Get a Load of This.

 

Well, here This. is.

Ta da!!

I’m pretty excited. You can tell by the double exclamation points.

So, what is This.?

It’s the story of a young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk.

The sordid saga of college senior Anastasia Steele is full of unlikely twists (of the boobie kind). She steps in for her sick roommate to interview prominent business Christian Grey for their campus paper, little does she realize the path her life will take. Christian, as enigmatic as he is rich and powerful, finds himself strangely drawn to Ana and she to him. Though sexually inexperienced, Ana plunges headlong into an affair — and learns that Christian’s true sexual proclivities push the boundaries of pain and pleasure.

In this lively adventure, a square, yellow sponge enjoys life under the sea while living in a pineapple with his pet snail Gary while working as a fry cook at the Krusty Crab.

This. is none of those things.

Think of it as modern-day Erma Bombeck, the joys and annoyances of dumbestic bliss,  finding the ha-ha in the humdrum. Stuff we all can relate to.

Is it going to change the world? No. Will it bring peace to the Middle East? Not so much. Will it be studied in high school English classes and considered a classic decades after my death*? Naaah.

But it gave me joy to write and an ulcer to publish and maybe, hopefully, if you pick it up and read it, you’ll be touched in some small, non-pervy way. That’s all any writer can ask.

So, what exactly is This.? For realsies, it’s a little somethin’ somethin’. It’s small and totable, fits in a bag because I — as a mother who shleps — pay attention to those kinds of things. Think of it as a sort of book version of an Etch A Sketch, a little mind wipe when you need a break but don’t have a lot of time. Like when you’re sitting in the bleachers at some kid’s practice or waiting the mandatory 30 minutes after allergy shots or even when you’re parked on the commode. It’s risky to bring your cell phone in the bathroom, ya know, and if you happen to drop my book in the toilet, it is much cheaper to replace than an iPhone. Plus I’ll get another sale that’ll push me that much closer to the top of some bestseller list.

Chapters are snappy, designed for people short on time and attention spans**, and I’ve even read the entire thing easily in a day. More than once. You don’t have to, of course — unless you’re some sort of competitive book reader. Feel free to take your time. 

I would love nothing more than for This. to be the little indie book that could, so c’mon! Let’s make it blow up, guys! It could happen. It has happened before. Support the local, indie writer and spread the word! Visit amazon.com.

If you’re in Tucson, The Seasoned Woman, 5460 E. Broadway, (Broadway and Craycroft) and Antigone, 411 N. Fourth Ave., are carrying MY book. And if you get it from Antigone, it’ll totally be like finding that special golden Easter egg because they asked for just one, single copy. If you live far away, definitely call first.

So why are you still here? Go shopping. GO. And then get reading.

*But that’s OK because there are plenty of writers who still get a lot of attention and are horribly overrated, IMHO. Looking at you, William Faulkner, who tormented me my senior year of high school.

**It’s not our fault — cellphones, the internet and those crawlers at the bottom of the TV screen all encourage us to multitask and not pay full attention. To anything.