Booklist weighs in on The Drowning House - with a Starred Review!

Hello! And yes, I know I am bad at blogging lately, but I’m back and here goes nothing, eh? Today we have a brief but important announcement about THE DROWNING HOUSE. To wit!

Cover of THE DROWNING HOUSE by Cherie Priest, coming July 23, 2024

First: It’s always a huge relief when the first trade reviews of a book are good - and The Drowning House is off with a bang! By which I mean: A starred review from Booklist! ::flails wildly::

"Award-winning, critically acclaimed author Cherie Priest darkens the horizon with a deliciously moody summer beach read, beautifully blending atmosphere and suspense to conjure a homecoming gone wrong.

"One stormy night on Marrowstone Island, a sinister house washes up on the beach, elderly Mrs. Culpepper keels over, and her grandson, Simon, disappears after messaging his childhood friend Melissa that his grandmother died of fright. Melissa and their other old friend, Leo, head to Marrowstone to look for Simon, only to find that a long-buried horror is awakening, and they are the only ones who can stop it.

Smartly paced, with plenty of action, this genre-bending novel moves between past summers of the trio as kids and teens and the present as Melissa and Leo navigate their uneasy friendship, search for the man they both love, and try to stop the apocalypse."
—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

THE DROWNING HOUSE by Cherie Priest publishes July 23rd

Preorder The Drowning House at Amazon

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Preorder The Drowning House at Indiebound

Shout-Out to the Sourcebooks Publicity Folks!

This publicity stunt must’ve cost a fortune ::fingerguns:: Now if only the house below had a little flag billowing on the roof, with a picture of The Drowning House’s cover. Ah, well. A girl can dream.

Woman captures video of floating cabin in winter storm: ‘I was shocked’ (kptv.com)

A smallish house tootling along in some pretty rough-looking waves. No publicity flag, alas.

Okay obviously I am (halfway) joking, but people keep sending me this story about a woman getting video of… well, a house washing up on shore in a storm… because you know. ::gestures at The Drowning House - a book that opens with a house washing up on shore in a storm:: Heck, even the scenery looks about right.

Scroll back to my most recent blog post before this one, and you’ll see what I mean. (There are pics.)

But anyway no, this is not the house that inspired the book, not least of all considering I started writing The Drowning House back in 2021. In fact, this book is inspired by this other, unrelated, equally jarring story about a house washing up on shore in July of that same year in El Salvador: Mysterious mansion ruins on beach captivate onlookers (yahoo.com). I mean, if you’re curious and/or a stickler for details.

So! In the interest of pretending that I’m the recipient of a gift from the publicity gods, I’m gonna go ahead and take this opportunity to beg, yet again, to any and all who may not have taken the time to do so yet… please, if you’re interested and able, consider preordering this book! Or for that matter, go to your library and ask them to order it! (Authors love libraries. Don’t trust any author who doesn’t, that’s what I say.)

Preorder The Drowning House at Amazon

Preorder The Drowning House at Barnes & Noble

Preorder The Drowning House at Target

Preorder The Drowning House at Wal-Mart

Preorder The Drowning House at Indiebound

Oooh… shiny!

And may all of you have salty, damp, restless dreams about haunted houses that steadfastly refuse to stay where you put them…

* * *

And while I’m at it, let’s not forget about Cinderwich! Coming in May, my first novella with Apex Book Company hits the stands - and while I don’t have a cool random news story for promo, I do have a cool tiny haunted town with a creepy little mystery. And because truth is so often stranger than fiction, Cinderwich was inspired by this wild true story: Who Put Bella Down the Wych Elm?

I just moved it to rural Tennessee, that’s all. And added some happy old lesbians and a Waffle House. Like you do.

So check it out if you’re keen on folk horror, southern gothic, or “cozy” horror - which my internal monologue refers to as “spoopycore” and I refuse to apologize for it.

Preorder Cinderwich at Apex Book Company

Preorder Cinderwich at Amazon

Preorder Cinderwich at Barnes & Noble

Come with me… on a very spooky road trip…

At any rate, thanks for reading, folks! Please keep reading! And I very much hope that you enjoy these stories, for I very much enjoyed telling them <3

The Drowning House - Coming July of 2024

Over the holidays, the hot new cover for my next full-length novel dropped - and I didn’t want it to get lost in any festive shuffles, so here we go! Do you recall awhile back, when I went on that writer field trip with my pal Kat Richardson? To refresh your memory: we trekked out to the far side of Puget Sound to set eyes on a weird little island where I’d decided to set a weird little haunted house story.

I’d never been to this island before. I found it while poking around on GoogleMaps looking for a localish island that had a cool name and a highly remote location. A very scientific approach, yes. Haha. Cough cough. Anyway.

Welcome to Marrowstone.

A box of advance reader copies for a haunted house/gothic northwestern rural island thriller THE DROWNING HOUSE, coming in July.

Before I launch into a little context, with pics and everything - let me take the opportunity to offer up some preorder links. Why? Because preorders are the life or death of a book (and sometimes a career), and this one only has six months or so to rack up some numbers. That may sound like a lot of time, but it’s… not, really.

So what’s this one about? Well, I’ll tell ya.

A violent storm washes a mysterious house onto a rural Pacific Northwest beach, stopping the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Her grandson, Simon Culpepper, vanishes in the aftermath, leaving two of his childhood friends to comb the small, isolated island for answers--but decades have passed since Melissa and Leo were close, if they were ever close at all.

Now they'll have to put aside old rivalries and grudges if they want to find or save the man who brought them together in the first place--and on the way they'll learn a great deal about the sinister house on the beach, the man who built it, and the evil he's bringing back to Marrowstone Island…

::insert Stephan voice:: This book has everything: mid-century modern architecture, boulders that wander around, a power-hungry architect who summons old gods, secretive geriatric Scandinavian witches who become even more powerful after they die, and not one but two houses that are miserably haunted - each in their own terrible way. And a helpful troll. Yeah, I’m serious. I went full Nordic Weird with this one.*

Just add two friends with old conflicts and good intentions, hoping to find their childhood buddy on an island that hasn’t even noticed he’s missing… and we’re off to the races!

Preorder The Drowning House at Amazon

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Preorder The Drowning House at Target

Preorder The Drowning House at Wal-Mart

Preorder The Drowning House at Indiebound

If you are so inclined, and if you would be so generous, and if you’d like a fresh and strange take on the haunted house trope… please consider preordering! All you nice folks who ask for sequels, and more books, and all that jazz: this is how you make that happen! You preorder books! It helps give the publisher an idea of the demand, and can mean the difference between a success and a failure in the market.

Right. With all that shameless self-promotion out of the way, back to shenanigans and pictures, like I promised. ::vanishes in a poof of black glitter::

This is the bridge to Indian Island. That’s how you get to Marrowstone, too - you take this bridge, cross Indian Island, and then there’s a smaller bridge on that one that goes to Marrowstone… but this one is more picturesque, heh. There’s no ferry, and no other access to either island.

In the past, I’ve lived in places this rural (or nearly so), and it’s always strange and tricky, trying to explain it to folks whose idea of being in “the country” is perhaps a distant national park or maybe the far end of the suburbs. I’ve lived in the country more than once. And I’ve lived in The Boonies like Marrowstone, too.

Like everyplace else, there are perks and drawbacks alike.

Marrowstone Island is a only about six square miles of earth in total. It’s a long, skinny island, so there’s a lot of beachfront property and a lot of privacy - with little apart from a state park and a camping ground at the northern point to draw in visitors (mostly seasonal campers, out at the old military fort). It’s a lovely, rural, quiet place - but it’s not a good place to have an emergency.

There are no medical services, no cops, no fire-fighters, and until the general store burned down in 2020, it didn’t even have postal service except by general delivery. (These days, everyone’s address is for “Nordland,” after the guy who opened the general store, which was called “Nordy’s.”)

The island is roughly 3-4 hours away from Seattle, though when someone noted that “But as the crow flies, it’s not even a hundred miles away!” I was compelled to point out out that a crow can hypothetically fly across the Sound; two middle-aged ladies in a car have to either take a ferry and then drive another 2 hours, or drive south around the bottom end of the Sound, then north again. Either way, the travel time is about the same.

Kat R. on the left, me on the right. I am not taller than Kat. We’re about the same size, but you know how selfies go.

I have a shared iCloud album with all the pics, and I’m not confident that you’ll be able to see them, but here goes nothing, if you’re curious: Writer Field Trip to Marrowstone Island. And no, I did not go out of my way to take pictures with zero people in them. There were simply zero people around to wander into a photograph. We barely set eyes on anybody the entire time we were on the island (two days).

Basically, it was perfect. Exactly what I needed, from a narrative standpoint. So distant. So rural. So vaguely sinister, in the rough fall weather. So sincerely sinister, in the rough fall weather with no people around. I think even the nearest gas station is half a dozen miles away. (Kat and I stayed in a hotel in Port Hadlock, the closest town. In 2020, there were no accommodations on the island except a sketchy AirB&B or two. There might be more now, I don’t know.)

The beaches are covered with all kinds of neat stuff, mostly driftwood and rocks and strange plants and little scuttling critters and all that good, ocean-smelling stuff. I’m not looking to live in The Boonies again, but if I were - and if I were personally invested in the aesthetics of driftwood - I could see myself living here. It’s really gorgeous.

At any rate, if you want to see all the pics from our adventures, try clicking that link above. We adventured so hard, you guys. That night when we settled into our room, we were both soaked to the bone and sat around in our hotel room in PJs with all our clothes and outerwear (and shoes) hanging up around the quasi-pot-belly iron furnace that our room somehow had on hand. It was an old industrial alcohol plant, converted to lodging. God only knows.

Thanks for reading this far, everyone - and thanks so much for any and all preorders, because they’re what keep a career rolling. Here’s one last pic of our setting, with a good message for 2024.

Driftwood on a beach, with a small handmade sign that reads “TELL THE TRUTH.”

_______________________________________

• Note: I am predominantly of Scandinavian descent, and there are many of us out in this corner of the country; I thought it would be fun and interesting to make use of the heritage and lore.

Cinderwich - coming in May of 2024

I woke up to the most lovely thing this morning - an official cover for CINDERWICH, my cozy horror novella coming next spring from Apex. It’s a truly lovely piece of work, with cover art by Daniele Serra and jacket design by Mikio Murkami, and suffice it to say: I am absolutely delighted.

"Who put Ellen in the blackgum tree?"

Decades after trespassing children spotted a woman’s corpse wedged in a treetop, no one knows the answer to that question. No one even knows who’s been asking it all this time, via the persistent, anonymous graffiti that shows up like clockwork each year in the tiny town of Cinderwich.

Now Kate Thrush and her former professor-turned-mentor Judith Kane have arrived, hoping to solve the mystery of the woman in the tree. But her body has been missing for years, and the locals are not especially helpful.

It’s hard to blame them. They’re tired of all these outsiders, looking for all these lost Ellens. Yes, it’s a sad story, and yes, they wish someone, somewhere knew the corpse’s real name. After all, she was someone’s daughter. Maybe a sister, maybe a wife. Or maybe she was only alone and lost, one of the thousands of women who vanish, and are never truly found. Regardless, it’s an old and tedious story to the handful of folks who still call Cinderwich home.

But Kate and Judith lost an Ellen, once. Kate’s aunt. Judith’s secret lover.

Their visit to Cinderwich might close a circuit that’s almost fifty years old. Or it might lead to two more women going missing in the backwoods of east Tennessee…

***

Cinderwich is not yet available for preorder on the Apex site, though it will be soon. For now, you can preorder at the two usual suspects, if you are so inclined - and I’ll keep you all posted when it goes live across the internet.

• Preorder Cinderwich at Amazon

• Preorder Cinderwich at Barnes & Noble

DragonCon Ahoy!

Well folks, tomorrow morning (8/29) I’ll be heading out for DragonCon in Atlanta for the first time in several years. I’m not 100% overjoyed re: no mask or vaccine requirements, but I got a booster a month ago and I have a fat stack of N95s ready to roll. Yes, I plan to be masked - at least most of the time and on panels. You do you, but I have some health issues that are nobody’s business, and I don’t feel like catching another round of Covid if I can help it.

At any rate. What does this mean for you, the casual reader of this blog who probably idly clicked a link to see this post? It depends.

If you’re a Twitter/BlueSky/Insta friend, it means the odds of me posting the pet pictures of my usual routine are slim to none. Sorry. I am scheduled out the wazoo starting Thursday afternoon, and tomorrow will be all travel, all day long. (Wednesday is for decompressing/jet lag adjustment; Thursday an old friend from Chattanooga is coming down to hang.)

If you’re someone who plans to be at DragonCon and would like to see me there, it means something entirely different! To wit, I will be all over the damn place. I’m scheduled for more than a dozen panels and signings, which you can find via the free convention app - or so I am told. Or you can bookmark this page and just scroll down.

* * * * *

Title: No Return: The Yellowjackets Fan Panel

Time: Thu 07:00 pm

Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Join the thrilling panel about Showtime's Yellowjackets. Explore the dark secrets, survival struggles, and psychological unraveling. Don't miss the buzz! Panelists: Thomas Mariani, Corinne O'Flynn(M), Cherie M. Priest, Valerie Dawn Hampton

Title: Mythic Quest: Finding Your Way Back

Time: Fri 10:00 am

Location: M301 Marriott (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Meant to be a simple office comedy, Mythic Quest has turned into more than that. With the promise of another season, expect more hijinks from this crew as they are all back under one roof again. Shades of pathos, mixed in with egos and comedy, and a touch of geekery make for a lot of fun.

Panelists: Beth Hadden Verant, M. C. Williams, Cherie M. Priest, Kelley Harkins(M), Mari Mancusi

Title: From Beyond the Grave: Summoning Compelling Ghost Stories

Time: Fri 11:30 am

Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Our panel of acclaimed authors share their secrets to crafting spine-chilling ghost stories. From plotting and character development to setting and tone, our experts will reveal the key elements that make for a successful ghost story. Panelists: Cherie M. Priest, Leanna Renee Hieber, Erika Lance, Tony Sarrecchia(M), Jessi Ann York, Richard Lee Byers

Title: Mysteries & Hijinks: A Ghosts (US) Fan Panel

Time: Fri 01:00 pm

Location: Chastain 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: A moderated fan panel discussion of Season 2 of the hit show. Panelists: Carol Malcolm(M), Cherie M. Priest, Kristin Jackson, Lindy Rae Keelan, Cecilia Dominic, F.T. Lukens

Title: Graphic Audio Booth Signing with Cherie Priest

Time: Friday 2:00 p.m.

Location: Graphic Audio Booth (#3205 Floor 3, Building 2)

Title: Doom Patrol: Always Not So Normal

Time: Fri 07:00 pm

Location: M301 Marriott (Length:1 Hour)

Description: So many choices on the Doom Patrol team - leadership choices, path choices, and then there's the butts. Yep, they're back and meaner than ever. Struck by the merger of Warner/HBO & Discovery, the team's left up in the air with only the Red to show for it. A look back, and to what might have been. Panelists: Fr. Bryan Small, Michael Collins, Beth Hadden Verant(M), Brandon Wagner, Cherie M. Priest

Title: Living among Us: Good Omens 2

Time: Fri 10:00 pm

Location: Chastain 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: A moderated fan panel discussion of Season 2 of the Amazon show, with a look back at Season 1. Panelists: Rob Levy, Cherie M. Priest, Fr. Bryan Small, Thomas Mariani, F.T. Lukens, Carol Malcolm(M)

Title: Unsettling Settings: Creating a Sense of Place in Horror

Time: Sat 11:30 am

Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: This panel explores the art of creating immersive and chilling settings in Horror fiction. Panelists discuss techniques to evoke fear and tension through descriptions, worldbuilding, and sensory details. Panelists: Scott Sigler, Chesya Burke, Jessi Ann York(M), Cherie M. Priest, Tony Sarrecchia, Richard Lee Byers

Title: Cherie Priest signing booth 1201

Time: Sat 02:00 pm

Location: Vendor Hall Floor 1 Mart2 (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Come to The Missing Volume for a special author signing at booth 1201Panelists: Cherie M. Priest

Title: Decoding M. Night Shyamalan

Time: Sat 04:00 pm

Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Join us as we discuss the career of M. Night Shyamalan, the director known for his signature twist endings. From his breakthrough film The Sixth Sense to A Knock at the Cabin, we'll explore the themes and techniques that make his films unique. Panelists: Bill Mulligan(M), Cherie M. Priest, Crystal Cleveland, Thomas Mariani, Clay Gilbert

Title: The Haunting of Mike Flanagan

Time: Sat 07:00 pm

Location: Peachtree 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Explore the chilling depths of Flanagan's television storytelling, from The Haunting of Hill House to Midnight Mass. Dive into the psychological terror, captivating characters, and supernatural twists that make his shows spine-tingling. Panelists: Mari Mancusi(M), Jessi Ann York, Karen Bembry, Tony Sarrecchia, Bill Bridges, Cherie M. Priest

Title: Back in Time: Historical Urban Fantasy

Time: Sat 08:30 pm

Location: Chastain 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Our panelists explore supernatural beings & magic set in historical real-world settings. Panelists: Cherie M. Priest, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Marie Brennan, D.B. Jackson, Carol Malcolm(M), Aaron Michael Ritchey

Title: Creating the Monsters We Love to Hate

Time: Sun 10:00 am

Location: Embassy EF Hyatt (Length:1 Hour)

Description: Freddie? Jason? Cujo? Horror writers want to create that next monster whom readers - and filmgoers - will love to hate. Here are some suggestions that can make that happen.Panelists: John G. Hartness, Nancy Knight(M), Richard Lee Byers, Cherie M. Priest, J.D. Blackrose, Eric R. Asher

Title: Mystery at Nevermore Academy: A Wednesday Fan Panel

Time: Sun 11:30 am

Location: Chastain 1-2 Westin (Length:1 Hour)

Description: A moderated fan panel discussion of the first season of the hit Netflix show. Panelists: Carol Malcolm(M), Marx Pyle, Cherie M. Priest, Rachel Rawlings, Lisa Harrison, Beth Dolgner

* * * * *

As a casual aside, I was chatting with a friend who’ll be new to the event - and he asked for tips/pointers/etc, so I delivered. Then he said I should make a little blog post with these helpful tidbits, so okay. Sure. Here’s a casual list of tips and hints, though bear in mind that my intel is about 3 years out of date - and things may have changed since my last visit.

Ahem.

• Bring a sweater. It’ll be pretty warm outside, but air conditioning in the south can be brutal. Yes, this means you’ll wind up carrying it around as often as not. I said what I said. Likewise, bring a small personal fan if you’ve got one. You won’t regret that, either.

• Bring a power bank. Cell reception is terrible in places, and especially when you’re poking around in the lower levels of the Hyatt/Marriott, your phone may well keep searching for a signal, draining your battery with unexpected speed.

• Bring cash. Not a zillion bucks, but you never know when someone’s card machine will be down and the ATM will be empty. For awhile there (a few years back), there were big problems in the vendor area with internet/cell signal which meant some folks couldn’t take credit cards, so. Just be aware that it’s a possibility.

• Ask for a room below the tenth floor (or however many) - because the elevators will be an absolute shit-show and it’s often faster to just take the stairs if you’re physically capable of doing so. If not, disregard this one and may the elevator odds be ever in your favor.

• Bring a small white noise machine, if possible. Especially if you’re on one of the lower floors. If you don’t have one, do not underestimate the sound-muffling properties of a couple of towels and/or an extra pillow stuffed against the bottom of the door.

• Don’t make any big plans to cross the street on Saturday. The parade shuts the whole thing down, with cops and all that. If you need to go from one side of Peachtree to the other, you’ll have to go down to the metro tunnels to cross under the street - then come back up the other side. So budget an extra 15-20 minutes to get wherever you’re going.

• There’s a big CVS in Peachtree Center (which is connected to the Marriot Marquis and the Hyatt by hamster tunnels above the street), so if you’ve forgotten any toiletries and/or want to get some snacks for your hotel room, that’s a good place to grab some.

• There’s also a huge food court in Peachtree Center and some of the offerings are actually pretty good. I hope the pie place is still open. Mmm, savory handpies.

• If you’re flying in to Hartsfield and you don’t want to spend dough on a car to your hotel, just take the MARTA. It’ll take you right to the station at Peachtree Center - which is right in the middle of the event (as noted above re: hamster trails and street-crossing). I forget which of the two lines is fastest, but you can ask somebody when you land. It’s cheap and efficient.

Anyway, that’s all that springs to mind, though you never know - I might update this post if more things occur to me. Regardless of whether you’ll be in Atlanta this coming week/end or not, I hope your run-up to Labor Day is grand in every way, and maybe I’ll see some of you at a panel or two, eh?

General updates on the household crew

Sometimes it’s hard to believe I used to blog every day. Simpler times, I guess, but maybe we’re heading back there. Twitter is no longer Twitter but it’s still chugging along, hemorrhaging users; Facebook is a quiet little cesspool best engaged with asbestos gloves and metal tongs; and BlueSky is still too small and private to be meaningful from a marketing/networking standpoint - but hey, maybe that will change with time.

Everything always does, right?

Maybe it’s okay if it stays a relatively quiet hangout with friends, instead.

Anyway. Having some real serious thoughts lately about finding something other than writing to do with my time. Every corner of every creative industry is just so damn…bad right now, you know? It’s always been hard, yes; it hasn’t always been this hard.

I guess when the dust settles, we’ll see what comes next.

Something always does, right?

* * *

By way of bringing you up to speed on the household (God, it’s been like, a month since I posted here, I am truly the worst), everything is fine. Everyone gets along, Monty is gaining chonk and fluff, and the weather has been very nice. I had a houseguest for a week, as part of our annual “Grown-Up Summer Vacation” - whereupon we mostly go shopping or sit on the deck with fruity, frosty adult beverages and just… don’t have any major responsibilities for a few days.

She’s a public high school teacher in Memphis. If anyone on God’s green earth deserves the break, woo boy howdy.

* * *

Lucy still desperately wants to be Monty’s BFF, and she’s making strides. They routinely hang out and will exchange polite nose-boops daily, though playtime is a little fraught - as they both get overstimulated easily, and tend to accidentally frighten each other with their enthusiasm. But they’re getting there.

Naughty-looking fluffy black dog (a husky/shepherd mix) smiles real big like, “No, I’m not up to anything at all, why would you ask?” and she’s almost certainly lying.

A couple of days ago I watched Lucy and Monty play “chase”… which is to say, Monty bapped Lucy on the head and ran away, thereby daring her to come after him - and she took him up on it with the cutest halting, scrambling lurches. For a second I thought it was weird and wondered if she was okay, then I realized she was taking pains not to overtake him too quickly or with too much threat attached. She seems to understand that he is both (a). a badass lil MF, and (b). not as mobile as other cats she has known, and therefore (c). adjustments must be made.

Learning a new communication style takes time, that’s all - and at present, Monty has only been with us since May 27, so… not quite two months.

In that time, he’s learned that swipey/bitey “pay attention to me” behavior will not be rewarded, but soft-pawed bap-bap-bap is fine - and if he brings us toys we will play with him. He’s also learned the joy of treats, the delights of window perches and fluffy blankets, and the pleasures of human fingernails on the right side of his head/neck/shoulders (where he can no longer reach, thanks to the missing leg).

I got him one of those corner scratchy things that he can use in lieu of fingernails - and although he will use it sometimes, he prefers the human touch if it’s available. Sometimes he leans into it so hard, I feel like I’m about to drill a hole right through his noggin; but whatever makes him happy, that’s what I say.

Insouciant gray tabby of increasing fluff and attitude lounges in a cradle-shaped cardboard scratcher.

I’ve never understood people who keep animals and just… don’t give a damn if they’re happy.

Monty is very purry, so it’s easy to tell when he’s in a good mood. He’s also started meowing - something we never heard in the first month or so he was here, so that’s new. I’ve heard it said that cats only meow because people talk, and they’re trying to join the conversation - and maybe that’s true. He’s definitely figured out that meowing = talking, and he’s not afraid to shout when he feels it’s warranted.

But he’s not a problem at night, and indeed he would rather curl up on top of the blankets to purr-snore ‘till dawn. It is unreasonably adorable.

As for Greyson, since he’s…well…Greyson, he gets along with pretty much everyone everywhere all the time anyway - so he and Monty are A-Okay. They don’t cuddle, but they hang out amicably and Greyson is no longer afraid of his new roommate, so that’s all good.

Of course, Greyson is also getting older - a fact which is both difficult to ignore, and difficult to swallow. At present he’s about 11-1/2, and for a dog his size that means arthritis, hip dysplasia, lipomas, hearing loss, and occasional bouts of restless confusion. We’ve been so, so lucky to have him in good health for so long - and we hope to keep him that way a bit longer still. He has always been the very best of dogs, and we could not have asked for a better guy to be our first.

Handsome old man dog who is fluffy and black (with a sugar face and white chest, spotty feet) smiles innocently up at the camera.

Ugh, that reminds me. Their mobile groomer is folding up shop after their next appointment and we need to find somebody new. I’m not looking forward to that, not least of all because we really like these guys - but they’re packing up and moving at the end of the summer, and so it goes.

If you’re in the Seattle area and you know of a mobile groomer that serves Beacon Hill, is open to new clients, and will take dogs in the 80-90 pound range - by all means drop me a message: cherie.priest@gmail.com

(I’ve been often told that they’re easy clients. Greyson is anxious/drooly, but he behaves himself. Lucy is whiny at first, but she actually loves the attention. They’re up to date on all their vaccinations [of course] and have been groomed roughly every six weeks their entire lives, except for the pandemic. More info available upon request.)

* * *

Right. So. That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m working on a draft of a book to follow up (but not be a sequel to) The Drowning House (which comes out late next year through Sourcebooks)… and after that, I don’t know. We’ll see. I have a couple of manuscripts that haven’t sold, and I don’t know if they’ll ever sell. I don’t know what to work on next. I don’t know if it matters.

At any rate. Maybe I’ll try to make a habit of posting (more or less) daily writing progress, like I used to in ye olde LiveJournal days. It might be a good habit. It might just become one more stressful obligation for the day, who knows.

We’ll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

A real yay/boo kind of night

Last night I woke up around 2:00 a.m. wondering what the heck I was hearing. Upstairs and directly overhead (in my office) there was some stomping around, some pacing, and then some suspicious silence… which usually means one thing specifically: Lucy has peed in my office.

If you’re new here, or if you simply missed it - here’s the thing about Lucy, bless her heart… she’s always had continence issues, in the wake of a disastrous spay operation that did some damage to the muscles that support her bladder. She got unlucky, and so it goes.

It’s really not a big deal. We keep a pee pad lying out both upstairs and downstairs, each with a towel folded on top - and she doesn’t even use them that often, for over the years her bladder and bowel control have improved considerably. (The rescue from which we adopted her used towels rather than pads - as a money-saving effort, I’m sure… but this practice taught Lucy that any textile lying on top of any floor was the right place to do some business.) In short, she’s been batting almost a thousand, for years now.

A largeish, mostly black shepherd/husky mix offers an innocent, flirty side-eye and an assurance that she has been up to exactly zero shenanigans while you weren’t looking.

But the upstairs pee pad is in my office, and our bedroom is directly beneath my office. So I heard her shuffling around up there and thought, “Oh well. She hasn’t done that in a couple of months. No big deal. I’ll handle it in the morning.”

However. The rumbling and shuffling continued long after it typically stops. And it took on a new element: a bizarre dashing thump that ran from one side of the main living level to the other. Back and forth, over and over. Once or twice, I heard the distinctive scramble of Lucy backpedaling, then rallying to jump off the couch.

Awake enough to be curious, I felt around for my glasses and flip-flops, and headed upstairs to see wtf was going on.

(As Greyson has gotten older, I sometimes worry about him at night. Not that I’ve ever had a reason to, necessarily, but a couple of times he’s fallen during the day and needed help getting up. So I kind of keep one ear out for him, just in case.)

At the top of the stairs, I saw three things: (1). Greyson’s snoot on the floor, poking around the doorway (he likes to sleep in the hall, for some reason - and that’s what he’d been doing), (2). Monty, his pupils as big as nickels, panting slightly as if he’d been up to no good, and (3). Lucy, also panting and grinning - then suddenly looking guilty. Lucy then launched into her butt-wiggle of “Nothing to see here, Mom, go back to bed…”

That’s when the smell hit me.

She had, in fact, done a whizz in my office. She’d also taken a giant, soft-serve crap that looked suspiciously like the result of, shall we say, a dietary indiscretion. It was vile. And copious. And entirely on the towel provided, which was great - except that the pee had been deposited…both on the towel, and everywhere else. She’d started at the edge of the towel and I suppose in an effort to avoid her own stink, she’d baptized half the room. (It’s not a very big room.)

It was too much to ignore.

The towel was a loss. It was the middle of the night, I was not at my sharpest, and the smell was overpowering - so I folded up the warm jelly shit in the towel as best I could, took it by the corners, and deposited it on my front porch where I vowed to deal with it in the morning. The rest was a matter of dumping the soaked pee pad in the trash and grabbing every towel within arm’s reach to blot the rest like a mofo, while I silently thanked heaven that I’d sprung for a Ruggable so I could just wash the whole damn thing if I had to. (I didn’t want to. It fills 85% of the room and to wash it, I have to remove all the furniture first… which is only one of the irritating downsides of a Ruggable, but I liked the pattern and they’re pretty cheap, so. Anyway.)

When I was finished, I threw another towel and pee pad on top of the blotting towels, sighed the sigh of someone who feels like she now needs a shower but is too tired to take one, and settled for washing my hands like Lady Macbeth before going back to bed.

As soon as I’d tucked myself back in, the galloping races upstairs started up all over again.

So what I’m saying is, I think Monty and Lucy have figured out how to play together. At least when the lights are out and no one is looking.

A large and mostly black husky/shepherd mix sits about four respectful feet back from a small gray tabby who’s watching birds through the storm door.

So things are coming along, over here. In broad daylight, in front of God and everybody, the dog and cat are pretty chill - and they give one another their space. Maybe they just don’t want a referee, I don’t know - but I do hope they can figure out a better time to go tearing around the house in a wild game of “tag” than oh, say, two in the morning. After pooping all over my office. Please. Come on, guys.

Momma needs her beauty rest.

The Monty Report: First Vet Visit as a House Cat

This morning, Monty got his first vet visit outside of a shelter setting and he took it… fairly well, all in all. He only made the vet bleed once or twice whilst trying to play, and his head-to-toe checkup revealed some good (he’s up almost a pound since his adoption!) and some less than good (see below), but nothing catastrophic. Wocka wocka.

Vet agrees that he probably got hit by a car or something similar, and the oddball toe is either a result of that event - or he’s just a mutant who was born that way, because it is either fully healed or normal for him, who knows. His right eye - which still oozes a little bit once in awhile - seems to be about as healed as it’s going to get, and his upper-respiratory infection has cleared up. However, the strange spot inside his upper right lip is type of ulcer that indicates a bad allergic reaction to something, likely food-related.

We half expected to hear that, considering that Monty is kind of full-time itchy, so there will be some food changes/experimenting over the next little while. But in addition to these things, he’s having some peculiar breathing issues - but only sometimes. It’s like he can’t quite catch his breath, and he wheezes softly - often (but not always) after he’s been playing; but it doesn’t sound like asthma or congestion.

The vet thinks (based on a variety of factors) that he might have a case of lungworms - which I know, sounds awful, but it’s not that bad. Though he was treated at the shelter, the lungworm treatment is a separate thing - the regular dewormer won’t get them. He’ll need a couple weeks of treatment, and then he should be fine.

Anyway, we’ve ordered the appropriate stuff, and we’ll get him started on it when it arrives. He’ll be fine until then.

Insouciant gold-eyed gray tabby cat plants his furry butt on a laptop keyboard - while making solid eye contact with the person who is just trying to work over here, for crying out loud.

Meanwhile, Lucy’s efforts to woo the little man continue apace. Greyson is 100% content to leave Monty alone, which means Monty is 100% content to hang out with Greyson in near proximity; but Lucy is still Trying Too Hard. Like, hilariously too hard, but one of these days she’ll wear him down. She’s gradually learning that barking at a cat won’t get her anywhere, and that he seems to respond best to dogs who lie down quietly and don’t make eye contact.

At present, they are both asleep in the living room with me - Monty on the couch, Lucy on the floor. (Greyson is in my office on his bed.) In short, they’re all cohabiting just fine. Monty is still the boss. And no, that missing leg is not slowing him down in the slightest.

Monstrous Gray tabby stands on his lone rear leg atop an old record player cabinet, using a shelf to brace his front feet while he sniffs at all the shiny, breakable things - and that reminds me, I need to pick up some museum wax.

Most nights he sleeps upstairs in his small kitty condo with the seat that overlooks the driveway and the bird-feeders, but around dawn he’ll often come downstairs and cuddle up with the humans in bed until the alarm goes off. He is very purry and very sociable; he’s basically my little shadow. If I get up to go somewhere/do something, as soon as I turn around…there he is.

His personality is really starting to pop, and I don’t know what we thought we’d adopted, but it turns out we’ve brought home an adorable little monster. Monty basically has two modes: (1). a sweet little baby who needs cuddles or (2). a wolverine who just woke up in the trunk of a car. He plays WILD and he plays for KEEPS. And these two modes can switch out on a DIME, but we’re getting better at reading him and accommodating him - and we’ve picked up several wand toys, for the sake of our shredded and bloody hands.

We also persuaded the vet to trim his claws. I nominate this woman for sainthood.*

The truth is, this is the first time we’ve lived with a young cat in a long time and it’s an adjustment for everyone. Even when Quinnie was younger, she was never quite this mobile - she was enormous and relatively slow/heavy; this little dude is a svelte 11 pounds and roughly 2 years old, and he does not seem to have noticed that he’s missing a leg. He’s climbed every climbable surface in the house, and then some. It’s occasionally terrifying.

Daring gray tabby cat with gold eyes sits on a narrow ledge between a window and a stairwell, as if this is a perfectly normal place to sit.

In other news, he has fully embraced Quinnie’s old morning routine of “when the people come upstairs first thing in the morning, shriek at them until they open the front door so you can see if the neighbor cat is out there waiting for his morning treatos, because I, also, would like some morning treatos.” Since the neighbor cat is - more often than not - in fact waiting for his morning treatos, this works out well for everyone. They seem entirely amicable, and will hang out together through the window screen like old bros.

I’m glad he has a cat friend, even if the cat friend is outside. Monty spent his life in a colony, prior to this, and had exclusively cat friends (apart from whatever person was managing the colony, I guess). Maybe one day he will have a Lucy friend, or a second cat will fall into our laps. Who knows.

But for now, he seems pretty happy and confident just being Monty, Lord of the Dogs. He’s a charming, weird, funny little gentleman - for all his occasional wolverine tendencies - and we are terribly lucky to have him.

Obnoxious gray tabby cat sits atop a vintage buffet that’s been turned into a bar; he lounges next to a bunch of glassware, and is backlit by a marquis-style sign that reads “COFFEE” (it’s a long story).

_________________________

*This is a mobile vet service so they come out to our house, and yes, our usual vet is a guy - but he’s been having some health issues, and today we saw someone else from the same practice… as well as the usual vet’s assistant, who the dogs all know and greeted most warmly.

Shenanigans in the Wee Hours of the Morning

Last night I woke up startled, because Monty woke up startled. He was sleeping tucked against my side, wrapped around my right arm - and when Monty is startled, he clenches everything, so. Ouch. But once he let go, he sat up and looked around, and I realized that we were both hearing a strange noise upstairs. Something was going on with one of the dogs.

I can tell the difference between them pretty easily, when they’re walking around up there; Greyson is slower and heavier in his steps, and when he lies down, he sounds like a couch falling out of a tree. Lucy is more of a “tippy-tapper,” and when she plops down to the floor it’s more of a swishing thump.

It only took me a few seconds to realize it was Lucy making all the racket, which was unusual, but not unheard of. She typically comes to bed when we do - and mostly spends the night in her favorite place: the basement bathroom, a small, windowless space with a night light and some nice cool tiles to lounge upon. But once in awhile she gets antsy for some reason, and she roams.

Sometimes she has to pee, and she heads upstairs to use the pad in my office.* When this happens, she often considers her approach, circles the room, etc. - and takes her time deciding exactly how to execute the mission. But sometimes she’s just awake and restless. Maybe a bad dream, maybe a weird noise outside, who knows.

Last night, she was just awake and restless.

After listening to her pace around for a few minutes, I got up to check on her, just to make sure everything was okay. She met me at the top of the stairs, wagging her tail anxiously. (I never did figure out what had bothered her.) Greyson was sprawled out in the hall, wagging lazily because oh, hey, Mom’s upstairs in the middle of the night, cool. I told him he was a good boy and to go back to sleep. I told Lucy that she was a good girl, gave her some love, and - while I was up there - decided to use the bathroom myself.

When I emerged from the restroom, I wished I’d brought my phone so I could’ve snapped a picture to commemorate the occasion.

For you see, Monty had followed me upstairs. He’d strolled past the dogs to sit between them, and all three were looking up at me expectantly. Side by side. No tension, no swiping, no whining or overly familiar sniffing. Just all three wondering if I was going to dole out any treats, I mean, while I was in such close proximity to the kitchen.

I scratched all three noggins, then told Monty, “Okay dude, let’s go back to bed. Lucy, you coming?” (Greyson never joins us down there; he finds the stairs difficult in his old age.) Then Lucy and Monty trailed behind me, back down to the basement. Lucy peeled off and returned to her preferred bathroom. Monty hopped back up onto the bed and settled back down. I heard Greyson do his “going back to sleep now” heavy big-dog sigh.

Today they’ve all three been 100% chill. Lucy and Monty sniffed each other’s butts without incident, Greyson allowed his toes to be cat-investigated and didn’t even hold his breath the whole time. They aren’t interspecies besties yet, but they’re definitely peaceful roommates.

Next step: FRENZ. I hope.

***

Today I did a little shopping - just picking up household stuff, mostly; but I swung by PetSmart while I was out, because Monty has been accidentally terrifying the dogs by manifesting behind them like a little ghost. He doesn’t mean to be sneaky; he’s just a cat, and even without the full component of legs, he moves very smoothly and quietly when he wants to.

(Lemme put it this way: I started calling him “Jump-Scare” after Lucy did a double-take so wild that she almost fell down the stairs.)

So to give the dogs a fighting chance, I decided to see if he’d tolerate wearing a collar and a tag - just something to add a small noise component to his presence. I picked a black one with gold polka-dots, and a little purple tag.

A fancy young lad in a black bow-tie collar with a tiny purple tag that reads simply“Monty,” even though “The Full Monty” probably would’ve fit. Alas, I didn’t think about it until after I’d had the tag engraved, oh well, missed opportunities.

The collar came with a tiny bell on it, but I don’t want THAT much noise following him around, so I pulled it off before I put it on him. He didn’t fight me at all, and it doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest, hooray. The dearly departed eldercat never minded a collar, either - but Quinnie would sooner jump off a cliff than wear one, so it’s been awhile since we heard that tiny jingle of a small tag tapping on a ring.

Rationally I know that should he ever escape the house and go on the lam, (a). he’s microchipped and I’ve registered the chip with our information already, and (b). I’d just ask around about “the three-legged gray tabby” and it’s not like anyone would mistake him for some other cat. But come on. Once you’ve got a fancy little bow-tie collar and a tag with your name on it, you’re Officially a Full Member of the Household.

It means you’re home.

So welcome home Hot Mess Monty, the Three-Legged Jump-Scare PolterCat, Tripod Terror of the Damned. It’s good to have you. I’ve topped off the toy box, put a big vat of Greenies catnip crunchies in the cabinet, and ordered some of those good CBD treats to support your little joints. I hope you like it here. I hope you’re glad you picked us.

***

Yesterday I pulled out the folder of All Things Monty that came with him from the Humane Society. The nice adoption coordinator had walked us through the highlights of his known history, but they’d also sent home a 6-page printout (single-space typed, front and back) of his medical information covering a few more details. It also contained some info for the five other cats who were on the same flight from Hawaii, destined for adoption here in Seattle - and since it’s a printout of a photocopy, it’s kind of hard to parse.

But if I understand correctly, this is what is generally “known” about him - and why I idly suspect that he was hit by a car.

Sometime in the middle of April, the person who feeds/attends to the stray colony in Hawaii noticed that Monty (then “Hodor”) was missing. He was gone for three days, and when he reappeared, he was clearly and badly injured - it wasn’t just his leg. He had a number of unspecified “lesions and abrasions,” mostly on his right side. The colony manager collected Monty and took him to the vet, where he spent some time recovering.

At first, it sounds like they tried to save his leg. He was in veterinary custody for what seems to have been a couple of weeks or more before they concluded that it just wasn’t healing worth a damn, and it’d be better for him to lose it altogether, so off it came. He actually had two rounds of surgery a couple of weeks apart: one to remove the leg, and one to remove some broken teeth - including that front right fang and some rear right molars - as well as get a regular round of dental work. (I think he was also neutered at the same appointment as the dentistry, but I forget off the top of my head. It was at one of those appointments.) There was also some damage to his right eye, and he was treated for that with some kind of drops, but he’d completed that course before we met him.

After the amputation, he was released to foster care for a couple of weeks, through some group dubbed “cat ohana” (which is either the cat branch of the shelter, or a foster network, or an individual foster location - the term is used more or less interchangeably) in Maui.

Shortly before they shipped him to the continent, he was dosed with Revolution and declared free of parasites/whatnot - so whatever’s been itching him lately, it’s not fleas (though he does seem to have some tiny bites of some sort on his belly, so heaven only knows).

He was described at one point as having “mid-length” fur, but by the time we met him he was half bald. The shelter volunteer told us that one of the cats on the same flight had turned up positive for ringworm, so as a precaution they were all treated with the lye dip and he’d been less patchy before that; but it’s not noted anywhere in his record, so I don’t know the details or the date. It looks like he maybe picked up the upper respiratory infection at the Seattle shelter (which is pretty common, no matter how hard they try - it’s like little kids at daycare, whatchagonnado).

Anyway.

At every stop, his “temperament” notes read like a glowing performance review, so it’s no mystery as to why he got sent to the lower 48 for a better shot at adoption. He is a charming little fellow, and we are terribly lucky to have him <3

_______________________________

* Lucy has always had continence issues, resulting from complications during her spay. It was worse when she was younger; these days she’s usually all right, but sometimes she can’t help it, she’s gotta go RIGHT NOW. So we leave a pee pad out with a towel over it in my office. There’s one downstairs in our bedroom, too, but she seems embarrassed to use that one if we’re in there. She’d prefer to do her late-night business upstairs.

Writer field trips lead to writer book announcements

In the fall of 2021, I had a bright idea for a book that was badly in need of a really cool setting. I needed a rural PNW island, someplace remote enough that the services we city-folk take for granted are not so much available at the drop of a hat. These locales are easy to come by in the southeast, but I am not in the southeast and this story called for a cold, remote beach in a forlorn northern environment.

So I started poking around maps, looking for a likely suspect.

Before long, I found one - across Puget Sound and to the north, out in the geographic middle of Nowhere, USA. Only a few hundred full-time residents. No cops. No fire fighters. No stoplights. Most of the roads unmarked. Thirty minutes from the nearest emergency services if you’re LUCKY. Not even any mailboxes until recently, because all the mail arrived general delivery at the single store on the island - which burned down just a few months before I trekked out there with my friend Kat for a writer field trip/let’s get out of the house/come on it’ll be fun, I bet.

It was fun, too.

Two silly, exhausted, masked middle-aged writer women. By this point, we’d done a lot of hiking and walking in windy, wet weather. We were not at our personal shiniest, but we were TRIUMPHANT.

We stayed at a 19th century industrial alcohol plant that had been converted into the only hotel within shouting distance of the island, and had dinner at their restaurant downstairs - which seems to be the Fancy Place where the locals go for a nice night out. The food was pretty good, too. We had a grand old time, poking around for a couple of days, taking a zillion pictures, and generally absorbing the damp, chilly fall vibe.

Then I went home and got to work. Fast-forward a little bit and…well. Voila!

Screencap of a Publishers Marketplace Deal report: “Philip K. Dick, Hugo, and Nebula Award nominee and Locus Award winner Cherie Priest’s THE DROWNING HOUSE, set on an isolated island off the Washington coast, where something sinister has washed ashore, to Rachel GIlmer at Sourcebooks, in a two-book deal, by Stacia Decker at Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner (world English).”

So it’s official! Coming next summer, a rural American gothic hits the streets! What’s it about? Well, I’ll tell you: During a terrible storm, a house washes up on a beach - and the sight of it stops the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Now her grandson (and only heir) has vanished; but two of his childhood friends are on the case, scouring the remote PNW island for answers…

Stay tuned! I’ll deliver more details as I learn them.

See? I do have stuff going on, other than bold new cats and big cowardly dogs, learning to live together, heh. Thanks so much for reading, everyone. And check back soon, as I will undoubtedly have more Monty updates for the masses. I know what you people really come around here for, after all…