Man oh man. How has the pandemic been treating you? I was joking with a friend the other day about how I really have yet to meet anyone, but they could barely stop laughing long enough to remind me that I moved during an international pandemic. Luckily, being able to video chat with not only my family and friends, but ALSO my therapist - has made a world of a difference for me. I've been able to work through a lot my fears, sadness, and frustration. That's why it's more important than ever to not only practice self care but to lift each other up.
I'm working towards my health goals and I have set up not only a renewed mindset but also a new game plan. I will talk more about this later though. We FINALLY get to move into the new house next week and I can barely contain my excitement. I also think though, that I'll also FINALLY be back to a semi-regular blogging schedule. For now, though I want to talk about one of my favorite authors.
I started reading Nora Roberts probably a lot sooner than my mother would have appreciated but as every teenager I was definitely filled with dreams of the perfect guy. Her books were a form of escapism as well. I remember being so wrapped up in one of her books that my sister had to repeat my name 3 or 4 times before I finally answered her. Nora weaved characters, settings, and plot lines together so seamlessly that the words on the pages fell away and a movie would play at the back of head. She could bounce from fantasy, the supernatural, evil, homicide; short stories about diamond smugglers, and women architects spending a weekend away from their day job. I'm not sure I could even begin to count the amount of books I've read by her.
However... there is one series that I keep coming back too. Time and time again. I was first introduced to the in Death series about a decade ago, still long after it's debut, and it was then that I met my favorite fictional character ever. Even more so than Sam and Dean Winchester. (I know, it's hurts me to say it too.) There are over 60 in the series (including the novellas) but I find that if I go long periods of time without staying up to date with the characters I wonder what the characters might be up to. LOL Anyone else have a favorite series or character like that?
I met Eve Dallas in the first book, Naked in Death. She is a New York City Homicide detective who commands a squadron of cops with an iron fist and confidence that can't be met among any other character I've read. Naturally Nora Roberts draws you in with with the suspense and drama of the good cop falling for the ultimate bad guy, Roarke, the richest Irish rogue on or off planet. Oh yeah... by the way the series is set about 50 years in the future. (When I first started the series some of the stuff Nora was writing about hadn't come to fruition yet. Most of us were still using flip phones when these books came out. Here she has people watching videos on their watches to talk to colleagues. An autochef is a lot like a keurig but for real food. Everything is made out of soy...except of course Roarke's own personal stock of amazing coffee and perfect steak.)
What keeps me coming back to the characters book after book though is who Eve is. How she's written. I don't want to spoil the series, but I will say that she had incredibly rough childhood...if you could even call it a childhood. Thrust into the world without a name and her only purpose was to serve the needs of others, her origin story was heartbreaking. Throughout the series you find how she works through what she did, who she was, and how she learns that it is our choices not our past that define who we are.
Eve continues to build deeper connections and friendships essentially creating her own family, as she learns to open herself to love and light. She combats the evils of her job with working out and spending time with her devilishly handsome husband. At night when the stress gets to be to much she will be thrown into horrid nightmares of the trauma she experienced at the hands of others.
I relate to this character on so many levels. At times I worried choices I had made when I was younger would haunt me. Was I terrible person for the things that I had done or had been done to me? How did Eve live through what she went through and still come out to be this tough as nails warrior? Being a warrior though doesn't mean you don't break (Eve does several times throughout the series) it means you become stronger, and learn to lean. That you get better at "the marriage thing"
Being a warrior also doesn't mean that you don't make mistakes or that hard lessons aren't learned. At times Eve has pushed to hard on suspects that weren't actually suspects. Being warrior also doesn't mean that sometimes you don't do foolish things like, fight with vending machines or say phrases backwards. It's the team she builds, the family... the life. Seeing how she gets better as a person, as a cop, the relationships between the characters is what keeps me coming back to this series.
For now I'll leave you with a few fun quotes from some of the books, you can also find the first book, Naked in Death, on Amazon.
E:“I didn't want to tell you I'd been scared, much less why. I guess that was stupid."
R:"It was."
E:"Aren't you supposed to say something like 'no, it wasn't. Blah, blah, support, stroke, let me get you some chocolate'?"
R:"You haven't red the marriage handbook's footnotes. It's another woman who does that sort of thing. I believe I'm allowed to be more blunt, then ask if you'd like a quick shag."
E:"Shag yourself”
― Eternity in Death
R:"It was."
E:"Aren't you supposed to say something like 'no, it wasn't. Blah, blah, support, stroke, let me get you some chocolate'?"
R:"You haven't red the marriage handbook's footnotes. It's another woman who does that sort of thing. I believe I'm allowed to be more blunt, then ask if you'd like a quick shag."
E:"Shag yourself”
― Eternity in Death
“Can you imagine what I wouldn't risk for you? You can't, because there's nothing. There's bloody nothing" - Roarke”
― Judgment in Death
― Judgment in Death
Blessings Friends, I'll be back tomorrow or Friday.
A
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