Barbara's Blog

  Happy Father's Day, Dad. Dad memories. Dad was a classic '50s dad, a Marine Corps vet who'd served in World War 2 and a born scout master. Here he is with my brother and my Mom. He was Scout Master for the troop at our church for years. Having grown up very poor in a large family, he loved nature. Memories of Dad include him taking us on nature hikes in Marshall Canyon in (I think) LaVerne: there was a little "nature museum" there with a butterfly collection and a tiny zoo of snakes and lizards out back. A couple of times a year he'd take us for an over-nighter at Joshua Tree - at the time, the campsites there consisted of a water-pipe and faucet sticking up from the ground at the end of a long single lane of badly-weathered asphalt, and a couple of out-houses (Porta-Potties not having been in use at the time, these were permanent structures). We'd drive out Saturday morning, set up a tent, make lunch, walk among the rocks and desert, have dinner, look a

  First review is in for the next Hollywood mystery, Saving Susy Sweetchild - and I'm happy to say Kirkus really loved it! SAVING SUSY SWEETCHILD Author: Barbara Hambly Review Issue Date:  July 15, 2024 Online Publish Date:  June 15, 2024 The moral compass of an English expatriate will not let her ignore some of Hollywood’s more sordid exploits. After losing her husband, family, and fortune to World War I, Emma Blackstone has been reduced to working as a dogsbody when she’s rescued by her American sister-in-law, Kitty Flint. Kitty, aka Camille de la Rose, is a lovely but terrible actress of the silent screen whose affair with the studio head allows her to keep churning out movies. Emma, who’s ignored all sorts of illegal and morally repugnant activity, finds that she can’t ignore the treatment of child star Little Susy Sweetchild on the set of Kitty’s latest film. Susy provides financial support for her beautiful but untalented actress mother, Selina Sutton, who’s unconcerned when

  One of the extremely Japanese experiences of my recent journey to Japan (I got back Thursday) was the robot waiters in a restaurant in Takaoka - like the evil Daleks of Dr. Who reduced by age and circumstance to being painted bright yellow and playing "Turkey In The Straw" as they bore trays to tables. I learned later that these are, in fact, drones operated from home (like the little red wagons that ply Santa Monica Blvd in LA), often by persons with disabilities. One orders the food by tablet on the table itself (it would have been easier had my knowledge of Japanese been better), and the Daleks themselves were pretty entertaining. Other experiences included attending a Tea Ceremony (in full formal kimono - which required a professional to arrange), closing down a couple of bars, singing karaoke, and appearing with members of the dojo where I train in an all-Japan aikido demonstration at the Tokyo Budokan. (About 500 dojos participated, 5 at a time and each limited to 90

Here we all are - Mom and us in that trailer-park in China Lake in the middle of the Mojave Desert. September of 1955. Happy Mother's Day, Mom! The usual apologies for not posting before this. A lot of small errands, and trying to work in between them: switching insurance carriers, getting stuff done on the house in order to accomplish that, prepping for a summer of long-distance travel. I haven't been out of the country - I don't think - in over twenty years. This summer I'll be two weeks in Japan, and a week in Spain at the Celsius 232 Literary Festival.  It's been difficult to concentrate on work. Since both trips will involve carry-on only - and about half the carry-on to Japan will be gi's (a group from our dojo is going to train at the home dojo of our aikido style - two and three classes a day) - there's a certain amount of stress about what to take. Fortunately, one can fit a WHOLE lot of books onto a single iPad. In the meantime, doing as much as I

  My apologies for the long hiatus, once again. In addition to finishing the usual round of line-edit + copy-edit on the next Hollywood book, Saving Susy Sweetchild, a lot of things to do: minor health fixes, the Gallifrey One convention, and the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Book Collectors Show (and a couple of truly lovely evenings with friends). The Paperback Show is always entertaining. In addition to a staggering number of old paperbacks - many of which I remember reading in the '60s (there was a bookstore on Holt Blvd in Pomona that I'd bike down to on Saturdays: we referred to it as "Dirty Earl's" because of the goods on offer in the store's back room) - there are dealers specializing in the cover-art of the 1940s-1970s era. And, the show (and especially Tom Lesser - Thank you, Tom!) makes sure it has a day-long rotation of authors to sign those paperbacks. In addition to chats with fan and writer friends, I found such things as English translations of

  Two memories of this time. First, two years ago this day was my Mom's funeral - Valentine's Day, 2022. I can smile when I think of it because I know she was so happy to go, and her funeral meant that I could think of it in terms of, "How appropriate that this is the day; the first Valentine's Day they'll be able to be together in seven years. How happy that'll make them both."  It was, of course, right in the middle of the pandemic, so though Mom passed away in January, funerals at the National Cemetery in Riverside were so backed up that she couldn't be buried until Feb. 14, and had to spend a month in a refrigerator someplace in Colton. When we got to the cemetery the driveway where the processions assembled looked like a drive-in vaccination site at the height of the pandemic: divided into lanes with cones, with three other funerals cued up ready to roll before us. It was all... very strange and a bit surreal. Though after two years I'm still

Here's an old one, to remind me that I really do need to get back to painting. Having turned in the manuscript for the next Hollywood murder mystery just before Christmas, I've been putting together outlines for what I hope will be the next Ben January book (# 21!) and the next Hollywood book (which will take place mostly in the film industry in New York, which was just as much a center of motion picture production in the mid-'20s as Hollywood was, and a lot more fun after hours). Writing up an outline is like pre-writing the book. I, at least, have to figure out what happens, and how; who's the villain, who gets killed, and why. Any murder mystery is actually two stories: the story of the crime itself, and then the story of how Mr. Holmes or Lord Peter or Professor Tamar figures out whodunnit. And, in my case at least, to give a picture of the world, the society, in which such events take place, which is a large part of the fun. It's one reason I love historicals.