. Usually. Every so often he'd arrive drenched, and kick up a fuss when Mama toweled him off.


As Obi's health has declined (he's 18 now), I've worried a LOT about Bran. What would Bran do when Obi was gone? Would he be sentenced to long, lingering years of loneliness? It seems Bran didn't want that. Obi is old enough that he sleeps most of the time, and won't suffer as much, I think, from the separation as Bran would have.

It all went so fast. He'd slowed down in the past six weeks, enough for me to get bloodwork done, especially when he stopped being enthusiastic about his meals. He got more bloodwork last week, just before I left for Art of the Carolinas. When I got back on Saturday, he was not eating to a worrying degree, though he was drinking a lot of water. Then he started to bump into things as if he couldn't see well. His urine had blood in it. He got X-rays Monday morning, ultrasound Tuesday, and on Wednesday he made his last trip to the vet.

I got the impression that he had a huge group of friends waiting to welcome him to the Other Side. When I asked him about his next life, he said that he'd wait for Obi so they could go together. I hope that wherever they wind up, they have a lot of fun, a lot of places to explore, much sunlight to lie in, and much love to surround them.

Rumble in the Wonder—Marketing Smackdown!

This column was originally run January 20, 2010, on comicbookresources.com .



With a "ho ho ho" in my heart and credit cards already smoking in my wallet, I set out in December to fulfill my Angel Tree kid's list. While the Angel Tree doesn't literally exist any more, its spirit lives on as an envelope of holiday wish lists from underprivileged area children.

I'd chosen someone who didn't want a Tour de France-ready bicycle or complete Wii system with snorkel and shotgun add-ons or $300 tennis shoes autographed by Michael Jordan (who, btw, lived in the next college dorm over from mine). (Okay, there's a five-year difference in graduation dates, but even so...)

My young Angel wanted a modest number of modestly priced items requiring both brain cells and motor skills to use. I approved and bought exactly that, but I wanted to add a little something extra to the pile. I was going to get her a gift that would not only help her in her reading, but introduce her to a lovely new world of fantasy and possibilities: a Wonder Woman children's book.

A few years ago Nina Jaffe and Ben Caldwell put out a playful series of Wonder Woman kiddie books through HarperFestival. They're out of print now (why???), but still around in used book stores. I checked 'em out online. Used copies in new condition went for at least $40. Ouch!

So instead, I wandered off to Wally World to get some other kind of Wonder gear for the Angel. Right past the store greeter stood a stand of kiddie "must-haves": cartoon character banks, nightlights, cereals, Band-Aids, toothbrushes, towels, backpacks, etc. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk, SpongeBob... and Dora the Explorer.

No Wondie.

A double-check of the toy and book sections confirmed the lack of Amazonian presence. Next, I tried the girls clothing department, where I caught a glimpse of a shirt with familiar scrolly logo and star-spangled burst. Hoorah! I made a beeline ("Bees! My god.") for it.

Instead of the Princess of Themyscira, it was a Hannah Montana shirt. Not only Hannah Montana, but a Hannah Montana who had confiscated the typestyle of the original WW logo as well as her TV background starburst pattern. Arrgh! What, doesn't HM make enough money without stealing it from others?

It didn't help that Dora was right beside her, smiling out from a rack of tees with those unnatural mutant eyes. That girl is everywhere!

I have nothing against Dora. She's a fine teaching tool, though the pacing of her stories needs to be speeded up if she wants to grab an Emmy for Best Drama. She teaches a second language almost as well as Rosetta Stone.

Like our Wonder Woman, Dora is kind to all. She's bright and curious. She befriends monkeys. She helps kids empower themselves.

But she ain't Wonder Woman.

I want my Wonder merchandise, and I want it now! Now! Where is it?


(above: The worlds of Bizarro Comics and the DCU both have a multitude of Wonder accessories available to their citizens. How I want that spangled rug!)

Oh, if you're into dollies—I mean action figures—there are a few Wonder Womans around sometimes if you dig far enough behind the displays of male figures. If you see someone running out of a toy store clutching an action figure box to his chest in an attempt to hide it, it's probably because the guy has just burrowed through ten packing boxes of male dolls to find the one WW doll that shipped and wants to avoid desperate WW fans who are willing to ignore peaceful Gaea's Way to get it.

(You can tell these desperate fans by the axes they carry. The "Lord of the Rings" label has been crossed out with a Sharpie, and instead "Wonder Woman" is scrawled there in a red that may or may not be Sharpie ink.)

If you're into sculptures and fancy non-action dolls, there are a few of those as well, produced on occasion by companies who charge gigantor bucks for their limited runs. For some reason, many of these models are loaded to bear with non-standard frou-frous, axes and swords, or a prostitute-ready Wondie suit. Why is this? Does anyone ever see an action figure of Superman that wears trousers? Spider-Man with a gun? Batman in just leather straps and black socks?

Every now and then an inexpensive but nice plastic figure will come out and I'll snap it up. But I want more!

I want to go to a novelty shop and buy a car license plate with holographic stars that says "1DR WMN." I want a purse with a shoulder strap that's actually a golden lasso. I want a Kanga Burger in my Happy Meal, with a Wonder Tot toy on the side. I want a star spangled iPhone with wireless Mental Radio capability. There's an app for that. I want an inflatable, battery-operated Steve Trevor to satisfy all my personal wishes, if you get my drift. I want a bunch of classic songs that tell me not to tug on Wonder Woman's shorts, or that Wondie ain't got a-nothin' on me; or hear a TV show's theme asking Wonder Woman to "saaaaaaave me!" or tell me that some sitcom's lead character is no Wonder Woman.

Why isn't Diana wake surfing beside Disney's booming "Princess" wave?

I want to be able to buy a WW tee shirt off the same everyday store shelf that sells a tee with a big "S" symbol on it. I want pink tees with "S" symbols banned by law and red shirts with =W='s worn instead. I don't want WW school supplies to be so rare that coworkers on vacation in West Virginia run to my cubicle first thing on their return to announce the sighting of a WW notebook at a Target in Bluefield.

Wonder Woman shouldn't be the spotted owl of comic book merchandising. She's an ICON. Non-geek people easily recognize and approve of her. One-half of today's kids are female, and thus presumably in her prime doodad demographic market, though a heck of a lot of males are interested in Wondie as well (for whatever reasons). (See inflatable and battery-powered, above.)

Why are they all being ignored?

Apparently there's a firm line between what's considered girlie stuff and what's not. My Xmas shopping revealed a Lego set packaged in pink plastic and marketed to girls. "All the Legos inside are girl colors," a clerk explained. "Pink, white, purple, orange, yellow..." I'd been aware of the stigma against a perfectly good pink (or as the pink-clad Cosmic Boy once put it, "Pale scarlet"), but hadn't known about the yang-repelling qualities of these other colors.

Guess we won't be hearing the advertising phrase, "These trucks are Amazon tough!" any time soon. Wonder Woman has to overcome the onus of being female before she can market certain things.

Why such a gender gap? Females are still very much thought of as the inferior sex, and anything to do with them is not to be touched by the male of the species. The two genders are kept separated and unequal, else civilization will crumble. Should we be encouraging that antiquated idea?


Marketing is not about creating social change, but rather profiting from what's out there already. So here goes: an idea as to how to market Wonder Woman to the hilt in today's world. Given: a nation of couch potatoes. Everyone's up in arms about it: get those lazy kids to exercise! Just don't expect me to get up to help.

DC should consider the marketing possibilities here: Would Superman work? He's from another planet. He automatically has superpowers, even if he lies around all day watching Spike TV and drinking beer. He's no example, no spokesman for health. Batman? Doesn't he get all the marketing already? Time to spread the Bat-Wealth. Besides, he's too cool to exercise. Best to give a kid a Batman video game and pray he doesn't learn anti-social behavior from it as he melds with his couch and decapitates someone onscreen with his virtual Batarang.

But Wonder Woman... Before the Modern Era, she was well-known for citing "Amazon Training" as a source of her power. Surely it involved unleashing the power of the mind as well as the body—just look at what she could do!

But it did involve physical training, which would naturally tie into exercise apparel, equipment, videos and programs of all kinds. Can't you just picture all the star-spangled sweat bands people could wear on wrists and forehead? Any weekend athlete would have fun wearing a yellow baseball cap with a red star front and center. Sweatsuits and gym clothes could be emblazoned with spangles, golden eagles, and red, white and blue. Patriotism, health and the Wonder fantasy, all in one!

Lynda Carter could take a break from her nightclub act to become a spangled gym franchise spokesperson. Be a Wonder Woman at Curves!

The Wii could show you as Wonder Woman (or Warrior) her/himself, as you exercised in a mythological environment. You could take a break from jumping jacks to jog after a criminal or monster, then lasso and reform him. (Possibly through the energetic Dance of Loving Submission.)


The US Army got a lot of air time with their "Be all you can be" campaign. How about the (US) President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports encouraging kids to "Be a Wonder!"?

Wonder Woman herself comes with a lot of cool toys. Why not play off these? Offer a remote-controlled Invisible Plane–tricky to figure where it is, but almost impossible to return to the store for a refund. Any girl or boxer would love her magic lasso jumprope, especially if it glowed in the dark. Wonder jewelry would include star earrings and silver bracelets. Kids could eat Amazon-powered vitamins, Paradise Island yogurt, maybe even Wonder bread.

And some day, some very special day...Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory" will show up in a Wondie tee instead of those dowdy Green Lantern, Flash and Superman things he tends to. Ah, dreams!

So what did I wind up getting as my Angel Tree kid's extra gift? A Dora book. Sigh. Maybe next year...

Strickly a Book Review

A Hellion in Her Bed
by Sabrina Jeffries
Pocket Star Books Romance
4 1/2 spangles out of five
Regency Romance
Heat: We get a couple of pretty hot scenes here, per the genre requirement.

It's so good to see Sabrina back in top form! With her new "Hellions of Halstead Hall" series, she seems imbued with crackling new enthusiasm. And when Sabrina gets enthusiastic, her readers are enthralled.

This is volume 2 of the series. If you recall Volume 1, we have five aristocratic (but broke) children of the Regency era who lost their mother and father under mysterious circumstances. Their grandmother raised them, and they have not turned out quite as she hoped. Now that she's an old woman, she declares that all five must marry within a year or she will not bequeath her wealth to them.

The mystery of Mom and Dad's murders/suicides/whatevers now gets one more set of clues as Son #2, Jarret, steps into the spotlight. His grandmother's dreams for him interfered with his own so long ago that now he takes his frustrations out by gambling incessantly. Fortunately for him, he's fairly good at it. But when Gran gets sick and makes a deal with him to take over her brewery business, he begins to rediscover a childhood passion.

Speaking of passion, here comes Annabel from up north, a brewster in her own right, as some ladies were actually allowed to be back then. She's got family problems. Big family problems. And like Jarret, she faces the possibility of her brewery going under before long—but with her, every hope of her family retaining any money at all will be lost.

There's a positive crescendo of sparks between the hero and heroine, who are held back by one of those awful Family Secrets from grabbing their happiness straight off.

The pacing on this is speedy. It's one of those books where you have to drag yourself into work each morning because you stayed up far too late the previous night reading. The plot works extremely well, and there are character complications that can only arise when characters have multiple layers, as they do here. Plus the 12-year-old boy who appears seems to be an actual 12-year-old boy, and not one of those angelic little kid-a-trons that one so often finds in fiction.

Pack up this one in your reticule and take it somewhere where you can settle with a lovely cup of tea to peruse it at leisure! Next up will be Minerva, the scandalous novel writer of the family. Can't wait!