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I love a challenge - here goes:

Seven tourists wearing t-shirts that said King Family Reunion crowded around the strange little diorama of the room they were standing in, in the middle of the parlor in the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. A tiny clown doll with a hatchet sticking out of his head lay on a tiny floor that looked just like the floor beneath their feet.

A voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing, This murder will occur in one minute. Behind them the door slammed shut and they heard the sound of a locking mechanism slide into place.

The clown who’d stopped by for a tour on his lunch hour looked nervous.

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I have a new book out! MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HITMEN: And Other Bombay Family Bedtime Stories is out today. It's the second collection of short stories, written by my favorite character - Gin Bombay - about some of their assassination gigs through history.

I'll admit it - I'm a history nerd. My daughter rolls her eyes whenever I get excited about what she's studying in history. "Oh! You're doing the Great Depression! I love the Great Depression!" I say (wondering who really loves the Great Depression) as I drop tons of books from my bookshelves in front of her and bore her to death with stories about the WPA. Yes, I'm that kind of parent. I won't even tell you how obnoxious I was when they were studying the Suffrage Movement.

So getting a chance to write short stories about famous Bombay hits through history was a nice break from harassing my family about history.

Does that make sense?

Maybe it's just me. I don't know. But there's something about history that is so fascinating - how people dressed, what they ate, how they struggled or partied or whatever.

So I wrote HEROES and the book preceding it, SNUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON. I think I'll probably write more in the future - it's too much fun imagining my Bombays involved in the assassination of Rasputin or Sigurd the Mighty.

Besides - that's what my imagination is for.

Right?

I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother

So, it's 2002. I'm a professional, working mom, with two kids in pre-school and a husband who travels for work a LOT. I have a master's degree and a great job. I serve on four boards of directors for area nonprofits. And I'm exhausted.

Took the kids on vacation, and after getting back, I came down with shingles. Yup, the one old people get. I was in my 30's. My doctor tells me I'm too stressed out and need to take a vacation. She's stunned when I say I just got back from one.

Enter Allison Pearson's debut book, I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. I read about this book coming out in Britain and manage to get a first edition, months before it arrives in the States.

It's brilliant. And I love it. And that's when I decide I can do this. I can write a book.

So, I find a part-time job still in my field, quit all the boards, enroll my oldest in kindergarten and start to write. The rest is history.

Here's why you should read this book:

MONDAY, 1:37 A.M. How did I get here? Can someone please tell me that? Not in this kitchen, I mean in this life. It is the morning of the school carol concert and I am hitting mince pies. No, let us be quite clear about this, I am distressing mince pies, an altogether more demanding and subtle process.

Discarding the Sainsbury luxury packaging, I winkle the pies out of their pleated foil cups, place them on a chopping board and bring down a rolling pin on their blameless floury faces. this is not as easy as it sounds, believe me. Hit the pies too hard and they drop a kind of fat-lady curtsy, skirts of pastry bulging out at the sides and the fruit starts to ooze. But with a firm downward motion - imagine enough pressure to crush a small beetle - you can start a crumbly little landslide, giving the pastry a pleasing homemade appearance. And homemade is what I'm after here. Home is where the heart is. Home is where the good mother is, baking for her children.

THE rest of the book goes on with her reading between the lines of the parent's note about the event and how you have to read between the lines to see that store-bought items aren't good enough - which is why Kate Reddy is up in the middle of the night doing this.

I could relate to that. In fact, for years, there was a board member for the arts agency I worked for who came in regularly and said to me, "Leslie, I don't know how you do it! You should write a book!"

Of course, my replay was always, "When would I find the time?"

So I made time.

Check out I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. It literally changed my life and led me to write books.

Enjoy!

I'm almost hyperventilating! See? I'm not even sure I spelled hyperve... whatever right! I just spotted an ad on GR that says J. Maarten Troost has a new book coming out in a few days: HEADHUNTERS ON MY DOORSTEP!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'll have to do a whole post on his books - I'm a HUGE fan!

Coming soon!

I came late to the writing-a-novel party (which was sad because they have fun hats and lots of cake). Well, I've been writing since 2nd Grade, but it took til I was almost 40 to write and sell my first book.

Two books inspired me to get off my lazy butt and do this and I wanted to share the first one with you now (the next one in a few days), BECAUSE YOU SHOULD READ IT.

The Gun Seller

THE GUN SELLER, by Hugh Laurie. Yes, THAT Hugh Laurie. You probably know him better as HOUSE M.D., but I originally knew him from his BBC hit from the early '90's A BIT OF FRY AND LAURIE (I'm a ridiculous anglophile when it comes to Britcoms).

Anyway - I read this hilarious book about a guy who ends up on the run and in trouble with mercenaries, CIA baddies and so on, and I realized that I wanted to write like this (apologies for the long excerpt to Mr. Laurie - but I really, really want you, my minions, to read this book):

"Imagine that you have to break someone's arm.
Right or left, doesn't matter. The point is that you have to break it, because if you don't...well, that doesn't matter either. Let's just say bad things will happen if you don't.
Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly - snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint - or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?
Well exactly. Of course. The right thing to do, the only thing to do, is to get it over as quickly as possible. Break the arm, ply the brandy, be a good citizen. There can be no other answer.
Unless.
Unless unless unless.
What iv you were to hate the person on the other end of the arm? I mean really, really hate them.
This was a thing I now had to consider.
I say now, meaning then, meaning the moment I am describing; the moment fractionally, oh so bloody fractionally, before my wrist reached the back of my neck and my left humerus broke into at least two, very possibly more, floppily joined-together pieces.
The arm we've been discussing, you see, is mine. It's not an abstract, philosopher's arm. the bone, the skin, the hairs, the small white scar on the point of the elbow, won from the corner of a storage heater at Gateshill Primary School - they all belong to me. And now is the moment when I must consider the possibility that the man standing behind me, gripping my wrist and driving it up my spine with an almost sexual degree of care, hates me. I mean, really, really hates me.
He is taking forever."

That is from the beginning of the book. And that is why I started writing.

Now go get this book and read it.

1) Because I’m LAZY: books are heavy and I have little T-Rex arms; books require dusting - and I hate housework; books are hard to read in bed when I’m laying on my side - see T-Rex arms explanation; books have too many pages in paper - I read a lot of very thick books; I don’t want to have to get up and go into the next room to get the next book to read - hello! Lazy!

2) Because I’m IMPATIENT: when I finish a book at 2am on Sunday morning and want IMMEDIATELY to start the next one � I don’t have to wait until the store opens, only to find I have to order it. I need my sequels!!!

3) Because I’m IMPUSIVE: I buy books like nobody’s business � more than I ever did in paperback and look up every single recommendation and often buy because of that. Yes, this means I'm bad with money, but food electricity are highly overrated when it comes to books.

4) Because I’m OLD: I have that middle aged presbyopia thingy so making the font bigger is AWESOME and it means I don’t need large-print books, which are way heavier (see T-Rex arms above).

As a result of my ereader - I buy ten times the number of books I did when I bought paper books and discover 3-5 new authors a month - thus supporting more authors - thus making the world a better place (you're welcome!). AND I read more - a lot more. I read 2-3 books a week and I read for an hour and a half every night before bed. My husband knows this as, "Interrupt-Leslie-Only-If-You-Want-A-Divorce" Time.

Okay - that's my list of reasons. Please don't throw paperbacks or (gasp) hardbacks at me.

Leslie

Why I use an ereader. It'll be a good one too. Check back!