Yep.
Too true.

Offerings of Chocolate and Hugs,
From,
–Julia

I don’t see why cooking is automatically above suspicion!!!!!!

Oh dear. I guess you would, at that. Um, sorry.

Did NOT mean it that way!!!

Please blame it on my getting entirely over-excited by having a *little* more McKinley to read. Beauty, Hero, Blue sword and Sunshine are ALL practically memorised. (I never ever considered myself the fan type personality. Then I started reading your books…)

BTW sorry in advance for not replying to some of your repsonses. I am in a hellish cimbination of dial-up, living in a “wifi shadow” and a practical phone monopoly. It’s rather frustrating.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Want. More. NOW. (YAY!)
-Nema

Yes, you have to suspend a lot in Magic Flute. It’s always seemed to me like the front end of one story and the back end of another, stuck together for who knows what reason. (Well, to make money, of course, but we aren’t supposed to apply that motive to High Art.) The fact that the story content can be of primary importance to you makes *perfect* sense. It is for me with film/TV and with some theater–I can’t stick Grease, for example, entirely because of the plot (I’ll admit that the music doesn’t especially interest me, but it’s innocuous enough). And with books, of course, but fiction is capital-S story by definition.

I came across this quotation today when getting a recipe from Marian Tracy’s REAL FOOD–she uses it as an epigraph:

“Of all the books produced since the remote ages by human talents and industry those only that treat of cooking are, from a moral point of view, above suspicion.”

This is Conrad, in a preface to a cookbook written by his wife. Hmmm . . .

I have been reading for a year, but have never posted. It has been such a lovely addition to my internet stops. (Reading your blog for a year, that is; my love affair with your books, and their beautiful words, started long before that! I still have parts of Blue Sword and Spindle’s End and Sunshine memorized : )

I must make an exception to my silent presence to state:

TWO Robin McKinley books in less than 5 years. BLISS!!! YEAH!! Great rejoicing and HURRAY for the Ten-fingered Robin McKinley!! (I assume you have 10 fingers and not 9).

It was such a long wait between Sunshine and Dragonhaven! Although Sunshine came at a perfect time; it got me through the first months of my grandma’s cancer diagnosis my senior year of high-school.

I am thrilled that it need not be so long for this one! Just in time for the the mid-semester doldrums, too.

Thanks for all your wonderful stories in the past. This looks like an exquisite addition to mine and my public library. I had to tell you how excited I am.

I can’t wait. Thanks for the special preview!
Megan

PS I hope you finish Pegasus soon, but I will wait patiently until you polish it to your satisfaction! Thanks >_>

I’ve read mine! And loved it, and won’t be selling it!