Blurb:

Adam Macias has been thrown a few curve balls in his life, but losing his VA grant because his car broke down and he missed a class was the one that struck him out. One relative away from homelessness, he’s taking the bus to Sacramento, where his cousin has offered a house-sitting job and a new start. He has one goal, and that’s to get his life back on track. Friends, pets, lovers? Need not apply.

Finn Stewart takes one look at Adam as he’s applying to Candy Heaven and decides he’s much too fascinating to leave alone. Finn is bright and shiny—and has never been hurt. Adam is wary of his attention from the very beginning—Finn is dangerous to every sort of peace Adam is forging, and Adam may just be too damaged to let him in at all.

But Finn is tenacious, and Adam’s new boss, Darrin, doesn’t take bullshit for an answer. Adam is going to have to ask himself which is harder—letting Finn in or living without him? With the holidays approaching it seems like an easy question, but Adam knows from experience that life is seldom simple, and the world seldom cooperates with hope, faith, or the plans of cats and men.

 

Today is the release day for my happy holiday novella, Candy Man– you can find it at Amazon, DSP, or ARe.  It’s also day three of our new puppy! To celebrate, I thought I’d talk a little bit about puppies, heroes, and unconditional love.

Poor Hamster

 

By Amy Lane

 

 

So we got a new puppy on Sunday. She’s positively scrumptious.

She weighs about as much as a heavy sneeze, and she’s the product of an apple-headed Chihuahua and a Shitzu, so her body and paws are both disproportional and unbearably cute.

Our older dog—a chi-who-what—(mommy was a Chihuahua and daddy was a who-what) is terrified of her. He threatens to get aggressive out of sheer self defense from this chewing playing, feisty, fuzzy, big-eyed adorable thing, and the entire family is dedicated to the idea that two small dogs can co-exist in the same house.

We love her already.

So, today, I took them both walking out in the rain. Johnnie, the chi-who-what was fine. He trotted ahead, peed two drops on every lawn, took a dump somewhere obvious where I’d have to pick it up or be dubbed a bad neighbor for life, and was generally thrilled to show off his new snow-man T-shirt that kept his scrawny chi-who-what body warm in the pattering rain.

Geoffie, the shi-chi on the other hand…

Well, she did take a dump, and since she’s about as big as our pet rat Bon Bon, I didn’t feel compelled to pick it up. It would be like trying to pick up rat poop out of the bushes, and seriously, what’s the point. But other than that, she spent most of the trip tucked inside my sweatshirt, watching Johnnie walk with supreme curiosity. Wow—why was he so happy doing that? Will he be nicer to me now mom? Will I be big enough to pee on every yard someday?  I mean, I guess if I was of a firmer constitution, I would have made her walk too, but seriously—it felt like dragging a hamster through a monsoon with a thread of dental floss around its neck.

I mean… she’s my baby.

People get funny about their animals. Our pets are our companions, our confidants, and our comfort.  When we sign on to care for a pet, we sign on for something with a shorter life span than we have—but our hearts don’t know that. Our hearts think that pet is going to be there forever. Signing on to pet-sit for someone is terrifying. Oh Lord—what if you fuck this up? It’s almost worse than baby-sitting—at least with baby-sitting, people won’t laugh at you when you ask for help. And babies have instruction manuals. And at a certain age they can talk. And they very rarely run out of the house faster than a person can catch them, and if they’re old enough to jump you from behind, you can have them arrested.

Animals are hard.

So, in The Candy Man, when Adam Macias is asked to apartment sit for his cousin while his cousin goes out of state for a job opportunity, he’s understandably nervous. His entire life has fallen to crap, and now he has to care for other living beings? When part of his pet-sitting gig goes horribly awry, is it any wonder Adam becomes skittish of the human in his life that means the most to him? I mean, pets are hard, but as long as you’re not violent or neglectful, you can’t really hurt their feelings with your words, right?  (I hope not—I tell my cat Steve she’s an easy slut who would go down on a serial killer if he put tuna in her kibble, and she still rolls over for me like a lemming on Viagra.)  Compared to a relationship, a pet is a walk in the park, a morning feeding, and water all day.

They’re also consolation when we break our own hearts.

So carrying the gerbil/puppy around the block is nothing. Wearing the chi-who-what in my T-shirt is worth the backache. Being a slave to my cat is beautiful submission.  My pets ignore my stupid words and when I say the wrong shit and when I get petty or wrapped up in my job. They love me unconditionally. As long as I take care of their physical needs and pet them, they’re mine.

People are so much harder.

And that’s where Adam is coming from in Candy Man. And something in us resonates with that. God, if we can’t make it work with an animal, what chance do we have with a human?

If we’re lucky—and Adam is—sometimes the human can take care of himself.  Sometimes the human even has some tricks up his sleeve to help take care of the caretaker. Sometimes the human knows how to love just as unconditionally as the cat.

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Lane is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

 

Website: www.greenshill.com
Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com
E-mail: amylane@greenshill.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167
Twitter: @amymaclane

 

 

Amy generously offered  a giveaway on a digital copy of Candy Man to go with her monthly post!

Leave a comment to enter 🙂