all about the bidness

The agency gave me business cards! With my name on it! They had 500 billion printed--I counted.

Also, today I called a publisher in France and surprised myself with my fluent French. Ok so my accent was pretty abysmal, but I remembered all the vocab and conjugations necessary to have a conversation. Ok ok so it was a pretty one-sided dialogue, given that I didn't catch anything he said, but you know. I'm pretty sure we're bffs now. We had a moment, we did, right before he hung up as he yelled, "Va te faire foutre!"

In other news, Keysi Fighting Method is still awesome. I've got this sick bruise on my punybulging bicep here, telling all the passersby "Don't mess!" Or maybe it's more, "Help--my boyfriend beats me!" But either way, it's a badge of...of something.

But you're right. This is a book blog. I need to focus.



I'm currently reading the thriller Shadowman that came out in 2007 and you know, Cody gets me every time. I read The Face of Death (2008) too and he just always makes me cry. His thrillers are gruesome and twisted, for all the fans of gore out there, but they're so, so tender too and I end up weeping on the train 3-4 times in just one novel. As in, full body-shaking sobs while the guy sitting next to me shifts in his seat and jumps out at the next stop.

Basically, every time I read Cody's work, I find myself holding my breath because the killer! the killer! behind you!!! while I'm mentally taking note of all the poignant lines that I'd like to try on my husband someday and when the train stops I'm all disoriented because I'm pretty sure I just watched my whole family die, but no it's just the characters in the book and I end up valuing my life, family, and friends so much more. I KNOW THAT SOUNDED REALLY CHEESY, but when I put down his book I'm like "Omg. A serial killer can break into my house any second," at which point I send a mass text to my friends, all two of them, saying "I LOVE YOU PLZ DON'T DIE :(!!1!"

So if you're looking for a dark thriller, Cody's novels are right up your alley. They're freaking intense.

-jude