Éric has had an eclectic career which ranges from casino dealer to canal boat captain to radio station DJ. Since 2009, he’s worked as a desktop publisher for the federal government. During his off time, he works as a freelance typesetter for various Canadian-based authors and publishers, roasts gourmet flavoured coffee, runs several pen-and-paper role-playing games, writes, and helps run JenEric-Designs.ca (Home of the TravellingTARDIS.com).
He lives in Ottawa, Ontario with his author wife, daughter, and son.
Hello Coffee and Crochet lovers,
JenEric Designs, JenEric Coffee, The Travelling TARDIS, Jen Desmarais, and Eric Desmarais will be at this year’s (September the 6th to the 8th) Ottawa Comiccon at the EY Centre.
Come get your coffee, crochet, and books!
We’ll be at booths 2604-2606!
Can’t wait to see you there!
Jen and Éric
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests has some pretty great music in it, so I made a spotify playlist of all the songs, in the order they appear within the book.
Do you think you can figure out what happens during each song?
*These artists do not exist in real life.
Read about my thoughts on music in this book here!
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests by Jen and Éric Desmarais is available for pre-order now!
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2024 film Deadpool & Wolverine.
The story is basicly the same as the second movie (saving his family) and the emotional journey is the same as the first (accepting who he is); this time however they have the lore, budget, and cameos from all of Fox and Disney.
No one is watching this one for the deep storyline but it felt a little reductive compared to the first two.
Score: 0.5
This was the first time I found Deadpool annoying. It was needed to show his contrast with Logan but it was a little much at times. It was also a reflection of his own insecurities and frustrations.
The Logan storyline was great and all the other characters were awesome but I did miss Domino.
Score: 1
The dialogue somehow manages to top itself from the first two. It’s next-level meta and wonderful.
Score: 1
The visuals are spectacular and the fight scenes absurdly well done.
The soundtrack was epic and the score fantastic.
Score: 1
There was a lot in this movie and it was fast. I feel like it’ll take a few more viewings before I catch all the jokes and references. It felt overwhelming having so much so fast. It’s nearly thirty years of movies referenced in 2 hours. It was a lot of fun.
Score: 1
Bigger, bolder, louder, and with so many more cameos; the movie doesn’t hold back and integrates Deadpool into the greater universe of Disney. Its impressive, funny, and a little heartfelt. Despite the greater budget and change of studio, the heart, humour, and cussing are, thankfully, the same as the first two films.
Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5
Hello Readers,
Music is an integral part of setting the mood in movies but when writing a period piece (it hurts to say that 2003 is a period piece) the music is part of the setting.
Like cities and characters, if you want a specific feel (and don’t want to pay lots of money for it) you have to make things up. In the case of Monsters, there are 3 song that are made up for the book, two are references to the Elizabeth series, “My Drums Ate My Baby” by Kings of Rock and “Curtain of Love” by The Barrett Family. Neither of these have music or lyrics yet; someday I’d like to go back and compose these.
The third song is “Shadows Live for the Light” by Tommy Fairfield. This one, Jen wrote the lyrics and the music and it turned out great. She’s really gotten impressive with the guitar and composing.
Have a listen to the song on Spotify or any other music platform.
Isn’t that catchy?
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests by Jen and Éric Desmarais is available for pre-order now!
Characters | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
I’ll spare you the details of the torture, but it wasn’t very effective. That’s the secret no one wants to admit out loud; it’s not the pain that makes someone want to give up, it’s the hunger, thirst, and fear.
A good torturer can keep the pain fresh, giving lots of rests, but it’s still the same every time, and even those that break are reacting more to those other three elements.
I’d like to say that my faith in Sol kept me going, or my natural inborn stubbornness, but it was Suzy. Everytime I thought of breaking, I imagined her disappointed face and kept resisting.
Eventually, my time for action came and I called out, “I give up. Please.”
Gerald came into the room and hugged me like we were old friends. I wanted to be glib but I held my tongue.
“Brother, you have seen the light. It’s time for you to bathe in it.” Gerald had a glazed look in his eyes and he grabbed my head.
Instantly, I was transported to a metal platform in space, facing a large blue star and a smaller star that pulsed in different colours. In one voice, the binary stars of Spica spoke, “Your god has violated the rules of the council and will be destroyed for its impudence. You need not face the same fate. Join us and see a great universe.” The voices were like weights on my mind; they made me want to believe them. There was power in their voice, but not the same as Sol. It felt like Spica was trying to burn away everything that was me while Sol tried to burn away everything that wasn’t me.
“Yeah, yeah. Make the Universe Great Again. Politicians have been promising that for over a millenia. It’s bullshit from them and it’s no better from you.”
Gerald had spent a lot of his life converting others to his god. The process was always the same so that by the time the subject was ready, they couldn’t fight back. I had spent most of my time seeing the horrors of my solar system and being shown by Sol how it felt. I was used to pain and was nigh immortal when it came to hunger and thirst, so I was ready for a fight.
Through the connection that Gerald had made with me, I poured my will and power. I treated Spica’s influence the same way I would a virus or bacteria. Both of us burst into flames as Sol’s cleansing power washed over me and his healing power did the same to Gerald.
Gerald was surprised. The other suns didn’t care about healing. Humans were fragile but plentiful. I cleaned the man’s soul and mind of all the corrupting influences.
That’s when I realized the big difference between the council of suns and Sol. The first controlled their Sun Speakers directly, while the latter just guided us. Maybe that’s why Sol never spoke in words, only images.
“What in the Black!” cursed Gerald. I didn’t need to show him the way his mind and soul had been twisted, he already knew.
That level of cleansing would have killed me before Doctor Janet’s eternal youth serum. Instead, it made me feel weak and I collapsed.
Gerald had the guards take me to my cell and followed me. When I finally was able to sit up, he gave me some juice that tasted like sweet grapefruit. It helped me feel better and I asked, “How long before they realize?”
“The power of the council is a little slower here, there seems to be a delay of just under an hour.”
That wasn’t a lot of time, and I wasn’t doing anything fast.
Gerald smiled and said, “Funny you should say that, Sol showed me the way.”
Surprised, I asked, “You accepted Sol as your god?” I’d expected the Sun Speakers to be disoriented and reject their gods, not jump to Sol.
“They asked politely and for the first time in my life I was able to choose.”
Now I was definitely jealous, I’d never been given the chance to choose.
He picked me up like I weighed nothing and carried me to an airlock. He put me gently into it and for a moment I panicked. “I thought you were about to throw me out the airlock,” I said with less confidence than I’d hoped.
“Oh. I am,” He entered and closed the door behind him. I stood up to protest and he caught me. “Hold on to me as tight as you can, brother.”
I wanted to say something either cutting or childish or both but he hit the airlock purge button and we were thrown clear of the ship.
People think all kinds of strange things about space but most of it wasn’t true. The vacuum sucking all the air out of your lungs is true, but at least our eyeballs didn’t explode.
Just as I was starting to worry about my chest collapsing, I felt warmth and breathable air.
The Revenge had a cloaking device and must have been waiting for us. No one could have done the math to catch us. Thank Sol, the ship had a Sun Speaker on it.
With a jovial laugh, Bart helped me up, his tail was wagging. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. I swayed and he caught me. “You look like you need a vacation.”
“I should have a few days before—” Sol cut me off with a vision so horrifying I don’t want to repeat it. They also let me know that we had three hours to prepare.
This fainting thing was becoming a bad habit. When I came too, I rushed to the nearest trash can and lost the juice from earlier. I wouldn’t be able to stomach that for a while.
“Get me to my ship. My nightmares are coming.” The real war was about to start and I prayed that the rest of the fleet was better prepared than I.
Read Chapter 9 (September 2024)
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests is…gasp… a book with a wedding in it. At one point, they need to write thank you cards. Here is a sampling of them.
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests by Jen and Éric Desmarais is available for pre-order now!
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2024 film Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
They abandoned the small town setting and embraced the NYC feel of the originals. The story is interesting and I like how they weaved the two parts.
Score: 0.5
This cast was massive, upgrading the originals from cameo to secondary characters, adding two new characters, and balancing the cast from the previous film. The result is that only a few characters got growth and the others were either background or comedy relief.
This time the villain is actually terrifying.
Score: 0.5
The dialogue is quippy, smart, and fun. It mixes mythologies and technobabble in amusing ways.
Score: 1
The movie is extremely pretty and avoids being too dark or using too many quick cuts. The special effects are flawless.
The music was a good mix of the classic themes and songs with new ones.
Score: 1
This is a fun Ghostbuster movie that balances old and new really well. I feel like we could use more time for some of the characters, but overall it was lots of fun. I watched this alone but I look forward to watching it again with the family.
Score: 1
A near perfect melding of old and new. This will make all Ghostbuster fans happy. It could use a little more time with it’s expansive cast of characters, but overall it’s fun, fast, and quippy.
Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5
Dear Pegasus,
It’s been a big summer. We went on a trip to California and did all kinds of fun things.
Now summer is ending and you start school this week. It’ll be your first year of in-person after a year of Pegasus Flight School. I’m excited for you to get out there, make some friends, and learn more.
Not that you’ve been slacking; your reading is great (especially since you mostly taught yourself), your math is great, and if you were going into English school, I’d expect you to be bored. With you going into French school, I think you’ll have lots to learn between the language and socializing with kids your own age.
For the latter, I hope the pandemic and our keeping you home won’t have caused any socialization issues. I wouldn’t have changed anything, but I worry.
You are headstrong and and really clever; a combination that could be great or make your life harder.
Lately you have been really enjoying saying no. Hopefully that won’t transfer to school.
You’re so much like me but you also keep a lot inside. I hope you have a wonderful year, and selfishly, that you still want to snuggle.
I love you little Pegasus,
Papa
A fairy tale, by Pegasus Desmarais
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a king with a daughter. She had lots of special powers, like healing, turning invisible, and being really good at hiding.
A witch heard about these special powers and wanted them for her own, so she snuck into the castle and stole the princess away! She turned the princess into a talking frog and put her in a tower, far away from the kingdom she had grown up in.
The witch told the princess that she had seven nights to figure out how to turn back into a human, or else she would remain a frog for all time, and her powers would belong to the witch.
The princess, on the first night, turned invisible and snuck out of the tower. She knew that if she made it back to her kingdom, she would return human.
Her journey home was fraught (my word lol) with danger.
She fought off a snake that wanted to eat her, but she escaped.
She was almost eaten by a crocodile, but she escaped.
She was almost eaten by a heron, but she escaped.
At long last, she made it to her kingdom.
The instant she crossed the border, she became human again, right before the clock struck midnight on the seventh night.
Her father was so happy to have her home once more.
The End
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests was sent out for reviews. Here’s the second batch!
Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests by Jen and Éric Desmarais is available for pre-order now!
