6 min read

So many shenanigans

Shipping shenanigans, a spiffy deal on a limited edition, and what I’m reading
So many shenanigans
It’s a Canada goose (AKA cobra chicken) flying to the sale she just heard about for THE HERMIT NEXT DOOR. Photo taken down by the St. Lawrence River.

Whoa dang, stuff went sideways in the last month. I mean in new and different ways than how it’s been going sideways all year. I’m hearing tell of farmers having a tough time and small business owners and, you know…folks disappearing. Seems like rich folks are still getting richer though.

I’ve experienced what some small business folks must be going through on a much smaller scale, so I can empathize with some of it. Shipping my books into the United States is difficult right now. Those sales of signed books are not my primary income—I do it so my readers have spiffy gifts or keepsakes and it buys me a few tacos—but for anyone whose income or livelihood does depend on shipping? EEK. Ever since the de minimis exemption went away on August 29, no one from the US has been able to buy anything from Horned Lark Press because my shipping company won't return or “fetch” shipping rates on my website. Put in a US address and it says “Delivery Not Available.” The technical reasons behind that have been narrowed down, but it’s been a saga and it continues. They’re working on it.

Why not use a different company? Because they are anywhere from $5-10 cheaper per package than Canada Post. It’s best for customers if I wait, and fortunately I’m able to do that. There are no tariffs on books—or at least, there aren’t supposed to be, and the customs brokers are slowly figuring that out. A large part of the problem is that customs brokers have to look at everything now, and they can face penalties or prosecution for getting it wrong, so they err on the side of caution and bounce stuff sometimes when they shouldn’t. That happened to one of my shipments, and I’ve resent it and am tracking carefully to see if it gets across the border. SHENANIGANS. Which I hope are resolved soon.

In the meantime…I guess yay for Canadians? I can still ship to you. And here is a deal (which will also be available to the US when I can ship there again): I scored fifty copies of THE HERMIT NEXT DOOR from Subterranean Press for cheap. They’re normally $40 because they’re signed and numbered limited editions. But you can have one (only one per customer) from me for $10 plus shipping. So even if shipping is $15 (which is entirely possible) you’re getting a $40 book for $25. A GOLDEN GIFT IDEA. But I won’t tell if you keep it for yourself. It’s honestly one of my favourite things I’ve written—the protagonist’s decision at the end is still something I go back and forth on. Some days I’m all in with her choice and some days I’m like, ehhh, maybe no? Here’s where to score it if you’re in Canada (US peeps and folks overseas, you can still get it in ebook and audio, or in print if you want to pay full price). WAIT MAYBE THE US CAN GET IT TOO? Depending on when you open/read this/try the link above, Horned Lark Press may have a workaround where it offers a flat rate for shipping to the US. ($15). My web person is giving it a try. That’s about what it costs to send priority mail, so that’s what I’ll use if this works. And if it doesn’t work, apologies! I swear we’re trying to be functional. No one was prepared for this chaos.

Here’s hoping things get sorted soon. (I don’t know how it will get better but I gotta hope for the sake of everyone. In the meantime, let’s read some books.)

Reminders

I’ll be at Can*Con in Ottawa in October and at Hal-Con in Halifax in November!

What I’m Reading

Doing a bit of nonfiction reading right now (see below) as well as the new Dawson story!

House of Idyll

From the New York Times bestselling author of Bloom and Guillotine comes a darkly seductive tale of beautiful rock stars, sinister cults, and a magical oasis where dreams come true... for a price.

Angelina Yves is a struggling singer/songwriter offered the chance of a lifetime to join the experimental luxury compound sponsored by the most famous band in the world, Black Idyll. With her every need accommodated, she finally has the time and space to perfect her music. Her muse? Reclusive rock star Jesper Idyll, who lives up to her every high school daydream. But this paradise has a haunted underbelly heralded by screaming horses, mysterious figures in the night, and dreams too twisted to be real. When people start to disappear and Jesper's ex turns up dead and hideously mutilated, Angelina begins to suspect that something malevolent lurks behind the cult that's grown around the band...

A disturbing, decadent and wickedly compelling tale of a Hollywood dream turned nightmare, Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly delicious prose will seduce you, tie you up, and never let you go….

House of Iyll

Sing Like Fish

A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes—from an award-winning science writer

For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive, didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Marine scientists now have the technology to record and study the complex interplay of the myriad sounds in the sea. Finally, we can trace how sounds travel with the currents, bounce from the seafloor and surface, bend with the temperature and even saltiness; how sounds help marine life survive; and how human noise can transform entire marine ecosystems. 

In Sing Like Fish, award-winning science journalist Amorina Kingdon synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of this sonic undersea world. From plainfin midshipman fish, whose swim-bladder drumming is loud enough to keep houseboat-dwellers awake, to the syntax of whalesong; from the deafening crackle of snapping shrimp, to the seismic resonance of underwater earthquakes and volcanoes; sound plays a vital role in feeding, mating, parenting, navigating, and warning—even in animals that we never suspected of acoustic ability. 

Meanwhile, we jump in our motorboats and cruise ships, oblivious to the impact below us. Our lifestyle is fueled by oil in growling tankers and furnished by goods that travel in massive container ships. Our seas echo with human-made sound, but we are just learning of the repercussions of anthropogenic noise on the marine world’s delicate acoustic ecosystems—masking mating calls, chasing animals from their food, and even wounding creatures, from plankton to lobsters. 

With intimate and artful prose, Sing Like Fish tells a uniquely complete story of ocean animals’ submerged sounds, envisions a quieter future, and offers a profound new understanding of the world below the surface.

Sing Like Fish

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured.

In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. 

The Death and Life of Great American Cities