4th Starred Review!!!

mainly sunny, beautiful day, temps 25

jut got out of the pool - refreshing. Sat in the chaise lounge and stared at the clouds. So peaceful.

Beautiful day....went into Sutton this morning to pick up some wine for our guests tonight, and some food. Maigret du canard - on the barbeque. Pat has made a bunch of salads for us...

Most of today, though, has been running around getting ready to head out tomorrow morning. Our friends the Mounts will be moving over from the guest cottage to stay here - so we realized it might be nice if they not only had clean sheets and towels, but space in the closets and bureaus and medicine cabinets. Oh my.

fortunately, Deanna's coming tomorrow morning to do the actual cleaning....we're just doing the laundry and some organizing,,, and packing ourselves, of course.

Fun to have them over for a barbeque. Their friend, Trevor Pinnock, is with them. He's a conductor, specializing in Bach. Lots of recordings, lots of concerts. He's at the guest cottage right now going over a score...he's writing an article on the Unfinish Symphony. I'm sure our thoughts on it over dinner will be illuminating. Or something.

Linda, Bethany and I are heading out in a few minutes. I thought it would be fun if the girls had afternoon tea togther, then we'll come back for a swim, cocktails and dinner.

Woke up to the absurdly wonderful news that BURY YOUR DEAD has received an extremely rare fourth starred review - it's from Publisher's Weekly. There are 4 pre-publication journals that are extremely influential. They're the first to read a book, before it comes out...and their thoughts often set the tone of how a book will be received. All my others have received starred reviews from 3 of the 4 - but this is the first time all four have given a book starred reviews. It's extremely rare in publishing and I'm over the moon.

Here's what they said...as an excerpt...

At the start of Agatha-winner Penny's moving and powerful sixth Chief Insp. Armand Gamache mystery (after 2009's The Brutal Telling), Gamache is recovering from a physical and emotional trauma, the exact nature of which isn't immediately disclosed, in Québec City. When the body of Augustin Renaud, an eccentric who'd spent his life searching for the burial site of Samuel de Champlain, Québec's founder, turns up in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society, Gamache reluctantly gets involved in the murder inquiry.... Few writers in any genre can match Penny's ability to combine heartbreak and hope in the same scene. Increasingly ambitious in her plotting, she continues to create characters readers would want to meet in real life.


Yipppee! (that's my yippee, not PW's) A great day - starting with the news of the fourth star, and ending with dinner with great friends. How kind life can be.

On the other end of it, Michael and I are heading to Granby tomorrow morning, to see jacques and Louise. We have no idea what the future holds, but it seems that for Jacques, it is shorter than he'd hoped. But as I mentioned yesterday, he's a peace, and in palliative care. oddly, Bal Mount, one of our guests tonight, is the doctor who created Palliatve Care in North America. We're looking forward to thanking him.

But it will be difficult, of course, to leave Jacques tomorrow. And say goodbye. Though we all cross that river.