NTS Annotated Reread--chapters 4-7 (Patreon)

The last two weeks have been a doozy. We decided on an actual release date for A Little Too Familiar (May 17, 2022!), which is great...but I still need to finish reading the pass pages (pass pages are the ones you get after the book has been formatted and designed and you read through them to catch any formatting errors or last minute typos), line up events, and figure out a bunch of other stuff. Between that and the HMCN and NTS rereads...I'm so tired of my own words. Ha! I would really like to read someone else's words, please.

My schedule will ease a little now that my mom is back from California--she helps out with the kids a lot. I am listening to a really fun audiobook (Just One Damned Thing After Another, which is a funny time travel story) and on a rare kid-free evening, Man Friend and I rented The Cursed through theater at home. The Cursed was really good and if you like creepy, atmospheric horror stories, this one is good. It's historical and there's a lot of graphic violence, so if that isn't your bag, it won't be a good fit for you. I really loved it, though, because those things are absolutely my bag. Bags? Whatever.

On to the reread!

Chapter 4--this chapter, which starts with the song Our House by Madness, is a lot about Sam's growing pains. Well, really, everyone's growing pains. James, Ramon, Frank and Sam all really have to take big maturity leaps forward between books one and two and they're still on really shaky ground here. James is very off kilter--there's a reference to a screaming fit. James usually quietly threatens or broods. He's not much of a yeller.

Chapter 5--in this chapter Sam has to confront the basement. It can't be easy having to live in the same house where you were held against your will, tortured and almost murdered. 

The notebooks James shows them give us a better understanding of how truly awful Douglas was, as well as a better understanding of James' situation. This was the environment he grew up in. Douglas is the closest thing to family he's ever had. Now he has to live with the person who killed Douglas and adapt to an entirely new set of rules. James, who very much likes to be in control, has basically been dropped off in a new land where he doesn't speak the language. Very disorienting. Also featured in chapter five, the return of Ramon!

There's a line in this chapter--"even pure evil likes David Bowie." When my editor read it, she circled it and said "I want this as a T-shirt." So I hired my friend Erika to create this shirt, which is pictured above. I loved what she came up with. One of my favorite shirts that we made. It's sort of bittersweet to look at it now. Since then both Bowie and my friend Erika have passed away, both to cancer. She was so talented and funny and we miss her.

And now I've made myself sad.

Chapter 6--in a lot of ways, this book is as much the story of James as it is about Sam and Douglas. Here we see a moment where James is starting to change. Whether he accepts it or not, Douglas is dead. He's not around to order James about...but Sam is. And while James is deeply uncomfortable with a lot of the changes, there are some things he's starting to like, and it's causing some dissent. If you remember in HMCN, James is hit by a car, and there's a moment where Haley runs over to make sure he's okay. It's brief and she doesn't do much, but James has never had anyone to worry about him or fuss over him in any way. The brief moment has a huge impact on him...and Douglas orders him to kill her. This is the first real wedge between James and Douglas and Douglas is totally unaware of it. 

We also get our first glimpse of the Stygian coin, which comes into play in BT,LN!

Chapter 7--more growing pains here. Poor Sam. Quite the learning curve between fry cook and suddenly running the local supernatural community. The shirt Haley gets Sam that he wears to the meeting is based on a shirt my husband bought in New Orleans when we lived there. Skulls, but make it fashion.

That's it for now! If you have any questions so far, let me know in the comments!

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Lish