A Whole lot of Books Coming out

by

Hello Readers,

Jen and I have been busy and we have 3 books between the two of us coming out in the next 12 months. They are being published by Renaissance Press and will be available at any place you buy books.

I hope you’re excited, because we sure are!

Éric

Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers

Release: September 15th, 2022

Authors: Jen and Éric Desmarais

When Kennedy Fairfield, a recent graduate (Class of 2002) trying to find her purpose in life, or at least a job in her field, saves Jason Johnson, the leader of a secret Community of supernatural people called Aetherborn, from an attempted assassination, they embark on a whirlwind epic romance and adventure.

For Kennedy to help Jason discover why people are disappearing in time to save her friends, they”ll have to navigate teleporting assassins, grumpy wizards, gossiping hags, mafia robots, and secret military groups, all in the city of Westmeath, Ontario, which has more secrets than residents.

Pre-orders for this books are available at all bookstores and ebook vendors.

Crushing It

Release: Spring 2023

Author: Jen Desmarais

When Tommy Fairfield, an ordinary science geek, meets Carter Batudev at the Door Tech March Break camp, chemistry isn’t only in the classroom.

After an epic grounding for some bad decisions with even worse friends, Tommy is lucky to even go to the camp. Thankfully, his mother still drops him off in Westmeath, leaving his sister Kennedy and her fiancé Jason in charge. With love and a renewed interest in STEM, Tommy returns home to Parry Sound.

Despite his parents’ worries, Tommy makes better friends and joins the STEM club, which goes to the province-wide competition in Toronto. Carter’s team is there, too. Romance, STEM, singing, and hijinks ensue.

Includes a novelette from Carter’s POV at the dinner theatre show Knights of Everdome.

The Mystery of the Dancing Lights (A Baker City Mystery Elizabeth Investigates Book 4)

Release: Spring 2023

Author: Éric Desmarais

Mysteries are Elizabeth Coderre’s life, and after wizards, hags, artificers, vampires, kobolds, genies, and killer kittens, she thinks she’s seen everything.
She’s wrong!

And when she goes to Riding Thorpe summer camp, which is build on an old government experimental facility, she discovers that there’s a lot she doesn’t know.

Can she solve the mystery of the dancing lights, save her friends, and escape a time loop? Or is she cursed to relive her friends’ deaths forever?

Includes a brand-new murder mystery novella by Jen Desmarais starring Kennedy Fairfield (from Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers) about her 1995 summer vacation in Baker.

The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice – JenEric Movie Review

by

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2008 film The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.

Story

The story has nice pacing and makes sure to use everything that it mentions, even if it’s really quickly said. The double twist is perfectly set up and will surprise at least a few people. Mildly predictable at times and I do wish they’d had more time for the history that Flynn spouts.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The love interest in this one is the most interesting of the three and Stana Katic plays the role exceptionally well.

The two villains are okay, but the henchmen are funny and quite impressive. I loved the taxi driver who was “cousins” with everyone.

The only character who annoys me is Flynn. He’s whinny and the whole schtick of being afraid of the the love interest was completely ridiculous. We see here the tendencies that start to get on my nerves in the TV show. He’s selfish and doesn’t seem to really care about people.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The quick babble of the Librarian is wonderful, the infodump in the barbershop was very well done.

The jokes and quips were fantastic.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The visuals are significantly better used in this one. The locations are beautiful, but with the subject matter, there’s less massive sfx needed and what they did was prettier and more subtle. New Orleans really adds to the quality and atmosphere of the film.

The music got a little more layered and rich without losing the adventure theme.

Score: 1

Fun

The love story was more believable, the action better paced, the character interactions more fun, and the history and adventure were fascinating. Both kids were glued to the screen and so was I. It’s definitely my favourite of the Librarian movies.

Score: 1

Overall

The strongest of the Librarian movies with plenty of great lines and wonderful sets. New Orleans is beautiful and Stana Katic does an amazing job. A great way to end the trilogy.

Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5

Guitar Lessons Part 36

by

Jan 28: Sooooo… Oops?

Remember how yesterday I printed out the ballad and I was anxious about putting music to it?

Yeah, so that happened today.

I mean… It’s not all that impressive, really. I only needed to figure out the chords for one verse and they apply to all the rest. And then the chorus. But yeah.

It’s done. Took me like… Five minutes? Maybe ten?

If someone tells me that it’s impossible for my character to come up with music in such a short time, I’m going to shrug and say that I did it.

Wow.

I did it.

I also played my other two songs.

And I played Ce mur qui nous sépare. It definitely needs work, but omg I love it so much.

Super encouraging day today.

Jan 29: Progress!

I played my three songs today.

The first one went well, except I skipped the bridge for some reason? I don’t know, I don’t understand why.

The second one went well. I paid attention to my rhythms and I think I kept them straight.

The third one went really well, IMO. This was my second time playing it. I got tripped up on the chord changes in a couple places, so I marked up my lyrics sheet to try to help me remember for tomorrow.

Then I played the French song twice; once with the actual song so that I could try to get the rhythms, once without. It went even better than yesterday. The lyrics tripped me up a couple times… They’re very fast and my French isn’t fantastic, but I did better than yesterday, so I’m counting it as a win.

Overall, a good day of practicing.

Jan 30: Excited

I played my songs again today… I say as if I’m going to skip playing them…

Making the notations on the third song really helped with playing it. I made way fewer mistakes today. I’m enjoying the progress.

I also played the French song today without listening to it first, and it went really well. I played it a little bit slower so that I could sing all the words, but I still messed up in a couple places. That’s ok, it gives me something to work on.

I’m very pleased with today’s practice.

Oh, and my kids begged me to play Encanto songs, so I played those too. I really need to learn the B chord.

Jan 31: Gah

Do you know what’s frustrating about practicing guitar?

When my children decide to start doing things they know they’re not supposed to because they think I can’t pay attention to the music and them at the same time.

Gah!

I played my three songs. They went well, despite needing to pause several times. (Get off the bookcase, get out of the kitchen, stop touching Papa’s laptop, no you’re not allowed upstairs or downstairs without an adult you’re only 2, get away from Papa’s work computer… All things they know they’re not supposed to do.) 🙄

I played the French song, too. As my husband pointed out, I’m playing it more confidently. That’s nice to hear. I still stumbled over my words a few times, but I did better in some places that I stumbled yesterday.

Then I asked my kids for what songs they wanted to hear. Surprisingly, they did not ask for Encanto. Lol

Anyways, despite distractions, I feel like I had a productive practice today.

Feb 1: It’s a new month

I forgot to say the other day, but it was my 7 month anniversary on the 29th of January for playing guitar.

Observation: my right ring fingernail gets worn down more often than the others. I think I hold it a little bit lower than the rest.

I played my songs today. I still can’t quite get over the fact that they came from my head.

The ballad is kinda weird compared to the others. Because the style of song is primarily to tell a story, there’s dialogue in it! So that’s really different and feels awkward.

My husband gave me the idea to write a song for our next book (the cousin of Tommy, the songwriter in my books) so I’ll be thinking about that for the next little while. Randal (the new character) will be making up a walking song on the spot, so that should be fun to write. He’s been playing music since he was really young, so he’s got that as an advantage over Tommy, who’s only been playing for a year (at the end of the second book). I definitely relate more to Tommy than Randal in that respect!

Feb 2: Short fingernails

My right thumbnail ripped yesterday. Not painfully so, thankfully, but still quite low.

I rely on my fingernails a lot when I strum, apparently. So today’s practice was interesting until I got used to that.

I played my songs. I’ve decided I’m going to try to add full music to the first one. Initially I had it very basic at the beginning of the song because the character hadn’t had a chance to write the music, so he was testing things out. But I like the idea of having full music for it.

When I was putting everything away, I smushed a tiny part of my left thumb in the music stand. I have a blood blister now. It hurts.

Jen and Dragon are Nominated for an Aurora

by

Hello,

I’m so proud of Jen and Dragon for all their work on How I Taught my Dragon. And now it’s made the ballot of nominees for the Aurora Awards.

Congrats to both and if you’re a voter please consider How I Taught my Dragon in the category of Best Fan Related Work.

Congrats again, it’s great to see all their hard work recognized.

Éric

Writerly Behaviour

by

Hello My Imaginary Friends,

The Shawna and Randal book, formerly known as Guise and Dolls, is coming along great. I’m so excited to see these characters finally getting their adventure after a decade or more of daydreaming.

Writing with Jen is great. She’s creative and an excellent writer. I mean, she wrote a believable scene where a character was eaten by a shoe that’s both creative and, trust me, was awesome.

I have been trying hard to do all the contractually obligated writerly things. I’ve got my whole garden planned out and just waiting for mid-May to start planting. I’ve mentioned my kids a bunch. I know that I’m close to breaking the writer’s contract by my lack of pets.

Oh, I’ve switched coffee methods. We bought an instant hot water machine and now I can do pour-over coffee all day. I can really taste the difference, the head and method extracts more oils which adds to the taste but not the bitterness. (Talking about coffee Check.)

I’ve heard rumblings that the cover reveal for Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers will be happening sometime in the next few months. Once I have a date, I’ll let you know.

It always freaks me out to have a cover, but not the final edits of a book. I’m itching to get my hands on it and create the internal layout.

So after a twenty minute break to look at fonts, we decided on STIX Two Text. Assuming it deals with full page layout and doesn’t poop out with kerning, I think we’ll use that font inside the book.

I think that’s all the contractually obligated writer stuff.

Wait!

MY BOOKS ARE ALL AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR ONLINE RETAILER! PLEASE BUY MY BOOKS!

There! Now I’m done.

Stay Safe and be kind,

Éric

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines – JenEric Movie Review

by

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2006 film The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines.

Story

This felt a lot more forced than the first one. Instead of well placed foreshadowing, it was extremely trope-ridden. The archeology parts were fun, the love story worse than the first, and the twists were so predictable it hurt.

Score: 0

Characters

Generic Middle Eastern general, silly twist character, dead dad, and almost better than the Librarian archeologist. Again, the only characters I liked were Flynn, Judson, and Charlene. Although Flynn was a little annoying.

Wait, actually, despite the “Noble Savage” trope, I enjoyed Hakeem Kae-Kazim’s Jomo. Especially his wry delivery.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The fighting banter between the love interests was cute but got old fast. The actual archaeology-babble was fun though. The near Spider-man repetitiveness of the “sometimes you need to give up what you want for the greater good” was overdone.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The location shoots were absolutely beautiful when in the wild. Those in the cities had that ridiculous colour filter that American movies love for the Middle-East and Africa. It’s not an alien planet… sigh.

The special effects were better, and less used, but still terrible. The camera work wasn’t as good as the first one and tended to be a little indulgent of the landscape.

The music was fun and I enjoyed the magical pan-flute playing the Librarian theme.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The entire love story really sapped some of the fun for me. I did enjoy it mostly and both kids were enthralled again.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A weak sequel that spends too much time trying to make us fall in love with the love story and not enough with the actual characters making us care about them. It’s predictable and awkward, but has some sights of what this franchise could become.

Final Score: 2 Stars out of 5

Guitar Lessons Part 35

by

Jan 22: Learning

I could hear that I was playing the chorus rhythm during the second verse of the wedding song today. I was able to change it back to the proper rhythm before the verse ended, so I call that a win.

I had some difficulty with strumming today; my fingers kept catching on the strings. It didn’t hurt, but it was annoying.

Jan 23: Nope didn’t happen

Guess what?

I didn’t play today.

I was totally planning on it, and then stuff happened and I ran out of time.

Jan 24: Progress!

I feel like I actually kept the correct strum patterns for the verses and choruses in the wedding song today. I tried really hard to pay attention to them and I think it worked. Woo! I love progress.

I also played all 4 Encanto songs that are on my song app (it’s the uke song app, but that’s only a problem if I don’t know the chord). It turned out better than I thought. I also played a couple other songs I hadn’t in a while.

It was a pretty good day today.

Jan 25: Shh quiet

My husband had a zoom meeting during my usual practice time, but he said I could still play, so I played quietly and tried to focus on my rhythms.

I also played a bunch of new to me songs from one of my Disney books, which involved learning songs new chords. I’m pleased with my retention of the chords from previous days. I can now reliably play C7, Cmaj7, G7, E7, and A7 as well as the ones I learned first.

In non-guitar news, I finished my second solo book, Winging It, last night. There are two songs in it; the wedding song and the ballad.

Jan 26: Earworms

After playing my songs, I decided to play some songs that have been in my head for weeks.

I mean, if they’re already there, I should find the rhythms easier to play, right?

Wrong.

But that’s okay, I’ll keep practicing them, because the Encanto songs are amazing and I love them.

Jan 27: Ooooh new music

I did a thing today; I printed out the lyrics for the ballad I wrote!

Meep!

No, it doesn’t have music on it yet, but by printing it out, I acknowledge that it will have music on it, and that’s a big step.

To me, anyways.

Now I have to figure out how rhythms go for a ballad…

I also printed out the music for a song that I adore: Ce mur qui nous sépare by Lou and Lenni-Kim. It’s beautiful. You can find it dubbed in English, but the French is just so perfect. You can listen to it here:

Ce mur qui nous sépare par Lou & Lenni-Kim

I can’t wait to try it tomorrow!!

I also played my songs today. I think I did well.

Mastermind

by

Hello My Imaginary Friends,

The other day we played a new game. It’s a kids board game based off of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon and it’s a little frustrating since you can send people back to the start. It’s a combination of luck and memory; Jen dominated. Dragon did not take it well and she had a full crying meltdown.

“It’s more fun when I win. I should always win.” Five year old logic is fascinating.

It reminded me of how much Dragon likes puzzles and how she probably needs more practice losing. So with everyone playing wordle, I remembered the old Mastermind game I had in the basement.

The aim of the game is to guess a 4 colour code from 6 colours. We are playing with no doubles for now. It’s challenging because you only know how many are right and wrong place and how many are right and right place. It doesn’t tell you which ones are right. (With Pegasus, I’ve been playing where I tell him which ones are right and right place.)

Dragon is getting pretty good. She’s won most of her games (not great at teaching losing though) and I just need to remind her to double check her previous plays to double check the logic.

On Sunday, she won with very little help and only 3 tries. She was very proud.

The game is great at teaching logic and correcting based off of previous information.

It also has great memories associated with it for me. I used to play (on the same board) with my mom when I came home from grade school for lunch. It was awesome to come home in the middle of winter to warm soup, fresh bread, and a few rounds of Mastermind. (My logic has definitely improved over the past twenty-five years.)

I hated grade school and that’s one of the few memories that I cherish from that time.

Hopefully Dragon will have just as good memories of the game.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric