Holland + Harper Productions

Y’all, Anthony Horowitz is a puzzle master. He is the Will Shortz of the mystery novel.

His new book is out – it’s been out for a minute, but your girl is behind – and it’s hella good.

Moonflower Murders, Anthony Horowitz.

4 Glorious Pretzels.

First of all, you need to read Magpie Murders first. Because that’s how series work, y’all. Then, when you’re finished getting your mind blown by that masterpiece, dive into this one.

Okay, so, Moonflower. Here’s where we get a little spoilery.

Susan is kicking it in Greece with her handsome, charming boyfriend. They run a little hotel together, and she’s kind of miserable. She’s approached by a couple who need her help. Their daughter is missing, and they’d like her to help solve the case. This cheers Susan right up. She has a twisted sense of what’s fun. See, if I were kickin’ it in Greece with Andreas, who I assume is hella attractive, I would consider that fun. Susan, however, thinks retracing Allen Conway’s steps and digging into not only a missing person’s case, but also a murder, is fun. But, hey, it takes all kinds.

Just like with Magpie, we’re elbow deep in this story when we dive into a different story. Y’all, because that’s what Horowitz does. He gives you a case to solve and, while you’re busy with that one, he’s like, “Hey, fam, here’s another hella interesting, though fictional, case.” Solve that one, too. Then, while you’re solving that one, he reminds you about the first case, and you’re like, “WHAAAAAT?!?!?! Anthony Horowitz, you clever bastard.”

So, anyway, if you haven’t read a Horowitz, I suggest you do so immediately. And you have plenty to choose from. Horowitz, who is dope enough to have permission from both the Arthur Conan Doyle and the Ian Fleming estates to write Holmes and Bond books, has the Alan Conway series, the Hawthorne books, and the Holmes and Bond books. So, you know, pick your poison, but be prepared to be obsessed.

Okay, byyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Smoky Lynx

I’ve always thought that if I were to be a supernatural creature I would be a werewolf. I’m pale and nocturnal when given the opportunity but brooding isn’t my thing at all so I couldn’t be a vampire. And I couldn’t be a Creature From the Black Lagoon because I’m not a particularly strong swimmer and (little know fact) I am repulsed by fish. Not even just the idea of eating one but the very sight of a fish causes a visceral reaction in me. I don’t know if I have some fish based past life trauma but there it is.

So, obviously I’d be a werewolf. It seems like a pretty sweet gig because I’d get to be a relatively normal person 27 or so days a month and for the other three I would just lope through the woods with my goofy ass walk and try to engage terrified campers, and squirrels and what-have-you in small talk about who their favorite Pretty Little Liar is and why. It’s fine. Seems fine at least. So when started feeling all exhausted and brain foggy on Friday night and I realized that it was a full moon I was fully ready to achieve my ultimate werewolf form. Except I never turned into a werewolf (Sarwolf?). Turns out I just feel gross. BUT if I had wolfed out there’s a wonderful online resource I could have turned to.

It’s called A Werewolf in Australia and it’s absurd. It’s a really fun webseries and the main gist is that this very nice werewolf named Colin has started a YouTube channel to provide advice and tips to new werepeople. This was clearly made by a bunch of folks who had like seven dollars and a fun idea. Colin’s werewolf suit looks like they bought a teddy bear suit from a random furry dry cleaned it thoroughly and then cut the face out. It’s filmed in living rooms and, like, public parks. It’s great.

Colin tells you how to eat ethically when you want to be a vegetarian but your body craves warm, bloody meat (you go to the witch market and get frozen bits of these other dimensional beings made of 100% evil and eat them). He guides you through the precarious world of supernatural dating with the Spellbinder app and you get to see all of these supernatural creatures dating profiles which are clever and hilarious. He gives you tips and tricks for locking yourself up during the full moon (you need a storage building, metal cable and a Nintendo Switch). And he does it all while trying to maintain a sunny, optimistic attitude only to be crushed at the end of every single episode by the reality that being a werewolf kinda sucks. Also, he wears these big furry gloves with long claws the whole time and watching him try make a stir fry with them on just absolutely cracked me up. Ha!

I did some reading and they really did make this because Australia doesn’t do Halloween and they wanted to dress up and do something fun so they did. That’s kinda why Ryanne and I started writing. We just realized we could and it sounded like a super rad time. Ryanne had an office at the back of my friend’s store and we would go there on Saturday afternoons and evenings and write. By write I mean we would take turns coming up with stuff to make each other laugh and occasionally type things.

God knows what the people shopping in the store thought because I’m sure they could hear us. Possibly that the place was haunting by the hysterically laughing ghosts of two lunatics who were strangely obsessed with the video of that time Prince was on Sesame Street?

I know they could hear us because we could hear them too. There were these two friends that used to come in all the time when we were actually working and one of those girls had the best voice. I would be sitting there, tasked with figuring out who Flurry Winters really was and what was her motivation but I would just be entirely focused on that voice and trying to hear exactly what she was saying because it was probably really interesting. I was entirely mesmerized. Hell, I nearly walked out there to find her a couple of times. I never did because I didn’t want it to seem like I was blowing off work to go be a weirdo but I really wish I had just opened the damn door.

Anyway, turns out I’m still not a werewolf just exhausted and brain foggy. Although one never knows… Maybe next month I will become one with the moon. In the mean time I’m gonna stock up on Luna bars because I love a good pun and give a little piece of advice. If you want to do something creative you should just do it. Paint something, if you play an instrument play the hell outta the thing, write some weird stuff that amuses you. Being creative is good for the soul and a whole lot of the time it’s really, really fun. Go out there and confuse some antique buyers into thinking they wandered into a haunted house. You never know what good stuff can come from it.

Hey! I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s Spring! I freaking love Spring. I’m all energized and super happy. Manifesting stuff and cleaning and what not. It’s awesome. My Mom’s theories are generally pretty wack, right? But she does have this one theory that I think may hold water. It’s that whatever season you were born in is your favorite season. It seems to hold true for most people I know at least. And I was born right at the beginning of Spring. I also like early summer when it’s not so hot that you wanna die but everything smells like fresh cut grass and honeysuckle and the nights stretch out forever. That’s pretty rad too. It’s the perfect time to go for a night time drive with your windows down. I look forward to doing that. It’s almost time for the fireflies to come back.

Anyway, I’m rambling I know, but I accidentally had this XXXtreme 5 hour energy thing this afternoon and now I feel like a hummingbird. Your girl is WIRED. It’s like I can feel every molecule in my body right now. So probably drinking the energy thing was a mistake cause I’m gonna crash hard in a little while. Will I drink one again? Prolly, if I’m being honest I’ve survived drinking far worse. Those are stories for another time though. I’m technically supposed to be talking about some kind of entertainment thing so Imma just list some of my favorite things about the new season of Wynonna Earp.

I love Wynonna Earp and the fourth and possibly final season started three weeks ago. I’m enjoying the hell out of it. To be honest I always enjoy the hell out of Wynonna Earp but I’ve talked about that before, I think. The excellent thing about this season is they filmed it during the summer instead of the winter because of COVID stuff and the scenery is gorgeous. It’s gorgeous in the winter too but I had no idea Alberta was so green. Maybe instead of Vermont I want to live in Canada for a while? The winters are super cold but I’m always cold so that’s fine. Plus, the summers are much nicer than they are here. It’s something to think about.

So far this season the gang has used a T-shirt cannon, a lasso, and a supersoaker full of homemade kombucha to save their friend from being a moss ogre, they’ve encountered a Cupid who’s lost faith in love and become an exotic dancer, we’ve learned that love is in the butt. That means that I’m just a brimming with love then. My heart and my ass are so full. Literally. Also, there was a Halloween (the best holiday) episode where Doc Holiday dressed like Freddie Mercury and a scarecrow/jack ‘o lantern guy murdered a bunch of folks. People got their brains sucked out by a genie so a dolt could win trivia night, there was a chili cook off for freedom, and the normally straight laced Sheriff Haught drop kicked a roasted chicken across the police station in a fit of pique.

What’s not to like, right? Wynonna Earp is funny and exciting and heartwarming but also filled with absurd nonsense. It’s extremely my shit. I highly recommend it. Does this count as an entertainment blog now? I think it does.

So watch Wynonna if that feels like something you would enjoy. Or go find some nice grass to sit in and wiggle your fingers and toes in it. Absorb some sunshine and the delicious spring time weather. You deserve it. Until next time. I’ll be thinking of you.

Hullo! I was totally gonna write about the Tom and Jerry movie this week. See, I was fascinated with it. Chloe Grace Moretz is in it and she’s a really good actor, right? So I figured that this had to be a secretly cool and smart Tom and Jerry jam. I used my purloined HBOMax password to watch it yesterday and it is decidedly not cool. Or smart.

I mean, it’s fine. It’d be ok to watch with the kids but it was not great. I’m not gonna spend a whole blog dunking on it though.

Instead I’m going to tell you a story about young Lynx & LeRoux. A prequel, lets say. Back in the day we both worked at a bookstore and it was pretty rad like 75% of the time. We worked at night and our whole deal was that we would work super hard and get everything done by 10 and then spend the hour before close patrolling for any sort of mischief that we could get up to. Sometimes that meant one of us (not me) doing whippets in the cafe, sometimes it meant playing elaborate pranks on coworkers. One particular night it meant ceiling repair.

There was this leak in the ceiling by the front registers and the tile underneath it was cartoonishly swollen. It was positively pregnant with captured condensation and we couldn’t take our eyes off of it. So we decided that it would be both fun and super helpful to release that water. For safety. The problem with that was, (and this will surprise literally no one), that we were reckless idiots. Of course, we’ve grown immeasurabley as people since then and now Ryanne prefers the label “moron” whilst I feel that “dumbass” fully captures the entire rainbow of my foolishness. I’m a DeVitto and a dumbass and I own that about myself.

We felt that a ladder was both cumbersome and inelegant so we decided that Ryanne should just stand on a grey rolling cart that I would steady with my masterful strength. Now, how to pierce the water logged heart of that tile? After several minutes of hysterical laughter we decided that we simply needed to liberate a knife from the cafe and attach it to the handle of a broom with 7000 yards of box tape. Thus we fashioned the most idiotic spear known to man and pushed the grey cart to the front. Meanwhile out manager, Shannon, pointedly ignored us and what the hell we were doing because she didn’t get paid enough to interfere with our tomfoolery.

So after several near disastrous attempts Rye was able to scramble onto the wobbly ass cart that I could in no way keep steady and I handed her our homemade spear. Then we both nodded sagely as she stabbed the hell out of that poor tile. Not much happened really, at least not at first. Then a tiny trickle of water seeped out and we were both just hella disappointed. Ryanne managed to hop off the moving cart without breaking her neck and then it happened.

The tile just disintegrated and exploded outward and directly onto us and the V.C. Andrews section. We were showered in tiny bits of wet plaster that was surely filled with mold. It was SO exciting though! There were more than flowers in the attic that night, I tell ya. After the elation faded though we realized that we had to clean it all up and trooped to the back with our spear like, “Shannon, the weirdest thing just happened. Somehow-through no fault of our own- the ceiling has exploded. :/”

And then we laughed uproariously as we wiped the gunk off of V.C and threw a tarp over the whole mess. And we just left the damned spear laying on the back counter for the morning shift to find.

That’s the kind of stuff I used to get up to on the daily and it’s really a wonder neither one of us was electrocuted. Or like, maybe Ryanne would have been electrocuted and then stabbed me with our spear as she tumbled off the cart. I don’t know. Things like that are why if you told 24 year old me that I would be pretty much the same at this age I would be both shocked and disappointed. Nevertheless, I was and remain pretty freaking fun. I think a movie about any number of our bookstore adventures would be more fun than Tom and Jerry, is what I’m trying to say. Until next time.

Man, I love Adventure Time. It’s such a cool, fun cartoon and it teaches people all sorts of valuable lessons about life and acceptance and trauma. I wish cartoons like that had been around when I was a kid. Instead, I had Scooby Doo but really he just taught me the values of binge eating and cowardice. Also, that ghost pirates are really scary which is a pretty valuable lesson, but still.

Anyway, I’m a little late to the party on the Adventure Time movies but in all fairness they’re on HBO Max and paying for all of those subscription sites is dumb and I’m not gonna do it. Lucky for me someone gave me their password. So, of course I watched Marceline’s movie. It’s called Obsidian and I loved it.

The main deal of this one is that there’s this glass kingdom, see, and a long time ago it was just terrorized by an angry dragon. He was breathing fire and melting folks left and right. Until a great hero showed up and defeated the dragon with the power of her super awesome song. That hero was Marceline. So every year the glass kingdom has this ceremony where they wear moderately creepy Marcy masks and sing what they think are the words that helped to trap the dragon.

Glass Boy is Marcy’s very biggest fan. He loves reading and he’s really sweet but he has a crack on his face and the most of the other glass people are real jerks about it and tease him. It brings to mind the old saying “People who have glass bodies shouldn’t be dicks” or also throw stones because of safety. But these glass people are, in fact being dicks, and it sucks because it just a scar. We all have ’em and scars are cool because they tell stories about who you are. Some stories are more fun than others but they’re all valuable.

The dragon is threatening to escape and so Glass Boy goes on an epic journey to find the brave warrior Marceline. Surely, she’s out fighting bad guys still and is just a rarin’ for a fight. Except she’s not. She’s all cozied up in domestic bliss with Princess Bubblegum. Just making pies and putting together bookshelves and being happy. So, when Simon (not Ice King but Simon!) brings glass boy to their house Marcy and PB aren’t really down to fight a dragon. They broke up in the Glass Kingdom and that’s bad memories that they don’t want to revisit but Glass Boy is all cute and needs them so they load up on a super rad motorcycle, ( I know. Motorcycles are dangerous and I can’t have one), and they journey over to the Glass Kingdom to put the smack down on this dickhole dragon.

But the song doesn’t work anymore. Marcy wrote it when she was all hurt and angry at PB and while it’s catchy as hell it’s truly hateful. It’s what ended things. Which just goes to show that sometimes you can be standing right next to the absolute love of your life but you still need to do some work before you’re ready to be together. Anyway, it doesn’t work because Marcy is truly happy now. PB and Marcy get each other and balance each other out and they work as this flawless team now.

So Marcy has to revisit her very tragic past to find the song that will defeat the dragon and it’s beautiful and sad. We get to spend some more time with Marcy’s mom, who is great, but we also cry a whole bunch because she didn’t make it and Marcy thinks that her mom left because she was bad. And that must be why PB left too. She is a monster after all.

Except she’s not. Marcy mom and PB and lots of other people love her just the way she is and Marcy finally realizes that. So she comes back to fight the dragon with her girl. I don’t want to spoil too much but Marcy comes up with the perfect song.

King Princess, who I also like, does a cover of it but Olivia Olsen’s voice is really pretty so this is the clip I’m using.

I really needed some heartwarming Adventure Time time so I’m glad I waited so long to watch it. If you get a chance you should watch it too. It’s funny and sweet and full of good music and everybody needs a reminder about how to slay dragons every now and then.