Lapful (sort of) of adorable hellhounds
Some things change in two years.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m sitting in the dog bed because Peter kept &^%$£”!!!!! failing to take the freaking photograph and hellhounds were beginning to feel a trifle ill used. Here they are lying there peacefully, trying to work on the deep, profound, uninterruptible sleep they’ll be in when they are offered dinner, and someone keeps trying to roust them out and make them pretend to sit in someone’s lap when it’s perfectly obvious this is not possible. Now all I have to do is teach Peter to press the little silver button and not cut the top of my head off at the same time.
Lapful of raging hellhounds
. . . because there’s the two of them, illustrating in exemplary fashion the essential dichotomy of the hellhounds’ personalities. Which, I might add, pertains to this day.
This is also where they acquired their collective denomination; I must have sent out twenty sets of these photos, with these same headings.
Awwwwwwwwww.
Lapful of adorable puppies
These two photos are probably my favourites of all the puppy pics. . . .
It’s the hellhounds’ birthday!
And we’re having duck and champagne.*
Well, they get a little. Or would. If they ever get around to, you know, eating. Sigh.
. . . Later. Okay, they’re eating. So, one more day down and 5475 to go (seventeen is a pretty good age for a dog. Or maybe they’ll suddenly DISCOVER EATING when they get old). SIGH.
However, I’m telling you the duck is lovely. And the champagne. Maybe they were waiting for the champagne. If they’re holding out for champagne, it’s going to be a long 5475 days.
* And stuffing and gravy! And I’m not going to weigh myself tomorrow!
Sunshine
I had a terrible time trying to take a photo without the flash reflecting blindingly off the shiny cover, so please don’t point out that it’s not in perfect focus or that it’s at a funny angle: it’s the best I could manage. (And the yellow in the upper lefthand corner is part of the illustration.) And it was supposed to go up yesterday when the book arrived, and I was at the mews for supper . . . and the camera battery died about three dazzle-glare attempts in. ARRRRRRGH. The battery charger being back at the cottage, of course, not to mention that it takes about three hours to recharge and I didn’t have three hours. But that does explain why I was blogging late last night, even for me: I had planned writing a nice little short entry, buttressed by a photograph. But noooooo.
Anyway. Here she is, in her reissued glory, although this is another sneaky advance copy, and she’s not available till September either. This is the UK edition; I assume the US will be identical, barring the odd tag line* and choice of quote.** I like it better than I thought I was going to. In fact it’s pretty cool, in spite of the babe. It’s also–which you can’t see from the photo–a nice trim size and a nice heft in the hand, and it has a good legible typeface. Big hurrah.
* * *
* Can’t remember what the official publishing lingo is for it, but tag line will do. Publishing loves tag lines. I think they’re idiotic, myself, but some of them are more grotesque than others. This one is fairly inoffensive, as these things go, although it still makes me want to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you do know that the earth orbits around the sun and allowing for a little seasonal variation it gets dark every night? I was spared a really epicly inappropriate tag line once that I’d even seen in roughs of the jacket–I don’t always see everything: I didn’t see this one for SUNSHINE–and had kicked and screamed, and they just raised their voices and told me they knew best. And then at the last minute someone noticed that Disney had already used it and if they did too they’d get their butts sued off. They were all so demoralised by this that my book and I escaped with no tag line whatsoever. Hee hee hee hee hee hee.
** ‘SF horror romance’?? Okay, we’re going for inclusive here. What about ‘with baked goods’?