April Week 4

Sex on Murder Island, the second installment of the Luella van Horn series, comes out June 30th, and you can preorder the book from any of the links here. Our unconfident detective, Luella van Horn, must solve a murder on a private island owned by a cabal of billionaires, and in turn, she uncovers their filthy and disgusting sex cult. A work of autofiction. JK JK JK!

Passions this week include: stracciatella gelato and watching all of season 15 of RHOBH.

From what I can tell, stracciatella means cheese. But when it’s a flavor of gelato, it means chocolate chip. That mystery will go unsolved for now. These days, whenever I have to leave the house, I’ll try to figure out a route that passes a gelato place either on the way there or back. This last time, though, I got a big scoop in a cone, and one lick in, I got Mark’d from Step by Step.

See the kid on the left, and how he’s got no ice cream? It’s cuz it fell off the cone when he went to lick it. They do this to show the character Mark is cursed in life from an early age. That happened to me on 61st and Broadway, and I had to pick up the scoop off the sidewalk like a baseball and chuck it in the damn trash. Still into the flavor though.

I don’t know how, but I’ve managed to start and finish this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I’m not recommending the show, but I am recommending the odd sense of accomplishment that comes with seeing through something til the end, even if it’s something that makes you want to get plastic surgery and start fights with your friends.

And now a few from the readers:

Hanne: “Hi Jo! My passion this week is pretzel sticks. You can dip them in anything you want and also build a mock log cabin with them and pretend you live inside it like an old old man with no friends.”

Mary: “My passion this week is when library holds are ready for pickup. I saw the trailer for the movie Conclave about papal intrigue and saw it is based on a book so immediately requested it. The book was ready for pickup within a few days. I’m pumped!”

Ashley: “My passion is keeping tabs on Gofundmes. I love to check and see if they've met their goal (big or small). And I'm not afraid to say it - the act of community coming together often brings me to tears!”

Capping this missive off with info on a couple upcoming events:

Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp and I are back to doing our infamous boat show where we hastily write a jukebox musical and cast the audience, but this time it’s on land and based on the music of Lady Gaga. That’ll be on Thursday, May 7th. It’s called AbracaGAGA: A Lady Magician Mystery.

And there’s going to be a big fun book release event for Sex on Murder Island happening on Tuesday, June 30th at the Bell House. Tickets available here! Your ticket includes a signed copy of the book. Come learn I still don’t know how to write my name in cursive.

Okay that’s all! If you have a passion, you can reply to this email with 1-2 sentences about it!

Yours truly,

Jo