The Crash & An Attempted Escape

Life's getting good

Good books, way too adventurous cats, and redefining home...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey book lovers. My name is Em, and I want to talk about books and cats. Welcome back, book lovers. I know it's been a long time again. Life has been kicking my butt lately, but I am determined to get the pod back on a more regular schedule. Starting now, I am pretty much completely moved into my apartment. It has taken a solid month, and I'm still figuring out kind of the ins and outs of recording here, but I think I can be more consistent, and that's really what I'm going for. Like I said, I've been moving for a solid month pretty much, and everything that could go wrong has pretty much gone wrong. It's been quite a time. Yet things are definitely improving ever so slowly, but they are getting better. And honestly, I love the location of my apartment. I'm in between a gorgeous park and an adorable little library, which just seems perfect somehow. Not to mention, I am also walking distance to my favorite sushi restaurant. So life is uh life is on the up and up for sure. I have really been struggling with the unpacking, if I'm being totally honest. Depression is real and it does not like to be productive. No matter how much you want to be, it just won't let you sometimes. I am almost done, but it's really been a struggle, and the mess and the clutter has been weighing on me a lot, which then makes the depression worse. And then we're in a fun little cycle that is so difficult to get out of. I'm honestly kind of impressed that I am always able to get through this stuff. I have been dealing with this for my entire life. Um, it got really bad around like 14 or 15, and then it's just been kind of a process of learning how to deal with my mental health. And it sucks, but um somehow I'm still getting through it. And I'm feeling a lot better, honestly. I am enjoying the benefits of a single life. Even when I start to get mired in depression and feeling like a failure sometimes, I try really hard to catch myself and then take a step back and look at what is really good in my life. And the list is growing. No matter the struggles, I have a lot of good in my life. I have people in my life again. I feel like I've been alone for a really long time. Not completely. I had um my kids and, you know, my ex when we were together. But I just haven't had society in a very long time. I went through a bad period of agoraphobia right before I started my job, actually. And it was really bad. I uh I struggled a lot, and then I struggled even more when I had to immediately jump into customer service. Um that was one way to deal with it, I guess. It was kind of like a uh jumping into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim situation. I would not recommend if you have other options. But it did work. And I've met some really wonderful people since then. And I'm honestly a little bewildered by the fact that I once again have friends and a social life, and that it's just been like easy. I have found a wonderful bunch of like-minded people, and I'm actually comfortable being myself around them. They like me as I am, and it kind of blows my mind because this is not the type of situation that I have had before. One thing that I decided when I started my job was that I was not going to mask again. Yes, I do a little bit for the whole like customer service thing. But overall, I am just like my unfiltered ADHD, probably autistic self. And I just don't care if anyone likes me anymore. And somehow that has helped me to find people who do truly like me. I don't know. Life is hard right now for most people, not just me. I know everyone around me is struggling in some way. Uh, it's also retrograde, and you know, we just had a full moon. The energy is pretty wild. But anyway, enough unloading. Let's talk about books. Starting with my newest, What She Left Behind. It's a collection of tales about women who are operating in the shadows and doing what they must to survive. And it really is a book about survival in one way or another. It celebrates powerful women in one way or another. And I really think it's a perfect beach read, too. We are solidly in summer here in Vermont, and I love reading on the beach. I can't say I've had a ton of time to do it so far this year, but it is definitely in the plans. And what she left behind is perfect because it's a bunch of stories. Some of them are shorter, there's a few that are more of a novella length, but it's kind of like bringing an assortment of books with you all in one. And I'm just really happy with it. I really, really enjoy these stories, and I think you will too. At the moment, it's only available as an ebook, but paperback and hardcover are coming soon. The audiobook will probably be out in the fall, just in time for Halloween, because if you know anything about my work, there's always at least a tinge of horror in there. And this one definitely has some of that. This is also the first of my books written under my new pen name. I know I've talked about it before. Emily Morgan Hill is my pen name for now, but I am planning on changing it for real at some point, just not at the top of my list with everything else that's been going on. I don't know. I just feel like it is time for me to have my own identity and embrace my own life. I don't feel like I've really gotten a chance to before. And this seems like a perfect first step. Plus, this collection is kind of unlike anything I've written before, and there's definitely been a shift in well, every aspect of my life, but definitely in my writing as well. It just feels a little different. I don't know. Anyway, enough self-promotion. You can find the book on Amazon or uh just look in the bio of any of my socials. Check it out and let me know what you think, and uh leave a review if you don't mind. That really helps me a lot. Now on to this week's book. It is another thriller by Frida McFadden. Big surprise there, right? Her books are like candy to me. They're easy to consume and completely enjoyable. And one of the reasons I've been struggling to get another podcast episode done is that I hadn't read anything in a while. I've been kind of just consumed by life. And I wanted something quick that I knew would hold my interest, and she's just my go-to right now. I'm on a Frida McFadden kick for sure this year. I don't think I'm the only one. Anyway, this week I want to talk about one of her newer ones. Let's talk about the crash. Now, twists and turns are Frida McFadden's specialty, and this one has a ton. It jumps right into it with a really intense revelation about one of the main characters. I'm not going to spoil it though, because it's actually possible to not mention what it is, and it's a big part of the story. Anyway, it pertains to our first main character, Tegan, who is out on the road during a blizzard. Tegan is 23 and she is very pregnant, and she is on her way to visit her brother when her car goes off the road and smashes into a tree. Her ankle is completely mangled and it causes unbearable pain with every movement. She is completely trapped in her car in an ever-worsening snowstorm and has no way out. Now, this is really early on in the story, and already Tegan thinks she's going to die. So you know this one is just gonna go places, you know what I mean? Obviously there'd be no story if that was where she croaked. So she is rescued by this massive hulking man with a unkempt bushy beard and a low growl of a voice. He speaks very little and he brings Tegan to his house, where luckily he has a wife named Polly, and she used to be a nurse, so she is able to help Tegan and is more than up to the task. After all, it's only supposed to be one night. Then the plows will be out and the phones and the power and everything will be back online. But Tegan is still uneasy, and it only grows worse when they move her into the basement. There is a small room down there with a hospital bed, which was left over from when Polly cared for her dying mother. But it is very unsettling. This book is all about assumptions and the judgment that all new mothers and honestly all women face, especially when it comes to childbearing. Unfortunately for Tegan, these assumptions are creating even more danger for her and her unborn daughter. I really liked this book. It's definitely not the smoothest of McFadden's works, but the twists are all really good, even if they are a little bit clunky at times. I really did like how it all tied together in the end, and this one truly has a happy ending, which is not something that you commonly find in this style of book. There'll be some happy endings, a little bit of positivity, but this one is like I don't know, things just work out in a very, a very nice, wholesome way, if that's possible in this kind of book. Anyway, let's do the quote of the week. This is one that always seems to pop up when things are tough, and it's been on my mind a lot recently. It's from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, and it is even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise. The sun always rises again, and so will we. Right, book lovers. Anyway, over in Catland, the crew is adjusting pretty well to the new place. I was worried about how it would go, and the actual day of moving them was pretty rough. Um but as soon as everyone was back together in the new place, they chilled out immediately. And I really love that. I love that home is all of us together, not necessarily a certain place. Sometimes I feel like by choosing to move, I'm just destroying everything. And so that was really um, that was really nice to see that it's really just about everybody being together. I have had one issue recently, an escape attempt. They found a hole in a screen, and four of the five left the building in the middle of the night. Three of them scrambled back inside as soon as I stepped out onto the porch, but we couldn't find my favorite one, my fluffy black familiar Edweard, who I've mentioned many times before. I was kind of dumbfounded that he even left, and then I could not find him. So I'm sitting on the stoop thinking that he's hiding somewhere nearby, maybe under one of the other stoops. When a rabbit just runs across the grass and it stops right in front of me. We're pretty close to like main street and cars and people, so like I don't know, it's not expected that there's gonna be a rabbit, you know? But he stops like right in front of me, and then he starts running down the sidewalk toward the library. And beyond that, I see Edweird, like way far down the sidewalk. So I follow the rabbit down the sidewalk and it kind of crosses over into the library lawn, but it stops and it faces the bushes where weird has now like disappeared. It was like the strangest thing. I really don't know if I would have found him if it wasn't for that rabbit. I hadn't even considered that he might go on like a magical little journey far away from the apartment. I don't know. I've always felt deeply connected to nature, and this was help showing up like right when I needed it. I don't know. It was it was a really beautiful experience. And how can I stress about material things when that kind of beauty exists in the world, right? I need to keep focusing on all of the good that is around me. I am a very lucky woman, and life is really just starting to get good. So that's pretty exciting. And I'm pretty excited that all of my cats are safe and sound at home, and everybody's taking a good cat nap right now and snoring behind me while I try to record. I am very lucky. And I'm lucky to have all of you book lovers. Thank you so much for sticking with me through all of the ups and downs of life and listening to my book and life babble. I hope you all have a beautiful week, and until next time. Keep reading.