#this lonely ten year old boy. one who whose powers isolate him from the world in a way he doesn't really understand yet

[da-janela-lateral]

Thinking a lot about Ghost Reigen AU these days.

[abigailspinach]

Let me share some reactions to yesterday’s surreal and horrifying attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The first is that so much about Trump and the whole world he has brought into being is bombast and fakery. So much about Trump’s world is carried over from the world of professional wrestling, the bombast and taunts, histrionic and willfully over-the-top presentation, the play-acting. Friends become enemies and friends again. There are high-tension falling out and then making back up. And at it’s core the whole thing is fake. It’s all one big reality show. But this was not fake. This was as real and grave as it gets. A deranged kid – it really seems to me this guy may not have had any recognizable politics, though we might find that he did – came within an inch of assassinating Trump on live on TV. Beyond the personal tragedy and the grave wound to our whole political system, it is difficult and terrifying to imagine what that act would have unleashed. And by the merest luck it didn’t happen.

A TPM Reader whose email I’m going to try to publish later said that he thought it was wrong to even think of this as political violence, at least in the conventional sense. He sees it as more like a school shooting or mass shooting where you have an isolated teen or young man, filled with rage and love for guns who kills a bunch of people for no clear reason than to end his life with an overwhelming act of aggression, power and notoriety. A sort of self-sacrifice to the gods of destruction and impunity. Of course, when you try to assassinate a presidential candidate and former president that is absolutely as political as it gets. But I think this reader is on to something. My hunch is that this is a genetic branch of that degenerate tree, despite acting at the center of the political maelstrom in which we find ourselves.

Of course in a deeper sense the school shootings and mass shootings are political too. The assailants virtually have a set of characteristics: men and boys between late tens and very early twenties, isolated, full of rage, usually with a particular hatred of women, in love with guns and part of that lone wolf cult based on nihilism and the murderous and suicidal total power of firearms.

Axios ran an item today reporting that the theme of the Milwaukee convention will be “defiance”. Trump will go on a “defiance” tour, they say. Which invites the obvious question: defiance of what? I think we know the answer. Rather than viewing this attempted assassination as the febrile act of a deranged 20 year old or even – though there’s zero evidence of this – a misguided opponent of Trumpism, he is, as many of his high profile supporters have already done, portraying it as the collective act of his enemies. “They” missed and he is in some way defying their attempt much as he’s portrayed himself as defying Biden’s or the Deep State’s or whoever else “lawfare” against him in the courts.

There’s one thing about watching those harrowing moments yesterday that genuinely surprised me and in its way impressed me. I did not think Trump had that kind of physical courage. I thought he would be cowering in a moment like that. And who wouldn’t? There was an incident in 2016 where Secret Service rushed him off the stage in response to a perceived threat. And I clearly remember him looking terrified. He came as close as you can get to being shot dead with a bullet to the brain. But his first reaction was to reach back out to his supporters with a physical expression of power and defiance. He even placed himself and the agents around him in more danger by reaching beyond the cordon Secret Service agents placed around him. Yes, the shooter was already dead. But even though we can now play back the recording of the words “shooter down” there’s no way anyone could so quickly or confidently process the full meaning of that in real time, or for that matter be sure there wasn’t another shooter. I doubt he even heard it.

Now, just as I wouldn’t judge someone for a moment of cowering fear or even totally rational self-protection in a moment like that it’s hard to know just where that ballsy moment of defiance came from. There’s such a mix of adrenaline, terror and rage percolating through someone at a moment like that. Winston Churchill famously said: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” That was probably a big part of it.

I’ve spoken to a number of people who had a similar reaction of surprise. Each of these people thoroughly despise the man but were still impressed, albeit in this very limited and specific way. But if we’re wondering about where this goes from here, how Trump will carry this forward, I think Trump told us in that instinctive, impulsive and I think entirely genuine moment.

“Fight … fight … fight.”

Raising and pumping his fist in defiance.

As far as I know that’s still all we’ve seen of him since this happened. Everything else has come to us through the curtain of text.

That was his reaction and will continue to be because of course it is. That’s who he is. That’s the core of his politics.

[gadgetgirl71]

Amazon First Reads for June 2020

I know I say this every single month, but I can’t get over how quickly the last month has gone. Meaning that for Amazon Prime Members we get to choose which Amazon First Read were going to download for free. Again this month as most months there are eight books to choose from.

This months choices are:

Suspense 

The Bone Jar by S W Kane, Pages: 328, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Two murders. An abandoned asylum. Will a mysterious former patient help untangle the dark truth?

The body of an elderly woman has been found in the bowels of a derelict asylum on the banks of the Thames. As Detective Lew Kirby and his partner begin their investigation, another body is discovered in the river nearby. How are the two murders connected?

Before long, the secrets of Blackwater Asylum begin to reveal themselves. There are rumours about underground bunkers and secret rooms, unspeakable psychological experimentation, and a dark force that haunts the ruins, trying to pull back in all those who attempt to escape. Urban explorer Connie Darke, whose sister died in a freak accident at the asylum, is determined to help Lew expose its grisly past. Meanwhile Lew discovers a devastating family secret that threatens to turn his life upside down.

As his world crumbles around him, Lew must put the pieces of the puzzle together to keep the killer from striking again. Only an eccentric former patient really knows the truth—but will he reveal it to Lew before it’s too late?

Contemporary Fiction

Someone Else’s Secret by Julia Spiro, Pages: 363, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Here’s the thing about secrets: they change shape over time, become blurry with memory, until the truth is nearly lost.

2009. Lindsey and Georgie have high hopes for their summer on Martha’s Vineyard. In the wake of the recession, ambitious college graduate Lindsey accepts a job as a nanny for an influential family who may help her land a position in Boston’s exclusive art world. Georgie, the eldest child in that family, is nearly fifteen and eager to find herself, dreaming of independence and yearning for first love.

Over the course of that formative summer, the two young women develop a close bond. Then, one night by the lighthouse, a shocking act occurs that ensnares them both in the throes of a terrible secret. Their budding friendship is shattered, and neither one can speak of what happened that night for ten long years.

Until now. Lindsey and Georgie must confront the past after all this time. Their quest for justice will require costly sacrifices, but it also might give them the closure they need to move on. All they know for sure is that when the truth is revealed, their lives will be forever changed once again.

From a fresh voice in fiction, this poignant and timely novel explores the strength and nuance of female friendship, the cost of ambition, and the courage it takes to speak the truth.

Mystery

Never Look Back by Mary Burton, Pages: 332, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Expect the unexpected in this gritty, tense, and page-turning mystery from New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.

After multiple women go missing, Agent Melina Shepard of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation makes the impulsive decision to go undercover as a prostitute. While working the street, she narrowly avoids becoming a serial killer’s latest victim; as much as it pains her to admit, she needs backup.

Enter lone wolf FBI agent Jerrod Ramsey. Stonewalled by a lack of leads, he and Melina investigate a scene where a little girl has been found abandoned in a crashed vehicle. They open the trunk to reveal a horror show and quickly realise they’re dealing with two serial killers with very different MOs. The whole situation brings back memories for Melina—why does this particular case feel so connected to her painful past?

Before time runs out, Melina must catch not one but two serial killers, both ready to claim another victim—and both with their sights set on her.

Thriller

Find Me by Anne Frasier, Pages: 286, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: A bone-chilling family history is unearthed in a heart-stopping thriller by New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier.

Convicted serial killer Benjamin Fisher has finally offered to lead San Bernardino detective Daniel Ellis to the isolated graves of his victims. One catch: he’ll only do it if FBI profiler Reni Fisher, his estranged daughter, accompanies them. As hard as it is to exhume her traumatic childhood, Reni can’t say no. She still feels complicit in her father’s crimes.

Perfect to play a lost little girl, Reni was the bait to lure unsuspecting women to their deaths. It’s time for closure. For her. For the families. And for Daniel. He shares Reni’s obsession with the past. Ever since he was a boy, he’s been convinced that his mother was one of Fisher’s victims.

Thirty years of bad memories are flooding back. A master manipulator has gained their trust. For Reni and Daniel, this isn’t the end of a nightmare. It’s only the beginning.

Book Club Fiction

The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson, Pages: 295, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: For fans of Jane Green and Loretta Nyhan, a heartwarming debut novel about a daydreamer who gives her town, and herself, an amazing gift: a lending library in her sun-room.

When the Chatsworth library closes indefinitely, Dodie Fairisle loses her sanctuary. How is a small-town art teacher supposed to cope without the never-ending life advice and enjoyment that books give her? Well, when she’s as resourceful and generous as Dodie, she turns her sun-room into her very own little lending library.

At first just a hobby, this lit lovers’ haven opens up her world in incredible ways. She knows books are powerful, and soon enough they help her forge friendships between her zany neighbours—and attract an exciting new romance.

But when the chance to adopt an orphaned child brings Dodie’s secret dream of motherhood within reach, everything else suddenly seems less important. Finding herself at a crossroads, Dodie must figure out what it means to live a full, happy life. If only there were a book that could tell her what to do…

Historical Fiction

Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang, Pages: 379, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of A Beautiful Poison comes another spellbinding historical novel full of intrigue, occult mystery, and unexpected twists.

New York City, 1899. Tillie Pembroke’s sister lies dead, her body drained of blood and with two puncture wounds on her neck. Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula, has just been published, and Tillie’s imagination leaps to the impossible: the murderer is a vampire. But it can’t be—can it?

A ravenous reader and researcher, Tillie has something of an addiction to truth, and she won’t rest until she unravels the mystery of her sister’s death. Unfortunately, Tillie’s addicted to more than just truth; to ease the pain from a recent injury, she’s taking more and more laudanum…and some in her immediate circle are happy to keep her well supplied.

Tillie can’t bring herself to believe vampires exist. But with the hysteria surrounding her sister’s death, the continued vampiric slayings, and the opium swirling through her body, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a girl who relies on facts and figures to know what’s real—or whether she can trust those closest to her.

Epic Fantasy

Scarlet Odyssey by C T Rwizi, Pages: 534, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Magic is women’s work; war is men’s. But in the coming battle, none of that will matter.

Men do not become mystics. They become warriors. But eighteen-year-old Salo has never been good at conforming to his tribe’s expectations. For as long as he can remember, he has loved books and magic in a culture where such things are considered unmanly. Despite it being sacrilege, Salo has worked on a magical device in secret that will awaken his latent magical powers. And when his village is attacked by a cruel enchantress, Salo knows that it is time to take action.

Salo’s queen is surprisingly accepting of his desire to be a mystic, but she will not allow him to stay in the tribe. Instead, she sends Salo on a quest. The quest will take him thousands of miles north to the Jungle City, the political heart of the continent. There he must gather information on a growing threat to his tribe.

On the way to the city, he is joined by three fellow outcasts: a shunned female warrior, a mysterious nomad, and a deadly assassin. But they’re being hunted by the same enchantress who attacked Salo’s village. She may hold the key to Salo’s awakening—and his redemption.

Children’s Picture Book

Kat and Juju by Kataneh Vahdani, Pages: 40, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: An unlikely duo star in a charming story about being different, finding courage, and the importance of friendship in the first book in a new series from an award-winning animation director.

Kat likes doing things her very own way, but sometimes she doubts herself. So when a bird named Juju arrives, Kat hopes he’ll be the best friend she’s always wanted. He’s outgoing and silly and doesn’t worry about what others think—the opposite of who she is. Bit by bit, with Juju’s help, Kat discovers her strength, and how to have a friend and be one—while still being true to herself.

*** Which book will you choose? I chose “Opium and Absinthe” as soon as I saw the cover I knew that was this book I had to choose. Let me know which book you choose. ***

[decadentblood]

below the cut, there’s some information about my characters. i’m going to update this later because i can’t keep looking at it but annaleigh and evan are all completed for now ! 

𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘   

brave little foot soldier you have more courage than sense and i’m not quite sure what to make of you. kneel a wayward child and rise a hunter of artemis. glittering silver bow and quiver and arrows made of materials that only gods can think of. glittering circlet on your head identifies you as a favored champion. do not disappoint the one whose gifts keep you standing. 

annaleigh barrow has a particular prowess in archery and incredibly vision at night. at just twenty five, for the last hundred and fifty years, give or take, they have faithfully served the goddess artemis as one of her hunters. though only at the nemean lion for the last five years, they have taken a liking to this place and serve as one of artemis’ representatives. you can typically find them in the armory, working. 

on history

annaleigh has been twenty five for about a hundred and fifty years. 

they were born in 1838 and a middle child in a family of ten.

anna’s mama got pregnant by apollo after her fourth or fifth and anna was born ! totally not a surprise to anna’s mama that a result of an affair would join the family. 

they’d grown up watching their brothers help their father hunt for food but they were never allowed to join and relegated to the more feminine tasks.

when the war rolled around, they were living in the border state of virginia during the war, extremely close to the borderline with maryland. 

anna’s family chose the confederacy. anna chose the union. 

she abandoned her family for the war effort in 1862, joining with a group of women who had medical training as nurses to follow the union army as closely as they could for the preservation of life. anna, bolder than most, had a tendency to go with some soldiers into battle.

in 1863, a few months before their 25th birthday, anna laid their brother to rest and sent home a letter to their mother. to this day, she doesn’t know if they actually read the letter or burned it like they had with the others. 

1863 was an auspicious year for anna. it was the year they almost died. 

in a haze of pain and death and gore, artemis appeared to a bleeding out anna and promised respite. in exchange for their life, anna became one of artemis’ hunters. 

home had never felt real until they’d joined the hunters. 

once a child now a warrior grown, anna has excellent aim and control when it comes to utilizing the gifts of artemis and they only ever want to bring pride to the title of hunter.

they’re well known for getting women home safely and taking down their fair share of would be assaulters — most of them have a broken nose by the time they’ve been picked up by the cops.

anna has a particularly intimidating look to them and they like to keep most people at an arm’s length away. 

it feels easier that way than to lose people that they care about.

𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍

i hear your mother in your infectious laughter and i see your father in your arms, strong and compassionate. i see your step mother in your quick tongue. she was your mother’s gift to your father, after you. she also did right by you, i know that by the way she gave you those little girls who comprise your world. son of aphrodite your blessings are numerous, her love for you present in your everyday. 

evan lowell has a stunning gift, if i do say so myself. mama gifted him the ability to petrify his enemies with a kiss. imagine how that went over the first time. it’s gotten better over the years, and he certainly does his mama proud, but he’s been at lowell longer than most, almost since it opened. maybe that’s why he’s notorious for being the first to chomp at the bit to go on missions ( well, until his baby girls arrived ). now he’s in his office, twin girls running around.

on history

evan lowell doesn’t have a lot of bad days. even the days where things seem like they’re world endingly bad, good always cropped up for him. 

he had a really good childhood, surrounded by little siblings. 

evan’s dad, aiden, met his now-wife, drew ( short for druella ), about ten months after evan was born. aiden and drew have had six kids together, making evan the oldest of seven. he has Always had that Tired Dad aesthetic going on, even though he’s only two years older than his nearest sibling in age. 

evan was always involved in what his little siblings were doing and how he could help his parents. 

he has incredibly fond memories of helping his mama around the house with the chores. by seven he was washing windows and vacuuming like a champ. he had a love for order in the chaos of their household and his desire for a close knit family started here, in these moments. 

drew also taught him how to cook. aiden couldn’t cook for shit and drew thought that at least one of the lowell men should get a grip and learn how to. she also taught him most of the other household skills he knows, from changing a lightbulb to fixing the weather stripping on doors. aiden also taught evan how to work with most tools. 

this close family dynamic set evan up well for his future and for how he treats his own children. but first, we should rewind a little bit. 

evan had Big Fuckboy Energy when he was in high school. he was a jock ( football in the fall, baseball in the spring ), he was voted homecoming and prom king his senior year, and everyone saw him with a revolving door of girls around him. 

this perception is extremely funny to evan, because he grew up incredibly respectful and desiring a relationship like his parents, one as loving and full of laughter. evan never had more than one partner at a time, and his gentle heart was broken pretty easily. high school isn’t the time to be seeking commitment but that’s pretty much what evan desired from the time he could stumble around on his little feet. 

skip forward to age 23. evan met caroline. 

he thought he was going to marry this girl, he was so in love with her. but some things ! they’re just not meant to be ! 

 but lmao he did get her pregnant so that worked out great. 

they’re actually on good terms and they have a court order in place, just in case. they don’t ,,, usually follow it. they co-parent effectively and he still spends most major holidays with her so that the girls don’t feel isolated from one parent or another.

caroline has a girlfriend now, her name is ismelda ! they’re very happy and evan really likes her. 

the twins aren’t totally fleshed out yet but in my defense they are four so they’re still working on developing into their own little people. their names are natalie and nicole. 

𝒌𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒄𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒓𝒆

modern day witch aesthetics don’t begin to cover this kind of power. rose quartz lined windowsills meet tarot readings at midnight and sing the song of a queen of water; that song is about yourself. the  desire to run defeated by roots you didn’t mean to lay.

katharine mcclure spends a lot of time training others in the gym, it’s something that she enjoys doing. she’s intertwined with the weave of her mother’s magic, a gift she shares with most of her siblings. this little girl sewed chaos everywhere she’s been and only changed her ways when she got here. perhaps it’s because she wanted somewhere to belong, wanted somewhere to god. 

on history

katharine mcclure grew up in solitude, not that she minded much. 

her magic manifested itself early and for that she’ll always be thankful. 

she may not have had the best intentions at all times but it’s fine. no one died. 

that she knows of. 

i’ll update this ,,,, more ,,, soon, ,, i promise.

𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒂 𝒐'𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒌𝒆 

a child born of love and hardship, living and dead, she is a melancholic kind of beauty. her eyes sparkle with knowledge long since forgotten and twinkle with life. the voices that trail through her mind aren’t always hers but she understands the desire of wanting to be heard, wanting to be loved, wanting to move on from where they feel trapped. so she helps them. maybe that’s why papa left at eight years old after dropping her off at the nemean lion. maybe that’s why she grew up so lonely. 

melissa o’rourke typically sits at the counter in the lobby as an attendant. there are spirits there who flit about and talk to her, thankful for the first time in years someone could understand them. she just smiles and listens and these things have made her kind. they’re also gossip fonts, those pesky spirits, and people tend to be surprised by the things she knows. she’s been here a long time, a fixture of this place.  

on history

soon

𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. i’m sorry that i press flowers between pages, i just want to preserve a beauty that is fleeting. i’m sorry violence comes from this act. i’m sorry because i don’t feel good enough, like i’m undeserving, like i’m not supposed to be here. is that because i’m the son of a man who holds open the gateway to death or is that because i’m the son of a woman who has never spent more than a week with me at a time? please let me skip to the part where i’m actually happy and not just pretending for the sake of pretending. amen. 

son of hades your bones sing a thousand songs and you don’t want to hear any of them. oliver henstridge grew up relatively well off, but you don’t come to the nemean lion at thirteen because your relationships with the mortal part of your family are all that great. he’ll leave for a week at a time every six to ten months to spend some time with his mother but usually he’s somewhere around the nl, being bothersome, making tiktoks, whatever he feels like doing in the moment. for a boy with the ability to manipulate shadows, to bend that piece of reality to his will and step through them like doors to the other side of the world, he certainly doesn’t take anything too seriously.

on history

soon

on wanted connections

soon

[margueritegibson]

Most Anticipated Debut Author Reads of 2017!!!!!

2017 promises a lot of really fantastic new reads and releases, particularly from debut authors!! There are some books on this list I've been waiting for since this time last year, so I am more than ready to start reading. I order my most anticipated debut author list by release date (though, being super honest, Wintersong is my most anticipated debut author read of 2017, just saying).

Let's start!

Poison's Kiss (Breeana Shields) Released: 10th January, 2017.

A teenage assassin kills with a single kiss until she is ordered to kill the one boy she loves. This commercial YA fantasy is romantic and addictive like-- a poison kiss-- and will thrill fans of Sarah J. Maas and Victoria Aveyard. Marinda has kissed dozens of boys. They all die afterward. It s a miserable life, but being a visha kanya a poison maiden is what she was created to do. Marinda serves the Raja by dispatching his enemies with only her lips as a weapon. Until now, the men she was ordered to kiss have been strangers, enemies of the kingdom. Then she receives orders to kiss Deven, a boy she knows too well to be convinced he needs to die. She begins to question who she s really working for. And that is a thread that, once pulled, will unravel more than she can afford to lose. This rich, surprising, and accessible debut is based in Indian folklore and delivers a story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats

Really excited for this one. My copy is on its way and I'm looking forward to starting immediately.

 Wintersong (S. Jae-Jones) Releases: 7th February, 2017.

Beware the goblin men and the wares they sell. All her life, nineteen-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family’s inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns. But when her sister Käthe is taken by the goblins, Liesl journeys to their realm to rescue her sister and return her to the world above. The Goblin King agrees to let Käthe go—for a price. The life of a maiden must be given to the land, in accordance with the old laws. A life for a life, he says. Without sacrifice, nothing good can grow. Without death, there can be no rebirth. In exchange for her sister’s freedom, Liesl offers her hand in marriage to the Goblin King. He accepts. Down in the Underground, Liesl discovers that the Goblin King still inspires her—musically, physically, emotionally. Yet even as her talent blossoms, Liesl’s life is slowly fading away, the price she paid for becoming the Goblin King’s bride. As the two of them grow closer, they must learn just what it is they are each willing to sacrifice: her life, her music, or the end of the world.  

I've been talking/blogging/generally gushing about this book since early 2016, so to say I'm excited for this is the biggest understatement of the year. The second I get my hands on a copy, I'm doing nothing else but reading.

 Empress of a Thousand Skies (Rhoda Belleza) Releases: 7th February, 2017.

Empress Rhee, also known as Crown Princess Rhiannon Ta’an, is the sole surviving heir to a powerful dynasty. She’ll stop at nothing to avenge her family and claim her throne. Fugitive Aly has risen above his war refugee origins to find fame as the dashing star of a DroneVision show. But when he’s falsely accused of killing Rhee, he's forced to prove his innocence to save his reputation – and his life. Madman With planets on the brink of war, Rhee and Aly are thrown together to confront a ruthless evil that threatens the fate of the entire galaxy. A saga of vengeance, warfare, and the true meaning of legacy.  

 Doesn't this book sound amazing? Gives me The Diabolic vibes, which I loved, plus isn't the cover just gorgeous!

 Gilded Cage (Vic James) Releases: 14th February, 2017.

Not all are free. Not all are equal. Not all will be saved. Our world belongs to the Equals — aristocrats with magical gifts — and all commoners must serve them for ten years. But behind the gates of England's grandest estate lies a power that could break the world. A girl thirsts for love and knowledge. Abi is a servant to England's most powerful family, but her spirit is free. So when she falls for one of the noble-born sons, Abi faces a terrible choice. Uncovering the family's secrets might win her liberty, but will her heart pay the price? A boy dreams of revolution. Abi's brother, Luke, is enslaved in a brutal factory town. Far from his family and cruelly oppressed, he makes friends whose ideals could cost him everything. Now Luke has discovered there may be a power even greater than magic: revolution. And an aristocrat will remake the world with his dark gifts. He is a shadow in the glittering world of the Equals, with mysterious powers no one else understands. But will he liberate—or destroy?

 I just came across this book recently and it looks really interesting. Another early release for 2017.

 Heart Blade (Juliana Spink Mills) Releases: 14th February, 2017.

The Heart Blade will rise in light, or in darkness. Teenage half-demon Del Raven wears a promise in scarred letters upon her skin. Now, pressured to make her first kill and seal her demon nature forever, she flees her pack and forges a dangerous partnership with young angel-blood Ash. But Del isn't the only one on the run from the demons. For seventeen years the Guild of Saint Peter has done its best to hide orphan Rose, a key player in the centuries-old Heart Blade prophecy. The threads tangle, and soon Del, Ash and Rose find themselves in the crosshairs of an ancient war between demons and angels... and the hunt for a mythical weapon that could change the balance of power forever.

 Really looking forward to this one! Looks like a fun, interesting read.

 Daughter of the Pirate King (Tricia Levenseller) Releases: 28th February, 2017.

A 17-year-old pirate captain intentionally allows herself to get captured by enemy pirates in this thrilling YA adventure. Sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove—seventeen-year-old pirate captain Alosa deliberately allows herself to be captured by her enemies, giving her the perfect opportunity to search their ship. More than a match for the ruthless pirate crew, Alosa has only one thing standing between her and the map: her captor, the unexpectedly clever and unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. But not to worry, for Alosa has a few tricks up her sleeve, and no lone pirate can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.

Pirates. That is really all I have to say about this book. Just like with Blackhearts last year, anything to do with pirates will interesting take my interest, so I'm looking forward to reading this one!

 Blood Rose Rebellion (Rosalyn Eves) Releases: 28th March, 2017.

The thrilling first book in a YA fantasy trilogy for fans of Red Queen. In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place. Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary. Her life might well be over. In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells. As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.

 This is another book I've been looking forward to since early in 2016. Blood Rose Rebellion features everything I love in a good book - a fascinating setting, historical undertones, romance, action and mystery! Also, the author is running a fantastic preorder deal at the moment for a map print, signed bookplate and bookmark which you can check out HERE.

 The Traitor's Kiss (Erin Beaty) Releases: 9th May, 2017.

No Cover Yet!

An obstinate girl who will not be married. A soldier desperate to prove himself. A kingdom on the brink of war. With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they’d call a lady―which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls―and on the soldiers escorting them. As the girls' military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks. The more she discovers as a spy, the less certain she becomes about whom to trust―and Sage becomes caught in a dangerous balancing act that will determine the fate of her kingdom.

 This looks like a really intriguing read!

 Shimmer and Burn (Mary Taranta) Releases: 8th August, 2017.

To save her sister’s life, Faris must smuggle magic into a plague-ridden neighboring kingdom in this exciting and dangerous start to a brand-new fantasy duology. Faris grew up fighting to survive in the slums of Brindaigel while caring for her sister, Cadence. But when Cadence is caught trying to flee the kingdom and is sold into slavery, Faris reluctantly agrees to a lucrative scheme to buy her back, inadvertently binding herself to the power-hungry Princess Bryn, who wants to steal her father’s throne. Now Faris must smuggle stolen magic into neighboring Avinea to incite its prince to alliance—magic that addicts in the war-torn country can sense in her blood and can steal with a touch. She and Bryn turn to a handsome traveling magician, North, who offers protection from Avinea’s many dangers, but he cannot save Faris from Bryn’s cruelty as she leverages Cadence’s freedom to force Faris to do anything—or kill anyone—she asks. Yet Faris is as fierce as Bryn, and even as she finds herself falling for North, she develops schemes of her own. With the fate of kingdoms at stake, Faris, Bryn, and North maneuver through a dangerous game of magical and political machinations, where lives can be destroyed—or saved—with only a touch.

 THIS. BOOK. SOUNDS. AMAZING. Oh, and the cover - sooooooooooo pretty. Also, a handsome magician you say, well, that can only end well.

Wicked Like a Wildfire (Lana Popovic) Releases: 15th August, 2017.

All the women in Iris and Malina's family are born with a gleam—a unique way of manipulating beauty through magic. Seventeen-year-old Iris sees flowers as fractals and turns her kaleidoscope visions into glasswork, her twin sister Malina interprets moods as music, and their cold, distant mother Jasmina bakes scenery into decadent treats at her confectionery in Old Town Cattaro, Montenegro. Jasmina forbids Iris and Malina to share their gleams with anyone, and above all, she forbids them to fall in love—being discovered could shatter the quiet lives they’ve built in their tucked-away, seaside town. But Iris and Malina are tired of abiding by their mother’s rules and rebel in secret whenever they can. Yet when a mysterious, white-haired woman attacks their mother and leaves her hovering between life and death, the sisters unearth an ancient curse that haunts their line—a wicked bargain that masquerades as a blessing, and binds the twins’ fates—and hearts—to a force larger than life. To save each other, they must untangle a thousand years of lies and reveal their own hurtful secrets. But even the deepest sacrifice might not be enough. Wicked Like a Wildfire is the first book in a sumptuous, bewitching duology about the power of love, death, magic, and the many faces of beauty.

 I am not going to dance around it - it is the gorgeous cover that first drew my eye. Then I read the synopsis and I was 100% sold. This book sounds amazing!

 Mirage (Somaiya Daud) Releases: 6th November, 2017.

No Cover Yet!

A YA fantasy/SF trilogy inspired by the author's Moroccan background, in which a poor girl from an isolated moon must become the body double to the cruel imperial princess, and learns that life in the royal palace is far more dangerous and complicated than she imagined. Publication of the first book is planned for fall 2017.      

 Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!! This book sounds incredible!!!!!!!!! Another book giving me The Diabolic vibes. I really love the body double/ secret life stories and then perhaps there may be some awesome romance.

 Those are the books that have caught my attention at the moment, but 2017 is young, so I'll probably be coming across many more amazing debut author reads later in the year. I might even do a mid-year most anticipated list, as many of these books release in the first three months of 2017.

[imspardagus]

Talking about Depression : Part I - This will not do

{This two-part paper - and especially Part II - is a work in progress. The deeper in I go, the more precise I have to be, the less confident I feel that I am up to the task of writing it. But it is important, to me at least. So I have published it in this inchoate form in the hope that the help of others, challenging its ideas and offering suggestions, will help me to refine and strengthen it or else to see where it is misconceived.}

I had lived with depression for more than fifty years. It had wrecked my adolescence, my education, my ability to feel joy and my marriage. And I had appeased it.

But when I found it growing inside my children a wave of grief and anger coursed through me. And in its wake I am left with an insistent voice that says, “This will not do”.

   Depression hurts people. It wastes lives.

 It afflicts one in ten of us. That’s a conservative figure. Whether it is affecting more of our young than it used to, or whether we are just now able to accept that it can (my parents’ generation did not believe it could), the figures show that it does afflict them, in large numbers.

 This will not do.

 But what can I do about it? What can I do for my children? I can’t drive it away, as I hope I would do with any rabid beast that was threatening them. I can’t reason with it to leave. Some of the cleverest people in the world and in all history have been unable to break its hold on their minds, and I am so far from being clever by their standards, or my own. I can’t buy their freedom from it. If money was the answer, the rich and famous would not be among its victims. I can’t invent a cure for it. I’m no scientist. Must I content myself with “being there for them”? Can I do more than impotently watch?

 I can talk about it, about my experience of it, and about what I think I have learned. And if I do, perhaps someone else will add their thoughts, if only to correct my thinking. And if we pool what we know and what we think we know, each one adding her or his tiny beam of insight maybe  we can shed enough light on depression to see it for what it is. And maybe then we might be able to save our children and their children from some of the harm it does.

 Some of you will say, I am sure, that we already know all we need to know about depression and, brilliant creatures that we are, we have developed wonderful drugs and clever strategies to cure it. To that I can only shake my head. It is obvious to me that, far as we have come, we have yet to reach the point of understanding depression; and all our treatments so far are at best symptomatic.

 This will not do.

 If you disagree; if you think that there is nothing to consider, nothing to discuss, go in peace. If you are willing to indulge me for a while, please read on.

 A boy named depression

 I first learned that I had a condition known as clinical depression (or major depressive disorder as it is now often referred to) when I was in my mid-thirties. The diagnosis helped a lot. Which was odd because what it added, in terms of understanding, was very little. It simply meant that there was a name for what I now realised had been afflicting me, since I was eleven. Give something a name and you imbue it with substance, rather like when the once brilliant Maureen Lipman said “you’ve got an Ology”. You take away its deniability.

 No, that’s not quite right. It did more than that. It allowed me to see, for the first time, was that all the misery that had dogged my life up to then was not the visitation of occasional, inexplicable, unconnected downward mood swings. Depression, I could see now, was an entire landscape in which these were just the most treacherous ravines and canyons that I had stumbled into. It was a map of lowness where all the contour lines had negative values. Joy was only ever a hope without hope for what might be over in the next valley. Meanwhile the need to watch my feet continually robbed me of the ability to embrace the light-hearted pleasure that my friends carelessly enjoyed. Every day of travel was punctuated by frequent plunges into bogs of cloying despair.

 Less poetically, but more importantly  (because I had come to believe otherwise), I was now able to understand on an intellectual level that all this struggling with a constant sense of failure was not because I was weak, nor because I was a loser, an inept seeker after goals beyond my pathetic ability. It was because something powerful kept dragging me down.

 I delved back into memories. I wanted to know where this had come from. And like Scrooge transported to his past, I saw a boy who had been happy once and confident, a climber of trees and leader of wild, day-long summer games in Valentines Park, a reader of books, a good pupil doing well at school, well regarded, well-liked. Now, as he moved into his teens, suddenly painfully tired and frightened of being seen or heard. “Growing pains”, the doctor called it, “He’s outgrown his strength.” But I saw this boy at his grammar school desk unable to focus on the board or what his teacher was saying because a thick fog of bewildering sadness and unfathomable threat was around him. I saw him as a fifteen-year-old listening in on the weekend exploits of his peers but unable to imagine himself participating; looking at the pairings of strutting boys and achingly desirable girls and shuddering at the mere thought of bringing himself to the attention of any of them, humiliation seeming so much more likely than that someone might find his attentions welcome.

 I saw the lonely young man trying to study law with a brain that would not let him get beyond a paragraph or maybe two before shutting him out, whose evenings were not spent raucously propping up the student bar but alone in his room listening to the tirades of his own mind against his uselessness.

 I saw the young lawyer, taunted in his head by his poor exam results, living daily with the belief that he had no right to the job he had secured; soon everyone surely would see that he was a fraud, just as he already knew himself to be.

 I saw the same young man disabled from engaging intimately with anyone he found attractive by the mere fact of wanting to. I watched him eventually taken in hand by a kind friend but, even then, in the midst of what should have been blissful release into normality, only able to feel wracked with anxiety and guilt. In his mind, he had no business feeling good; in his mind he could only ever be a crap lover.

 I saw now that these were not isolated the one from the other. I saw that they were all connected and the connection was a thing of darkness.

 But I still had no answer to what this thing was, or why and how it was doing this to me.

 Seeing is the first step

 Just the naming of ills can be a great source of comfort. It can even be the key to despatching them. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) rests pretty much on that premise: if you can see the problem, you can change your way of responding to it. Like Ry Cooder singing “Trouble, you can’t fool me, hiding behind that tree”.

 But there’s a problem with depression. It’s not like, say, “compound fracture of the fibula” “cystic fibrosis” or “flu”. The term “clinical depression” does not describe a physical condition such as an injury, organic malfunction or  growth. If only it did. I have known any number of fellow sufferers who have said how much they wished they had a “real” illness, meaning something visible that the rest of the world could recognise and therefore accept and sympathise with.

 Nor does it pin down the cause of a condition (such as “fell off a swing”, or “genetic disorder” or “bacterial invasion”). The diagnosis “depression” is simply the name associated with a collection of identifiers, or symptoms – how you are “presenting”. When a medical professional says you have “clinical depression” all she or he is reporting is no more than that you have scored positive on a set of indicators from which the existence of a state of mind to which the name “clinical depression” has been attached can be inferred. Except in the rare cases where there is a cyst pressing on some part of the brain or a physical dysfunction in the brain’s nerve cells and receptors causing either reduced production of serotonin or over-take-up of it, the diagnosis more properly describes a syndrome than a condition.

 It seems to do more. It seems to lend definition, substance, to the depression: it suggests that there is this entity, this depression. In reality, however, even though the chosen indicators may broadly and conveniently correlate it is has no form or substance. No pathological examination will find it in you. You can’t isolate it, photograph it or measure it except inferentially. And yet, to those afflicted by it, it could not be any more real if it were a massive cast iron ball and chain manacled to their lives.

 I will already be getting shakes of the head from some scientific quarters. No physiological presence? They will want to point me to a chemical imbalance in the brain: specifically too much re-capture of serotonin. But that seems to me to mistake the process for the processor, the messenger for the message. Serotonin in the brain, the presence of which and its take-up are associated with mood, and, in particular, with depression, is not invasive, nor toxic, nor faulty. Nor is it autonomous or self-activating. It is simply a chemical utilised by the brain to bring about a state on mind (and body). If you cannot reach a friend on your cellphone, you do not assume that the radio waves are faulty. You assume that the server is down, or the handset is broken, or something is blocking the signal, or perhaps that you have keyed in the wrong number. Blaming serotonin is like blaming radio waves.

 The question with depression is not whether serotonin is misbehaving: it is not. Nor is the question how your mood is being brought down, because we have evidence almost to the point of knowledge that mood change – specifically enhanced levels of low mood and anxiety (note, these go hand in hand) is because the brain is using the serotonin in a particular way – taking it out of circulation. The question is why your brain is using them to bring down your mood. And it has to be that question because, unless we interfere in the process with our own chemicals, which we call medicines, only the brain can perform this trick on us.

 The question why has two components: why is the brain doing this to us – to itself - and what, if anything, is provoking the brain to do it. They may look like the same question but they are not. Try this: Why am I chewing? Because I need to break down the food in my mouth. But why am I chewing? Because it’s mealtime.

 Let me count the ways

 The onset of depression can often be linked to things that you have been subjected to (this is the “what is provoking the brain” aspect of the question). Across my life, I have witnessed many of them and experienced some.

 I have seen dejection and defeat on the faces of Biafran, Bangladeshi, Rwandan, Kurdish and Syrian refugees. It is horribly consistent: the look of abject surrender to the onslaught of inhumane conflict which has wiped away what little gain that all the years of toiling in grinding poverty had brought them: home, family, security. Their eyes convey a terrifying acquiescent prayer – when you have finished with me, grant me release.

 I have seen unresolved grief born of loss, sometimes of a person, sometimes of health, wash a tsunami of cold, demotivating sadness over the lives of people who had thought themselves strong and contented. And I have felt that grief myself.

 And I have seen another form of grief when dreams finally fall apart and people have to admit that they will never be a ballet dancer, rock star, priest or prime minister, whatever it was that they had set their heart on being, the final surrender of hope turning all the wonder of what they actually are into something bitter and unacceptable; because the dream was their skyhook and its loss has seen them not simply thrown to the ground but broken by the fall.

 And I have seen the shadows of wariness behind the eyes of people whose relentless displays of happiness are a desperate bid to distance themselves from an awfulness haunting them from childhood. The act itself may have taken place a long time ago, the awfulness of it locked away in their mind. But its ghost hangs around them in the form of a cold, enveloping depression. I have seen grown women and men who, as children, were forced to submit to abominable treatment by someone they should have been able to trust. And I have watched as the worm planted inside them eats into their ability to accept joy or kindness unflinchingly, watched as they pick and pick at the gift of love in a compulsive belief that it will hurt them. I have seen them, those who time and again have sought destructive relationships that reinforce their conviction that to be mistreated over and over again is all they deserve.

 But even in all these instances, the descent into depression is not universal or consistent. It is a response that some people have and some people don’t. If you prick me do I not bleed? Yes, of course I do. But even when assaulted by these extreme emotional insults, not everyone becomes depressed.

 What does this tell us? To begin, it confirms that depression is not simply an automatic chemical reaction. Depression is what you experience as a consequence of the chemical imbalance but your brain has created that imbalance. The brains of some people in some way, and at some level, but certainly not at a conscious level, choose depression (which heralds the second aspect of the question why).

 It is significant if we stop to consider the treatment we presently favour for depression. If the drugs you are given to combat depression simply override the mechanism causing the chemical imbalance then whatever in your brain was creating the depression is not being addressed, only circumvented, whatever reason it had, ignored. That is dangerous.

 Here is a car analogy, if your car has an oil leak but when you take it to the garage the mechanic simply tops up the sump, you still have an oil leak. If he finds the hole but only plugs it with some chewing gum, you still have a hole.

 If you artificially “top up” the serotonin levels, you may feel less depressed: if you introduce a chemical that temporarily gums up the receptors draining the serotonin from your system, you may feel less depressed. But that is all.  The brain had a reason for creating what you are experiencing as depression. It had a reason for altering its uptake of serotonin. It was trying to bring about an outcome. Stay on the drugs and you will be distracted from dealing with it. Stop the drugs and, unless there was an external cause for your depression that has meantime resolved itself (as can happen with grief), the likelihood is that the depression will come back.

 Depressive by nature

 That last passage seems to imply that when the brain makes you feel depressed it is always reacting to a specific external threat or cause. But can there be depression without such a cause? Recalling that suggestion a few paragraphs back that “even when assaulted by these extreme emotional insults, not everyone becomes depressed”, is it possible that those who do have a propensity to do so? Do some brains exist in a continuing state of depression? Are these people “depressives” by nature?

 Once I had the name, depression, to hold on to, I tried to associate my recurring bouts depression with one or more of the forms I had identified. I wanted a reason. I wanted to be able to point to a cause. More than that, I wanted the cause to be “out there”. I was a victim. I wanted to know my attacker.

 But this, I came to see after years of painful interrogation, this depression was none of these. It was in a class of its own. I had not been oppressed by war. At 35, I had not yet suffered grief. I had not, to my knowledge, been abused as a child. I was, though I did not feel it, a tolerable success in my career and, though I could not see why, I was well-liked and even respected. I could find no extrinsic cause for how I was. This depression stood alone, with its own reality. It lived within me and had done at least since I was eleven years old. Not injury, not virus, not invasive parasite but a cancer, a thought cancer, the generation by my own mind of despondent feelings: inescapable feelings of emptiness, hopelessness and utter failure, and of being shut out from joy (anhedonia).

 It wasn’t caused by anything. It had been there all that time, directing the soundtrack to my life. Occasionally it was triggered into a heightened (or, more aptly, deepened) state by an event or a memory (these were the plunging valleys and ravines of its landscape). But it was predatory. It found things to hook itself on to; things that, without it, might have been mere setbacks, obstacles and worries. It attached itself to every negative aspect, and even some positive aspects, of my life and turned them into nightmares, gargoyles, monsters worthy of its pain. It was, as Professor Lewis Wolpert elegantly described it, malignant sadness.

 This was clinical depression.

 Like cancer, it seemed incurable. I dutifully tried all the versions of anti-depressants. Some of them brought a little temporary respite. Most made things worse. So much worse that to remain on them was unbearable. The drugs wrapped my brain up in dense cotton wool. They made sustained analytical thinking impossible. My job was sustained analytical thinking. To lose my clarity of thought was, so far from being a relief, a massive confirmation of my worst fears. Worse still. every bout of depression always brought its monstrous sister, anxiety, in tow anyway. And yet all the drugs for depression carried contra-indications of heightened anxiety, and they delivered on their promise. That I did not need and could not stand. Time on drugs was time when thoughts of ending my life were at their most insistent.

 I dutifully tried talking therapies. In theory they seemed to have much to commend them (though, as I will attempt to explain later, I now doubt that they can be of much more value than a crutch to a lame man.) But in practice, in the way they were practised, they seemed more akin to cruel and unusual punishment. Few, very few, of the practitioners I saw seemed to have any insight: into their trade or the humanity of the person before them. It seemed not to occur to them that you were in pain, that more than this, you were exhausted, and that their procedures were also exhausting. They probed with a rote inanity like mental hygienists, fixated upon finding examples of poor self-care with which to challenge you. And in all this, it seemed so cosmetic, gouging painfully into your fragile equilibrium but barely scratching the surface of cloying black ooze of the depression clogging your mind and making it difficult at times to breathe.

 Over time, I came to see that the best you could hope for was to recognise the early signs of resurgent depression and head them off or contain them. I was, for a long while, no closer to finding the answer to why my brain was doing this to me.

 And that was how I lived for years, and am still living now.

 Then, suddenly, it was what I was faced with watching as it attached itself to my children’s lives.

 Then it came for them

 For my daughter, who showed the signs first, though she was the younger of our children, it looked at first as if the break-up of the marriage, her mother and me, followed later by her mother’s decision to move to the US to be with someone she loved, had induced the kind of traumatic response typically found in such children.

 She had always been a bright child, with a strong will that, occasionally, got in her way (like when she refused to have music lessons, preferring to be self-taught to taking instruction). She was creative and popular, morally very sound but always full of fun and curiosity. All this survived the break-up of the marriage itself (which her mother and I handled as amicably as we could manage: we were friends, we loved each other but we could not live together); but not her mother’s departure, a few years later, to America.

 The change was dramatic. She became angry and self-destructive. Hardly a day went by without my having to go into school or talk on the phone to a teacher or deputy head. She dropped all of the good friends she had had and took up with others who would sanction and drive her dysfunctional, self-harming and anti-social behaviour. She would not be helped even though it was evident that she was deeply unhappy. It was agonising for both her mother and me to watch.

 It went on for three years. She refused all offers of help. All we could do was be there, take all the shit and offer occasional trite advice when she was sufficiently in despair to reach out. And I did. I told her, blithely trying to believe it myself, you can choose to be a victim, or you can choose to take back control; after years of experience I would not recommend being a victim. She appeared not to be listening. I blamed myself for not being a good enough parent. I am sure her mother did the same. But something inside our daughter was listening and, as she later confirmed, she knew that she was only hurting herself. She just could not stop herself. It was as if she had to live out all the hurt she was feeling inside.

When the turn-around came, which, mercifully, it did, it was even more astonishing than what had gone before. She ditched the destructive aspects of her life and rebuilt herself. She achieved three good A levels from a school that had wanted to chuck her out. She acquired new friendships that were positive and supportive and became that warm, loving, kind enthusiastic person that the child had been meant to be.

 But when the anger and the rest had melted away, and what had emerged was a thoughtful, mature and very able young woman, it was now impossible, for her and for me, not to be aware of what remained.  She had a black shadow.

 Self-doubt, strong enough to bring her down for days, worries that she will never find out what she wants to be, fears that she is purposeless and without direction and it will always be this way, finally manifesting themselves physically in anxiety-driven stomach disorders that cause her disabling cramps and nausea, these are some of what she has to live with. They are inhibiting her progress, hampering her development. They shut her down repeatedly. They are poisoning her happiness. And nothing that any of us can say or do by way of correction can displace them.

 Our son seemed to have got away without the affliction, surprising given that both his parents were long-term depressed and almost certainly both sets of grandparents too.

 He has had a passion for IT since he was three. By the time he went to secondary school, he knew, self-taught, far more than his teachers (a fact they sensibly realised and utilised after a few initial hiccups). That, I suppose, gave him somewhere to be, to retreat to: the boost that comes from ascendancy over problems. But though he was teased for being a nerd, a term he willingly and self-mockingly accepted until they gave up using it, I came to see that there was so much more to him. He was, and could be, annoyingly rational and clear headed. But he also had great insight into people and, from somewhere, a profound but practical kindness. So far from the classic introspective geek or nerd, he loved engaging with people – all people. Those same friends who taunted him for his logic, turned always to him for help when life knocked them back. There wasn’t, and isn’t, a malicious bone in his body.

 Unlike his sister, he appeared to accept his mother’s decision to move away and got on with life. He showed neither anger nor sadness. He continued to love her and to embrace her presence in his life. He spoke plainly to both of us, his honesty sometimes painful to receive. But he was usually right and I believe his mother and I both appreciated his insights. He also helped dissipate the antagonism between his sister and her and designed and built many of the bridges they needed to come back together.

 If ever emotional intelligence needed an exemplar, our son was it.

 Out in the big world, he proved a success of his own making, determinedly finding the right course at university, and from it the right employer, and he quickly came to be appreciated by his employer for his unusual ability to be the bridge between his IT colleagues and their clients. Everything seemed to be turning out for the best.

  So much so that I tried to believe it, and was glad. But the shadow was there too, waiting to be cast in some period of darkness by the glaring light of emotional pain.

 When his friends were “playing the field”, drifting easily in and out of simple, undemanding interactions that were more like try-outs than relationships, he wasn’t. When eventually he took up with someone it was, for him, deeply felt; and his treatment of her was protective and loving. He cared, he empathised, he resolved. I had already come to see myself as “Son of Lassie” – the sheepdog that is driven by an indefeasibly deep sense of duty to care for his flock. Here before me, I realised, was the son of Son of Lassie. And because of that I started to worry. Being a sheepdog is not something you choose for yourself and it comes at a price and the price is always waiting to be paid.

 His first serious relationship came to an abrupt end after two years. For him it came without warning. I am sure that, as she broke the news to him as they drove back to university to prepare for their first year exams, inside his head he was thinking “what did I do?” He refused to blame his friend. He accepted that she had made her decision. He showed no sign of resentment. Took it all on, and into, himself. The effect on him was devastating. He could not eat for days. Literally could not swallow (I remember having to coax him back, recommending plain soup and thin porridge). His almost hyperactive mind and body slowed dramatically. He seemed defeated.

 In time he recovered but now there was a hint of wariness, of holding back, like a dog that has been beaten and is afraid now of the affection it craves.

 But then along came a new friend. She was one of those people who can light a room just by entering it and we all fell in love with her. My son looked happier than I had ever seen him. The friendship seemed perfect. Watching them together brought me close to joy and tears.

 It lasted three years. Then he sensed that for all that he was happy, and though she was trying to be, she was not. A less emotionally intelligent person would have closed his eyes to the perception and hoped it would somehow just work itself out but he loved her too much to do that. And so, one night he invited her to tell him what was wrong and she did and they realised that, friends though they were, they could no longer be lovers.

 And friends they remained. Close friends. Though she found another man it was always to my son that she turned for help and he could not withhold it. And I watched it eating him up, being unable to cut the tie and walk away, persuading himself that it was his fault that he was alone. Worse, that it was only natural, that there was something wrong with him: “Two long term relationships, both failed. Says something.”

 His work became his consolation. His recreation became a crazed distraction. But when he was still, the shadow of deep sadness was on his face. Depression had made its move on him.

 This will not do.

Part 2 - The Alpha in your head