One in Vermillion Crusie/Mayer
Sep. 25th, 2023 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThis is the third of three books in the Liz Danger series, and, as romance novels / trilogies are supposed to do, each novel has had a satisfying ending and the series as a whole has a HEAs for everyone we care about, and justice meted out to all deserving parties as well.
There’s a lot of plot in this book. A couple of bodies, some shootings, some arrests. Anemone continues to work her magic (also, they finish Anemone Rising, yay!). Liz noticed in earlier series entries that Anemone’s phases of life all involving housing. Housing becomes a theme for Anemone, Liz and for the town of Burney as a whole. The new development obviously represents gentrification, but Liz also has a Come to Jesus moment in her “Jesus Year” (she’s 33, her mom has a theory about Jesus Year) in which she realizes that she’s never had a home for any purpose other than running away from. She’s used her car as her office, and after she left her mother’s house, she rented rooms, then stayed in housing provided by whoever she was ghostwriting for, then back to her mom’s, then to the Blue/Pink House with Anemone (a continuation of housing provided by whoever she was ghostwriting for) and the Big Chef with Viz (they get a couple name, it is Vinz). Once she has this realization, Liz grows up quite a bit, and Vinz develops a much better chance of surviving. I really had wondered how Crusie/Mayer were going to make Vinz work out, given that both have so much going on in their backstory/family, the town of Burney is a radioactively-hot mess (not literally radioactive, but there was a period of arson in book 2) and both are commitment-phobes. Anemone is pretty insightful and gives some useful nudges by encouraging Liz to put down roots in her own space (and providing architectural help and a temporary landing zone in the rehabbed Shady Rest, which is now Plushly Posh. Poshitively Plush?). But both Liz and Vince come up with their own ideas about how to solve the puzzle of “Us” for people who really need their own place and their own space and also each other.
I did get to thinking about how this series might have been imagined in its earlier stages of creation. In theory, it was supposed to come out a decade ago as a 4 part series. Would Liz have been younger? How young? Would she have been born in the early 1980s? The late 1970s? Presumably, Vince’s age would have been driven by Liz’s age. The length of the war in Afghanistan suggests that part of Vince’s backstory would have worked just fine either way. Liz has a lot of niche, not decade expected cultural interests, no matter _when_ you put her (for either publication date, that is); Vince, also. Was that baked in right from the beginning?
I also really wondered about the DNA test that Liz gets indicating who her dad is/was. Who had already gotten DNA tested to provide matching results against? Inquiring minds want to know! By this point, Liz’s mom has gone from being a terror to be avoided in book 1, to being shocking in book 2, and finally, by this book’s revelations, she’s just kind of a joke. I feel like some kind of demon was exorcised via Liz’s mom’s character’s depiction — maybe the kind of demon that is the mother of the hero in _Role Playing_ by Cathy Yardley.
Anyway. Fun stuff! I really enjoyed reading this series, and the opportunity to revisit Crusie’s Fictionalized Southern Ohio again, and the motivation it provided to reread Crusie in general and tackle some that I had never read, and also to re-attempt the collaborations as well. As with all good commercial fiction, there’s really thought-provoking reuse of various sorts going on (I loved when Olivia arrived, because she was so completely wandering in from some other Crusie novel, and I was so glad she got to climb that mountain).
There’s a lot of plot in this book. A couple of bodies, some shootings, some arrests. Anemone continues to work her magic (also, they finish Anemone Rising, yay!). Liz noticed in earlier series entries that Anemone’s phases of life all involving housing. Housing becomes a theme for Anemone, Liz and for the town of Burney as a whole. The new development obviously represents gentrification, but Liz also has a Come to Jesus moment in her “Jesus Year” (she’s 33, her mom has a theory about Jesus Year) in which she realizes that she’s never had a home for any purpose other than running away from. She’s used her car as her office, and after she left her mother’s house, she rented rooms, then stayed in housing provided by whoever she was ghostwriting for, then back to her mom’s, then to the Blue/Pink House with Anemone (a continuation of housing provided by whoever she was ghostwriting for) and the Big Chef with Viz (they get a couple name, it is Vinz). Once she has this realization, Liz grows up quite a bit, and Vinz develops a much better chance of surviving. I really had wondered how Crusie/Mayer were going to make Vinz work out, given that both have so much going on in their backstory/family, the town of Burney is a radioactively-hot mess (not literally radioactive, but there was a period of arson in book 2) and both are commitment-phobes. Anemone is pretty insightful and gives some useful nudges by encouraging Liz to put down roots in her own space (and providing architectural help and a temporary landing zone in the rehabbed Shady Rest, which is now Plushly Posh. Poshitively Plush?). But both Liz and Vince come up with their own ideas about how to solve the puzzle of “Us” for people who really need their own place and their own space and also each other.
I did get to thinking about how this series might have been imagined in its earlier stages of creation. In theory, it was supposed to come out a decade ago as a 4 part series. Would Liz have been younger? How young? Would she have been born in the early 1980s? The late 1970s? Presumably, Vince’s age would have been driven by Liz’s age. The length of the war in Afghanistan suggests that part of Vince’s backstory would have worked just fine either way. Liz has a lot of niche, not decade expected cultural interests, no matter _when_ you put her (for either publication date, that is); Vince, also. Was that baked in right from the beginning?
I also really wondered about the DNA test that Liz gets indicating who her dad is/was. Who had already gotten DNA tested to provide matching results against? Inquiring minds want to know! By this point, Liz’s mom has gone from being a terror to be avoided in book 1, to being shocking in book 2, and finally, by this book’s revelations, she’s just kind of a joke. I feel like some kind of demon was exorcised via Liz’s mom’s character’s depiction — maybe the kind of demon that is the mother of the hero in _Role Playing_ by Cathy Yardley.
Anyway. Fun stuff! I really enjoyed reading this series, and the opportunity to revisit Crusie’s Fictionalized Southern Ohio again, and the motivation it provided to reread Crusie in general and tackle some that I had never read, and also to re-attempt the collaborations as well. As with all good commercial fiction, there’s really thought-provoking reuse of various sorts going on (I loved when Olivia arrived, because she was so completely wandering in from some other Crusie novel, and I was so glad she got to climb that mountain).