43 Responses

1. I mean after the entire Liz Danger series and Rocky Start you be remembering who we are by now. I finished it at 11:00 p.m. last night.

2. Something that confused me –

   Chapter 37, after Marley throws Harvey out into the street – Poppy notices “Geoffrey Fine” on the street. I thought Geoffrey’s last name was Nice? This is the only reference to “Fine.” All of the other references to Geoffrey are “Nice.”

   That’s as far as I’ve read, but it did confuse me.

   1. AAAAAAAAAAARGH.
      Bob kept writing Geoffrey Fine instead of Geoffrey Nice. I thought I’d caught all of them. Thank you, I’ll make him change it.

      1. And he fixed it. Thank you, Beverley!

      2. That went completely past me, but I already told myself that I have to reread the novel more carefully. I think I raced through it faster than I did the first one.

         1. You are not alone: It went past you, me, the copy editor, and two beta readers.

3. On my race-through, I only highlighted a couple of passages. One was Rose’s reflection, “I hated that I’d needed a dog and a llama to save me.”

4. Just over halfway through. I noticed the high school guidance counselor is Mrs. Gaffney and I think it’s sweet!

   1. Actually there are several name Easter eggs in there. Goldman is my son-in-law, and Maxwell was for Cathy Maxwell.

      1. And let us not forget the Austens, Gaffneys, and so on. I loved that!

      2. As has been mentioned in the blog comments previously, the more precise and older term for putting the name of friends, charity-auction winners, etc. onto characters who do not represent the real person is tuckerization. The Wikipedia article links this with science fiction, but in fact Bob Tucker also wrote mysteries, and I would not be surprised if his first tuckerizations are in those rather than in sf. I know that the practice continues in mysteries since it came up at at least one Bouchercon. The Wikipedia also erroneously covers the impression that these are mostly in-jokes. There are examples of that, but I think they’re mostly just friendly nods. (Easter eggs are something broader, although tuckerizations are a subset.)

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckerization?wprov=sfla1

         1. Adding a link for Wilson “Bob” Tucker.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Tucker_%28writer%29?wprov=sfla1
            Note his string of mystery novels in 1946-51.

            I met him at least once fairly late in his life, but I gained no real insights thereby.

            Tucker published a fanzine Le Zombie. That’s later given as the name of a Mars probe in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. That is an Easter egg that is not also a tuckerism.

         2. Sigh. Wikipedia conveys, not covers. Autocorrect again.

5. … And fortunately I double-checked my other highlight comment before hitting Post since Max was right and I was wrong!

6. I really liked the passage about the Acts of one’s life when Rose is advising her daughter. It really resonates with me, especially right now as my husband is thinking about retirement and the kids have more or less left.

   1. Thinking of my life that way has saved me a lot of self-recrimination. That time was a different act, I was a different person, I did the best I could. The “different person” thing helps a lot. Whenever I start to think about how stupid/clueless/naive I was, I remind myself that I was a different person then, that person was still learning, and I’m being a bitch if I moan about her because she didn’t know then what I know now. Don’t beat up on your previous selves: they were doing the best they could and they got you to where you are today.

7. I love the idea of a Marie Kondo assassin. I also love that Marley knows not to say “relax” when Max doesn’t.
   More seriously I think this book goes deeper emotionally. Poppy’s PSTD is really shown well. Marley is much deeper. And Rose is I think more self aware. I really like that growth for all three of them.

   I am guessing we will see more of Louise in THPP—she seems important.

   1. That’s one of the perks of doing three book series. Each book can go a little deeper and still keep the action going. I love that Marley is so much more than he seemed in RS because (a) he was stoned in RS and (b) Max didn’t get to know him. Bob and I have talked about him being essentially the next Max, the way Max is the next Oz. Continuity and community.

8. Great book as always. Huge compliment on the writing. Couldn’t stop reading although I guessed the killer pretty early on. Especially after Max found the initials in the wood. But my hunch about the burned body in the hearse was totally wrong. Thought it would be Rowan at first and not some rando from the freezer.
   Eagerly waiting for THPP 🙂

   1. I thought the initials would be a big tip-off. That and the title, but the title was so good we had to use it.

9. I loved the book as a whole of course, but some details that really pleased me were the cottage (did you do a floor plan?) and that Darius and Poppy broke up. That scene on the bridge in RS really bugged me.

   1. And in honor of THPP, here’s a story of the devastation wrought on the part of the trail that Max is hiking at the beginning of the book. (Gift link)

      https://wapo.st/3BZjd0C

   2. I have a photograph, but since it’s basically two rooms on top of two rooms, I didn’t bother with a floor plan. I have a floorplan for Oddities and a map of RS showing where everything is. I think I put the Oddities floorplan up. Really need to get the website up to speed. In my spare time.

10. A mild spoiler on the Honey Pot sample in VNF: Coral evidently breaks is assassin’s neck. From the internet, I gather that this severs the spinal cord in a way that stops you from breathing, and will quickly render you unconscious, but given prompt treatment with a ventilator (or artificial respiration to start with?), you might recover if treatment comes within 20 minutes, or with brain damage after even longer. Coral doesn’t care, Rose probably would but likely doesn’t know, but the doctor should be bound by ethics to try. So either the internet is wrong, or I don’t understand correctly what killed the assassin, or Coral’s method should be changed to something more instantly permanent in the final version.

    1. I checked and you’re right. I’ll tell Bob. He loves thinking up ways to kill. I don’t think it’s because he’s collaborating with me.

11. Or, of course, the doctor is up to something that causes her to disregard ethics. So far we know nothing about her.

    1. I do not trust that doctor, who showed up at just the right time.

12. Marley is really growing on me.

    I was impressed at the balance of satisfyingly expected with “huh, didn’t see that coming” as I just said less coherently on my Amazon review.

    We are not being exploited – it is so wonderful to be able to do something nice (leave reviews, buy books) to pay back in small part all the pleasure this blog brings me.

    1. The reviews are a huge help, too, especially for the people who want audio. Brilliance will look at those to decide if they want to the RS books. And it’s just good for me because I always think each book is the end of my career, so getting good feedback is a big help.

13. I have more to say later but first – I was so happy to see this passage;
    “I was trying to think of a polite way to get rid of him when I thought, Why? I hadn’t invited him, I had clearly hinted he should be gone, we were past the point of politeness, and I was trying to kick my Cheery Boost habit anyway. “Goodbye, Harvey,” I said, and his smile disappeared, and he waited a moment, for what I don’t know, and then he nodded as I detoured around him.
    “You call me if you need anything,” he told me, reaching for me as he followed me toward the door, too close, his tone more of an order than an invitation, so I flinched away from his hand and said, “No.” He looked surprised, so I said, “Max is here, and Pike looks out for us. You don’t need to bother about us.” “It wouldn’t be any bother,” he began, but I opened the front door, tapped my foot impatiently, a new move for me,…”

    I was starting to get bugged because girls & women should not take shit off of men to be ‘polite’. F that!

    But I should have known you would address that.

    Overall I love, love, loved it.

    1. It’s part of her character development, too. She’s being laying low, trying not to cause comment for so long, that it takes big change to get her to fight back. So Rocky Start (first book) ended with Big Change, Very Nice Funerals is Rose learning to fight back, and The Honey Pot Plot is Rose kicking ass and taking names and really enjoying it. I love it that the first thing she does in HPP is hit somebody with a chair. She wouldn’t have done that in the first book.

14. I remembered one more odd bit. Max reflects to himself,
    “A regular boy scout, Luke was. Always prepared. Or always ready. Or whatever their motto was.”
    Max was either in the Army or the CIA during the Cold War, so it’s sort of odd that he does not recall that he is quoting alternative translations of “Всегда готов!” (vsegda gotov), the motto of the Pioneers (sometimes called the Young Pioneers in English), the Soviet coed youth organization vaguely based on the Boy Scouts. (The Scout motto is of course “Be prepared.”)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_%28Soviet_Union%29?wprov=sfla1

    1. And if Max were, like any sensible person, a Tom Lehrer fan, he should even remember the Lehrer take on the Scout motto:

       https://youtu.be/cK75VeDeu_U?si=HLvdPT3IDDJuOofH

       1. There you go. At some point in the HPP Rose can introduce Max to Tom Lehrer. Many options .

    2. Max has no interest in mottos, tattoos, secret handshakes, or organizations. Much like Bob, actually. He told me he didn’t have any tattoos once, which boggled my mind because, well, military, but evidently Green Berets weren’t supposed to have them? I have two and I’m a wuss.

15. I suspected Mr. Nice was not so nice, because he seemed to have little personality, and did not fit in with the town’s motley crew. There was some effort given to making sure we knew he wasn’t “one of them”. This book revealed a lot more about the characters, and I liked all the twists and turns. I had no idea Llamas were so versatile. Another tiny house! Yay! Max gets off some more dry, humorous remarks. Those are so unexpected that they always make me pause for a giggle and a smile of appreciation. I saw a missing word spot, and there was a spot where a word was hyphenated at the end of a sentence in a very strange way to make two unwords. There was also another spot where a large part of a sentence was missing. Otherwise, it was easy to read. I’m still traumatized by the snippet of HPP, but looking forward to it. I must reread VNF, now that I know what’s going on.

    1. I did research llamas, but like the flamingos in Agnes, I may have taken creative liberties. They do spit vile green stuff and make a sound like an engine revving when they’re mad.

16. Loved it. A few typos I didn’t see mentioned here, but maybe I missed them?

    On page “… now that the show was ove [should be ‘over’]. Plus, Max’s threat …”

    and

    Page 334 “It [should be ‘if’’] you want to convince these two …”

    But neither took me out of the story, which I really enjoyed.

17. Whoops, talking about typos, that first one is page 290, chapter 46

18. I loved Poppy and Marley’s character development. Especially liked that Poppy dumped Darius because he didn’t listen to her – that scene on the bridge in Rocky Start bothered me.

    Loved the llama, tiny house and didn’t suspect the serial killer until he was revealed – maybe I need to read both books again and spot the clues. Did like that the corpses were posed and that Rose and Poppy are still finding money in unexpected places.

    Particularly enjoyed that date night – really good stuff. Only pity is having to wait for the next instalment.

    1. Yeah, that scene in RS bothered Poppy, too. She just wasn’t in a place to recognize it.
       I think the big clue to the killer is in the title, but we were hoping people wouldn’t notice until the end.
       And Bob and I are working on HPP now, and it’s going pretty fast. That’s one of the good things about series: by the time you get to the third one, all the setting and character work has been established and you can just write character and plot arc.

19. Why isn’t the book available of Kindle Unlimited yet?

    1. Because it just came out?