Good marks from Publishers Weekly!

"Touching and humorous....Debbie and her offbeat cohorts are nuanced and authentic"


See full review at Publishers Weekly

first SPARKS review

In an upcoming issue, Kirkus will call SPARKS  "original and appealing....a kinetic and well paced comedy that just might win a few converts…"

This is the first review I've seen, and a good review from Kirkus is always nice to get (they're known to be rather curmudgeonly). It lists the release date as Nov 1, which is a week earlier than I'd thought, and means that I can call off my beef with Adam Selzer, whose new book was to come out on the same day as SPARKS. He's the captain of the Smart Aleck Staff.

ETA: Nope, still Nov 8th. So the fight is still on, Selzer!

Adam Selzer unwraps mummies (probably)

Now and again, Adam Selzer will pick a classic book or play or something and try to work as many references to it as possible into his current book, just to see who notices. There are shout-outs to Our Mutual Friend all over I Put a Spell on You, and his new book, Extraordinary, is loaded with Music Man references. There's even a Wells Fargo Wagon (full of unicorn poop).

And his "Satanic YA" novel that he's been tinkering with is full of Moby Dick references.

Now, let me explain something: Selzer is a guy who gets REALLY into what he researches. When he was reading Moby Dick, he got the bug and decided to go harpoon a whale himself. And how would he do that, here in Chicago? Well....let's just say that no one from the Smart Aleck Staff is allowed to show our face down at the Shedd Aquarium anymore.

And now he's working on a section about Victorian "mummy unwrapping parties" for The Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing.

And seeing how much gauze he has leftover from his recent sinus surgery...

I guess we haven't been kicked out of the Field Museum yet, but I suppose it's only a matter of time before every museum in town has our picture in the box office with the words "do not sell to these hooligans" above it.

Oh, goodness

Adam, boss of the Smart Aleck Staff, has just announced that he intends to bring tying onion's to one's belt back into fashion, and that we all have to help.

Headquarters is going to smell INCREDIBLE.  We put out two new Smart Aleck's Guide ebooks, then Adam rushed out a book on Chicago ghostlore in time for Halloween, and now I think he's at loose ends. Nothing to do but work on fiction and try to bring fictional retro fashions back. This does not bode well.

But we drill for things like this.