LJ Cohen

September is the busiest month in our family's life: in quick succession, we have my wedding anniversary, my birthday, my nephew's birthday, my cousin's birthday, and my eldest son's birthday (also shared with a dear friend and my late mother). So, a lot to celebrate!

We typically don't do gifts for birthdays, but we went to the Brimfield Fair this year for mine and when my spouse saw me eyeing this five-foot tall metal chicken, well, it had to come home with us.

Now, if you visit StarField Farm, you'll see this silly creature greeting you at the turn off for our driveway.

P.S. So far, 59 has been fabulous!

I'm 3/4 of the way through the first pass edit. For me, that means getting the manuscript printed out and bound and attacking it with yellow sticky notes.

Most of the notes say things like: 'figure this out' or 'expand this and pull it through the rest of this section' or 'add scene here'. I deliberately keep the notes brief, knowing that I've created the work for future-LJ. (past-LJ can be such a jerk!) But this way, I don't get bogged down in minutia and am able to keep the big picutre of the story.

And so far, almost all the notes/issues are matters of extending world building and smoothing the pacing. The basic plot is holding up and the characters and emotions feel authentic.

Which is a huge relief as I spent so much of the past 3+ years feeling uncertain about this story.

My plan is to finish this first pass, take a deep breath, and dive back in to the nitty gritty of fixing all the problems past-LJ identified.  

Earlier in the summer, I connected with author Edale Lane about doing a newsletter swap. Because I will only recommend work I've read and enjoyed, I asked her for a sample. She was gracious enough to send me an ebook copy of MERCHANTS OF MILAN, the first book in her (completed) series.

Chaos in Milan, Book Three of the Night Flyer Trilogy, won a Lesfic Bard Award for Best Historical Novel.

It's a grand adventure against the backdrop of Milan during the time of da Vinci with a plucky heroine who uses her intellegence, creativity, and skills to avenge her father's death at the hand of a cruel and politically powerful merchant. She leads a double life - hiding as the tutor to a beautiful widow's children, hoping only to find a safe haven from which to exact her vengeance. What she doesn't count on is falling in love with her.

I've been trying to read outside of the genres I typically gravitate to: the last books I finished included Martha Wells'  Murderbot diaries and Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan books - both series I enjoyed immensely. MERCHANTS is historical fantasy with romance- not a subgenre I typically read, but I was immediately swept up into the story.  I'm a sucker for anything that references Leonardo da Vinci, and it's lush, it's fun, and has enough stakes and characters I care about to keep me turning pages. Here's the official blurb for the series:

Florentina may look and act like a normal child's tutor, but she doubles as a masked vigilante with a fantastic flying device. She begins just wishing to carry out the Italian vendetta against the man who killed her father, but soon becomes entangled in a web of secret societies, paid assassins, and mysteries to solve. Add to that the further complication of falling in love with her employer!

The young widow Madelena and her children share a mansion with her brother, one of the richest Merchants in Milan. She is attracted to Florentina right away, but there are so many obstacles to overcome. When an assassin tries to kill her, she is grateful the Night Flyer takes up the roll of her protector. Can true love really conquer all in Renaissance Italy, or will the swords of the underworld Shadow Guild slash asunder their chance at a happy ending?

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If you do read it, let me know what you think!