Liza Larkin is a pathology resident with a schizoid personality disorder that makes interacting with people very difficult. Liza’s mom, who has schizophrenia, lives in an institution. Her father, who provided her stability and unconditional love as she grew up, is dead. Now she relies on her psychiatrist, Dr. Lightfoot, to assist her in dealing with the difficulties of social relationships. Her father taught her well, but challenges to her preferred reclusiveness continually beset her. For these reasons, Liza seems like an unlikely warrior for justice; yet, she has a visceral antipathy toward injustice that compels her to help people she cares. She knowingly puts herself in danger for the sake of others.
In this second book of the series, Liza suspects that a friend’s aunt was murdered despite no evidence to support her suspicion. While sleuthing on her own, she’s challenged to keep a major research grant (and her professional future) from falling through the cracks while her preceptor copes with a family crisis. Liza also runs up against Chopper, a shady character from the previous novel, who threatens to blackmail her. She (and we) really don’t want to know how he got that nickname.
The story is told from Liza’s point-of-view so we only know what she knows, making this novel a thrilling puzzle. I felt I was right there alongside Liza, trying to figure out how her friend’s aunt might have been murdered and why. My only criticism of the novel is that Liza spends a lot of time ruminating, thinking through all the possibilities of whatever problem she’s trying to solve. There were a few moments when I wanted her to stop thinking and start doing, but those ruminations also offer a deep dive into Liza’s brain. She is highly intelligent, capable of incredible focus and memory retention. Yet, like other humans, she has her flaws and vulnerabilities. “Seeing” Liza socially mature and learn to ask for help as well as offer help is a real bonus. Rubin has a gift for character development and for keeping the reader on the edge of her seat. I am looking forward to more novels in this series.
You can find Malignant Assumptions at Amazon (print and Kindle versions) and Bookshop (print versions). Audio versions are available at Audible, Libro.fm, and Spotify.
Thank you for reading! Here’s your prize:
Raji curled up on one of my weird pillow creations.
It is my honor to be part of Elizabeth (Liz) Gauffreau’s blog tour for her latest poetry collection, Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right. Liz is a wonderful poet, storyteller, book reviewer, and blogging friend. If you don’t already subscribe to her blog at lizgauffreau.com, please do so now! We’ll wait.
Okay, now that you’re back, let’s continue with the tour!
Today Liz shares photos of ruins in Pawtuckaway State Park as well as a bit of the area’s fascinating history.
Without further adieu, here’s Liz!
Thank you, Marie, for hosting me on my blog tour for Simple Pleasures: Haiku from the Place Just Right! For today’s tour stop, I’m sharing photos from a set of ruins in Pawtuckaway State Park, which is a hop, skip, and a jump from our house in Nottingham. These ruins provide the larger context for one of the poems in Simple Pleasures.
The Pawtuckaway region was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples, the Pennacook, a division of the Algonquin Natives. The Pennacook were hunter gathers, who referred to Pawtuckaway as the land of “sticks and stones” because it wouldn’t support crops. When European settlers moved in, they thought they knew better. They cleared the land of trees; built houses, barns, and stone walls; and planted crops. However, the farms were not profitable because—wait for it—the land wouldn’t support crops. The early settlers’ descendants finally abandoned their farms at the end of the 19th century and joined the westward expansion. (Source: https://blog.nhstateparks.org/tucked-away-in-pawtuckaway/)
Walking along the trail that goes around Pawtuckaway Lake, we come upon the last signs of those abandoned farms: derelict stone walls and cellar holes.
The glacier strikes again! This so-called boulder field was created 18,000 years ago when a mile-high glacier slowly moved through the area, picked up boulders from a nearby mountain and deposited them here. (Source: https://blog.nhstateparks.org/tucked-away-in-pawtuckaway)
Author Biography
Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. Her work has been widely published in literary magazines, as well as several themed anthologies. Her short story “Henrietta’s Saving Grace” was awarded the 2022 Ben Nyberg prize for fiction by Choeofpleirn Press.
She has published a novel, Telling Sonny, and a collection of photopoetry, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance. She is currently working on a novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret, based on the closing of the last poor farm in Vermont in 1968.
Liz’s professional background is in nontraditional higher education, including academic advising, classroom and online teaching, curriculum development, and program administration. She received the Granite State College Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband. Find her online at https://lizgauffreau.com.
Reading this collection was like forest bathing, the photos of Liz’s favorite outdoor places filled with green mountains, blue lakes, red and yellow leaves, gray rocks, white trees, and pink-tinted and fiery sunsets. And yet the photo and haiku that stirred my soul the most was that of the snow-covered pond with a border of dark trees in the background.
the pond in winter windswept snow, crystalline sky frigid air, silence
I spent the first 21 years of my life in upstate New York, among farms just northeast of Albany. Although I often say that fall was my favorite season, sometimes I miss winter more, especially the silence of winter.
Simple Pleasures is a wonderful pairing of photographs and poetry. You’ll want to keep this book by your bedside or writing desk for when you want to enjoy a simple pleasure or to be inspired.
At this time, I still don’t know if the year-long program with Summer Brennan on Substack will resume. A few weeks ago, one of our group reported that he had (finally) talked with Summer’s agent and was told that she was fine but dealing with a family tragedy. The relief that she was fine was palpable … even in an online group. But we are still in limbo, only being told that she planned to “update” us later, in the next session which starts September 1. And while that is tomorrow, my sixth sense tells me we will still be in limbo. And so the anxiety continues, especially among those who feel they should get a refund for the missed sessions. Lesson learned: Substack is not at all helpful in that regard. Firstly, the platform prefers that you work that out with the writer. Secondly, if the writer is incommunicado and you’ve paid for a full year (as I did), then there needs to be at least six months of inactivity in order for a refund to be considered. Not that I was planning to ask for a refund. Like I said, lesson learned.
Friendship
A friend mentioned in passing the other day how she was planning to go to Maui with a few girlfriends. It made me feel sad. I thought about when I last had a group of girlfriends. It was the early 80s and I remember four of us (including the above-mentioned friend) getting together at someone’s house. The four of us worked at the same engineering firm in California. I don’t remember where we were and why we were together but I do remember we had fun and it was a rare occurrence for me to enjoy being with more than one or two people at a time. In fact, most of my friendship have been duos or trios. When I was working on my master’s in English at Florida State University in the 90s, three of us became attached, to the point where one professor said, “When I see one of you, the other two aren’t far behind.” The trio is no more. One of us moved and married and had children. The other realized she really didn’t like me after all.
The commonplace book is an ancient tradition for copying out quotations. Brilliant thinkers throughout history have kept commonplace books including John Milton, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, and Octavia Butler.
I used to copy quotations all the time when I was a student. It was the most fun part of keeping a journal, and I still consider those journals the most insightful about my life during those times than the seemingly endless and always boring rants of being unlucky in love or under-appreciated at work.
As a book reviewer, writing down quotes goes a long way to helping me write the reviews. Sure, if I’m reading on my Kindle, I can “highlight” and review those highlights. But it’s not the same as picking up my notebook and pen and jotting the quote down.
I have a few blank notebooks lying about (of course). I doubt that I will actively participate in Jillian’s club (see link above). I’m already far behind in reading and connecting online.
Healthcare
I’ll spare you the rant I shared with a friend earlier today about the compartmentalization of our healthcare system. To wit: regarding a swollen foot, I was referred to my primary doctor who referred me to a vascular clinic who referred me to a vein specialist who I have yet to see. At this point, three doctors with none of them having anything definitive to say about my foot. If the vein specialist refers me to another specialist, I might give up on healthcare altogether.
(I am fine. Really. My right foot tends to swell but I’m doing all the right things and pretty soon I’ll have a bunch of compression socks to wear … when it gets cooler.)
My sister Shirley would have turned 78 today, August 2. I don’t know when the feature photo was taken but it was sometime in the 1960s. Even though the photo is decades old, it’s how I remember her. In my memory, no matter how much I change, she doesn’t.
I miss her. She knew how to party.
Having a lot of fun at our brother’s wedding reception (the first one).
A new zinnia popped up after the pink one (see the pink one here). I started sharing photos of the bud on Instagram and then got distracted. Next thing I knew, the bud had fully bloomed.
Yay, another zinnia bloom!
One of my problems with social media is that I’m not spontaneous enough. I share a couple of photos of the zinnia bud, but then I get busy and even just uploading a photo to IG seems to take too long. So I tell myself that I’ll post later and later becomes a few days later.
Cats
For the last few days, I’ve been cat-sitting for our neighbors across the street. Although I “know” their cats (they are indoor-outdoor cats and occasionally visit our driveway), it’s quite an experience dealing with their eccentricities.
Kitty Meow Meow waiting to be served.Frankie being his goofy self.
Frankie is very easy-going and Kitty Meow Meow can be but she’s finicky about her food. Fun. She’s finally realized that she only gets food when I come over. No 24/7 room service so she’s getting better about eating what I put in front of her (sort of). I know they will be glad when their staff return (which will be late tonight), but I do appreciate having this time to bond with them.
Writing
I’m in another lull with my writing. I’ve been busy with other things (like I just had to take a Zoom class on basketweaving), but the year-long workshop I was taking (A Year of Writing Dangerously) has hit a snag.
Around mid-June, the host, Summer Brennan, informed us that she had a family emergency but hoped she’d be back with us soon. We haven’t heard from her since. Most of us have had such family emergencies and can attest to how all-consuming those emergencies can be.
Initially I thought I could carry on without Summer. Many writers in the group seemed to want to keep some momentum in the hopes that she will be back.
Then I thought it didn’t matter whether I wrote or not. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for a year-long commitment (even though the commitment was to write daily not necessarily engage in the group daily).
I’ve been doing other things (like basketweaving) to try and avoid the issue, but I keep going back to the group’s Substack chat to see if someone knows something. We are worried about Summer, but none of us has any direct connection to her. Emails have been sent to her, but not answered.
This workshop was to be broken into 6 six-week sessions, with the 5th session to start on September 1. I keep telling myself I’ll decide then whether I’ll stay with the group. There’s some nice people in the group, but right now it’s just an “accountability” group, people checking in and reporting on how they have or haven’t been writing. Even if Summer comes back, I don’t feel like my heart is in it anymore.
Books
I have a few book reviews due and more than a few books that want to be read. Instead of writing, I listen to audiobooks (in some cases, even when I already have a print copy) while doing something like walking, weaving, or cleaning.
Photos
I have a lot of old family photos to go through. I need to upload some of them to share with my cousins, others to share with my nephews and brother-in-law.
I have so many things I want to do that I often wind up reclining on my bed and reading and typing on my iPad — as I am doing now.
So nice of Raji to keep me company.
Have you ever had a workshop experience that left you unmoored, without a compass? How did you cope?
What keeps you writing? Is it ever difficult to keep still long enough to write?
I neglected to mention that I’m also writing letters and postcards encouraging people to vote. The letters are difficult as my handwriting has really gotten bad. I’m hoping the postcards will be easier to manage.
For this week’s challenge, Tina encourages us to “explore the habitats of both human and/or animal “residents.” She includes a quote by the Dalai Lama:
The reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to co-exist on this small planet.”
Sadly, interdependence, biodiversity, climate change are all “dirty” words here in Florida. At least, officially “climate change” can no longer be referenced in any government document. As if climate change won’t exist if the words aren’t spoken or written.
Thankfully, near us is a very special habitat that nurtures biodiversity. A place that I frequently write about.
Some of the following photos are old, of the BCP (Before Cell Phone) Era. They represent various views of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (SMNWR) over the years. As many of you know, SMNWR is a favorite place of ours for bicycling. (It used to be a favorite place for hiking, but our feet, knees, and backs won’t tolerate those long walks any more.)
SMNWR provides habitat for deer and a safe haven since the Wildlife Management Area next to the refuge allows hunting during certain times of the year. We see a lot of deer in the refuge when it’s hunting season.
You can’t have a sustainable habitat without allowing some impressive predators to co-exist whether they be snakes, alligators, or bald eagles.
Another favorite habitat is Mashes Sands Beach. It’s what I call a “poor man’s Riveria” as it’s a small beach on an estuary. It harbors a delicate ecosystem. Such as a tiny hermit crab in a tiny shell.
Or many hermit crabs burrowing in the wet sand.
Or an osprey on the hunt.
Then there’s the habitats we create in order to encourage and nurture biodiversity. My husband and I are members of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. A modest membership includes a subscription to Wings, a seasonal collection of essays on invertebrate conservation. In the Spring 2024 issue, Scott Black wrote “Planting Habitat as an Act of Hope.” His brief essay did, indeed, give me hope.
Scott wrote about his family’s efforts to transform their lawn into a garden that would provide pollen and nectar for insects. He noted that because of these changes, their “yard has become a magnet for wildlife.” He added:
There is hope, despite what we see in the news. Insects are resilient, and we know that protecting and managing high-quality habitat can quickly produce positive outcomes for insect populations, sometimes within a few years, on a time scale that means we will see the difference.
In our little corner of the world, as my husband and I work to provide a nurturing habitat for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and dragonflies, to name a few, in less than two years we are seeing a difference.
An Eastern Carpenter Bee entangles itself in the tiny flowers of an Anise Hyssop.
A Gulf Fritillary feasts on the nectar of a Blue Mystic Spiral.
Another Gulf Fritillary prefers the flowers of a yellow lantana.
Last month I had the pleasure of an photo op with an American Lady. The butterfly must have just emerged from its chrysalis as it made no attempt to escape my lens.
And while we have several poles placed around our house to accommodate the hunting practices of dragonflies, this one decided he preferred a plant hanger.
Finally, a nurturing habitat is necessary for the domesticated animals in our lives. We are fierce believers in keeping our cats indoors. Over the years, we have had to allow for a few stray cats to live outdoors, although they would always have access to shelter in our garage. This wasn’t because they preferred to be outdoors; it was only ever because our house was already full of cats and we knew (through traumatic experience) that the then-indoor cats would not peacefully coexist with the outdoor cats. Eventually, though, as one cat died, one or two was introduced to the indoors … permanently.
The last cat we brought in from the outdoors was Raji. He was very young when he turned up in our yard almost four years ago. He was a shy, suspicious cat and it took some coaxing and a lot of patience to get him into our garage where we would feed him.
Because he was so young, we didn’t want to let him have free reign outside. We were afraid that he would disappear or get hit by one of the many cars that speed through our neighborhood. But we also needed time. We needed him to accept us before we introduced him to the rest of the household.
So we bought a two-level cat cage and my husband “installed” it on the side deck. We already had a cat-door on the garage door so once the “condo” was installed, Raji could enjoy the outdoors without getting loose.
Thankfully, Raji’s habitat is now fully indoors with us and Wendy. Below is Raji in his natural habitat.
Many thanks to Tina for this challenge. I could have kept writing and sharing photos about all kinds of habitats, but, hopefully, the ones in this post will suffice. Habitats are many and varied, some more nurturing than others.
And many thanks to Egídio for last week’s challenge. I am still amazed by how his challenge changed how I see my photos, and how I now compose them.
An important announcement: As in previous years, the Lens-Artists team will be on hiatus for the month of July. There will be no challenge on July 6th, and the rest of the month will be led by several amazing Guest Hosts. They include:
July 13: Leanne of Leanne Cole explores TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
The Lens-Artist team will be back on August 3 when Patti once again leads us on her Pilotfish Blog.
For more information on joining our challenge, click here. Remember, if you’d like to participate in any challenge, always include a link to the original post for the challenge, and include Lens-Artists as a tag so we can find you.
A Gulf Fritillary chrysalis, from a few days ago. We didn’t get to see this guy emerge but we have had a lot of butterflies, including Gulf Fritillaries, in our garden so far this season.
This week’s Lens-Artist Challenge is being hosted by Egídio of Through Brazilian Eyes. The challenge is simple but also eye-opening (no pun intended). Egídio asks us to share images that have two rectangles:
By two rectangles, I mean you have two dominant rectangular areas in your image. For many people, this is one of those compositional tools we use without thinking about it. These rectangles give balance, harmony, and unity to a composition.
He offers some wonderful examples and explanations (essentially offering a mini-photography course), and I encourage you to visit his website.
While I knew I’d probably find rectangles galore in my archive, I decided to snap a few new photos just for this challenge.
First up, our backyard shed.
Cute, isn’t it? But consider the white trim that superimposes a square and a few rectangles over the rectangles of the gray boards. Consider too the rectangular steps that my husband made so we could keep our balance going in and out of the shed. The lines provide visual balance as well.
Next, consider two images of our fence, facing inward.
Image #1
Image #2
The first image is broken into thirds: the sky, the upper part of the fence, and the lower part, all of which are rectangles in the image. The second image omits the sky and while I like it because it provides a bit more of the fence, I prefer the first. When I’m taking photos outdoors, it’s rare when I would purposely omit the sky, even if the sky isn’t the subject of my photo.
Speaking of sky, the next photo is of the same area of our patio but at night. My subject was supposed to be a crescent moon, which of course, shows up as if it were a full moon. Still, I like the composition.
In his post, Egídio writes about Rabatment, a technique of putting a square inside a rectangle. I think I could argue that that is happening in the above photo, with the darker right-hand side of the fence and foliage providing a kind of frame.
Here’s a quirky image of rectangles as a frame for the subject of my photo: a Gulf Fritillary newly emerged from its chrysalis. This is the underside of the railing on our small side deck that leads out onto our patio. I really had to contort my body to get this photo.
And here’s a classic example of two (or more) rectangles in an image …
… on our favorite bike trail at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.
Finally, a bit of fun. In April we went to Uvalde, Texas (via San Antonio) to see the Total Solar Eclipse. Our tour guide had reserved the Uvalde County Arena for our viewing. I wonder if I can get a sign like this for our front yard.
The arena itself offered very nice composition for photography.
Now, really finally, … can you see the rectangles?
Raji (ginger cat) and Wendy (Tortieco) on their windowsill perches.
If you would like to participate in this week’s challenge (and I hope you do), please note that pingbacks do not work with Egídio’s site. You will need to put your link in the comments on his post. Also, please use the “Lens-Artists” hashtag to it easier for others to find your post.
Last week, Ritva focused on backgrounds and how they affect our composition. That was so much fun and everyone had wonderful examples to share. Next week, Tina will host the next Lens-Artist challenge on Saturday, 12 noon (EDT in the USA). Stay tuned. Please see this page to learn more about the Lens-Artists Challenge and its history.
Lens-Artists team member Donna of Wind Kisses is taking a break from blogging for personal reasons. She will be very much missed but, hopefully be with us again before too long. We wish Donna and her family only the best, as our thoughts are with all of them.
The day is almost over but wait … there’s still time to post a macro!
Featured: a Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus) on a Butterfly Bush (Buddleja dividii).
Funny story: I bought the Butterfly Bush a few years ago and kept it in a pot on our deck for a long while. Although its blooms were profuse, I never saw any butterflies on it. Then we decided to plant it in our garden area (it was getting way too big for a pot). A year goes by. It blooms. Still no butterflies.
Until yesterday.
This skipper was so focused on feeding that I was able to take several photos.
Marie at 1 Write Way 