ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

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On Nerdy Writers, Misunderstanding Of

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Me, to a friend: No matter how many times I say it, they just don’t get it. It’s like I am speaking Tusken or something.

Friend: I am pretty sure they speak Italian in Tuscany. There is a Tuscan dialect, but…

Me: No, Tus-KEN. You know, Sand People? On Tatooine? ::making growling noises:: Rawr rawr, krayt dragon?

Friend: Ilona, you’re a very smart woman, but sometimes you are so weird.

###

Me: … there is a term specifically for making a speech in Congress that’s aimed at your constituents and has nothing to do with taking care of business at hand.

Jeaniene Frost: Grandstanding?

Me: No, there is a term. There is a specific term. Why can’t I remember what it is… Gordon, you had a minor in political science. What is it called?

Gordon, raising his voice so Jeaniene can hear through the phone: I have no idea what she is on about.

Me: Nevermind. I’ll remember it.

Fifteen minutes later, in the middle of a completely unrelated business topic

Me: Buncombe speeches! That’s what it’s called and it’s called that because some dude from North Carolina got up after a month of debates about admitting Mississippi as a free state and started rambling and saying nonsense, and when other Congressmen called him on it, he told them he was talking not to Congress but to people of Buncombe county of North Carolina. That’s where terms bunk and debunk come from…

Jeaniene Frost and Gordon: …

Me: What?

###

Nice contractor person: Did you write all these books?

Me, distracted by work: Yes.

Nice contractor person: What’s this one about?

Me: It’s about a small bed and breakfast in a Texas town that secretly welcomes aliens from outer space.

Nice contractor person: So like, aliens with big heads?

Me: No, they are more like space vampires, and space werewolves, and like giant hedgehogs.

Nice contractor person: So like monsters?

Me: Not always. Sometimes there are cute space philosopher chickens.

Nice contractor person: … How do they sleep at the inn?

Me, smiling: In cute custom coops.

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Comments

  4. Even your frustration is well written & amusing. I can relate to the word remembering thing. But then I’m 70.

    • Yep. 71 here. Been there, still doing that.

      I started losing words – temporarily, anyway – 15 or 20 years ago. It’s random stuff and I usually come up with the word before long. (Though I did look for “Rottweiler” for 3 days. I could picture the dog, see it riding in a pickup truck, I just could *not* name the breed.)

      It is getting worse, along with my mild dyslexia, as I get older. My eyes are misreading more words than I used to. “Wait a minute – did I really read that?” happens every day.

      The alternative is worse. I’ll manage.

      • True.

        But I hate this too. Have reached this age, too.

        First time I remember this happening to me, it was grade school, on a test, and I could picture the page of the text book, and the place on the page, where the answer I wanted was, but couldn’t get the answer itself to come up. Ugh. After the test, i stomped to the book, opened to the page, and read the answer. It was right where I had pictured it to be.

        House Andrews, thank you for the reminder about bunkum. I had forgotten the Congressman.

      • my doctor started using the phrase “you’re at that age…..” when i was in my 40’s asking about my glasses. i lost the word forklift at work one day when i was 37 and it freaked me out. now i just say, i’ve lost the word and describe it until it comes back. (remember the tv show password?) My older sister is 60 and went from Mild cognitive impairment to dimensia last month…sigh.

        • Lost the word forklift too. Moved my arms like forks and said “…you know, the thingie!” After staring at me for a minute one of the guys put his hand over his eyes and said ” Oh mannnn I know what she’s talking about.”

          • I lost the word “snowmobile” and was saying “jet skis for snow.” I mean, not wrong, just not…precise. Yet my teenage mocks me for it, even months later. Sigh. No respect for his elders.

      • I am usually not dyslexic. However, when I visited Montreal, Quebec in 1989 for the first time, I was reading everything as English initially. At the time, both English and French were used on billboards. There were huge signs on apartments everywhere with

        For Rent
        A Louer

        It was very startling. I had automatically substituted the U in the French with a V ????

      • Oh my Dyslexia …. How about authors who use names that look alike or start with the same letter – to some of us with dyslexia who sometimes can only recognize words by the shape of their letters it gets so confusing as to which person is which when they have look alike names. Or to sit in the middle of an college essay exam trying to figure out how to spell “that” or “who” or “which”…. So much fun …not.

      • I can’t remember any time in my life when I haven’t lost words only to then come up in my head at a completely random time entirely too late to matter. It’s exactly as you describe it. I can see it. I can see where I saw it, but I can’t for the life of me remember its name.
        There’s a name for this, but I can’t remember what it is?

  6. Thanks for the Buncombe info…I love random information like that!
    And I don’t think your thought processes are hard to track at all. 😀

  8. Being weird is great, who wants to be normal? Although, I mostly like keeping my weirdness just below the surface, cause normal people can be tiresome.

      • Sometimes, we scare normal people. I am an introvert and still find it very difficult to start a conversation. People scare me. I’m a lot better but can’t read them.. I always carried a book and hid behind it. At that time, my goal was to just say hello to 3 people a day – turns out I was doing behavior modification. Imagine my surprise when one of the people I randomly said hi to approached me at lunch and asked if it would be ok to sit with me. People thought I thought that I was superior to them and were afraid to approach me. I said yes and eventually ended up with people to have lunch with. Apparently being terrified looked like snobbery.

  9. Three of us at work just spent ten minutes trying to remember the name of a restaurant that went out of business 20 years ago. I finally called a friend who immediately knew it. Welcome to our world

  12. Happy Monday! Thanks for the chuckle!

    BTW, you should have been a librarian! We live for odd random bits of knowledge.
    And most people think we are weird. 🙂

  13. Using the picture of the tree of the vampires to start this made me really wonder if perhaps there might be a continuation of the Innkeepers mentioned. *sigh* I mean, we all know Klaus is an arbitrator because he recruited George. But the parents are still missing. Klaus is back in Maud’s life for some reason. He couldn’t go to earth, he never went back to where she was before exile, he obviously sent George to her rescue, but did he find the parents?

    Only you would actually know and be able to pull up the fact that Buncombe speeches exist, never mind actually gave us words we use without knowing their origins. You can’t blame the rest of us for not knowing that one. Lately, they all seem to be that, though — not taking care of the business at hand. But we all have words we can’t remember until it’s been a while and nobody else is still thinking about them. Everybody who knows me is used to me suddenly remembering one, too. It’s as if your mind is so filled with words that you just can’t flip to the correct one immediately. You try to move on, and yet a part of your mind continues the search. By the time you find it, no one else remembers it ever being mentioned. You feel victorious, and no one else cares.

    You’re not nerdy. You just have a lot in your mind to dig through. That’s genius, if you want a definition. Don’t change a thing.

  14. Innkeeper!!
    My heart is all a flutter.
    I see the tree and ohhh!

    The amount of information you know is incredible.
    Never heard of that term. But it sort of makes good sense. You got to keep your constituents happy .

    I have tried to explain to my friends about your books. Their eyes sort of glaze over.
    But they are happy for me, they know I love to read.And I love each hedgehog, crazed poodle,vampire, shapeshifter and demigod. Witches, warriors ,primes, and humans.

    It is 28 here in the middle of a blizzard. New York City.
    Can barely see across the street.
    Snowing blowing sideways.
    Suppose to get 12-18 inches.
    Staying home. Going to make tea.
    Stay safe, be careful and keep reading.

  17. I love that the brain persevered in the background and came up with the answer eventually. Gives me hope.

    Off topic, but I just have to share … adopted two kittens (older girls, about 4-5 months) this weekend. At the “you are possibly not a monster, but the jury is still out” stage, getting drive-by head butts and am allowed to give chin rubs and pets. And they allow me to be the “operator of toys on a string”. So far, so good.

    • Congratulations!! May you have many fine adventures together, and many “toys on strings” to enjoy!! ????????

  19. Tusken – i got that. ????????‍♀️ Maybe Klingon is more widely heard?
    Lol okay i see what you mean

  20. Haha! And yet, of all the Innkeeper Guests you described, I feel as if the chickens are the most dangerous… willing to sacrifice lives to make a point…

  21. You are like me, I know there is a term for something and can’t remember it,I can describe it,bit term slips my mind.I forgot about Boncolmbe. Sadly Buncombe is no longer treated as speech designed to confound the idiots back home, between Covid and the whole election mess it has become standard operating procedure ie ‘truth’.

    Love the exchange w the contractor, we in the Andrews sphere are like ‘what,they don’t understand a 7 foot chef with spikes or a grande dame wanted in half the galaxy for eating her opponents residing there,what is wrong with them?’

  22. I love that chicken picture! It was one of my favorite parts of SWEEP WITH ME (along with the lovely ending). Just sayin’ …

      • It’s true! My fault! (I was reading about this…later) One question: Once upon… will we read about a philophic fight where kookoo hen house use uncombe or filibuster to win…?

  25. “I AM That Crazy Aunt They Warn You About”… I Also OWN That, so my sweet husband got me the tee shirt, as he does some of the Best tee shirts that people comment about. As an avid reader, my(and hubby’s)vocabulary is much more vast than that of many people, including my sisters who went further in ‘school’. Words that would flow easily between our type of people (you all, is implied) seem to not be in their lexicons, and I’ve been asked not to use ‘complex’ words. Does that mean, you all help here, that my family has requested me to talk down to them?

    • Yes. My brother gave me that lecture adding that it was why people didn’t like me because I made them feel dumb. I took his advice to heart and adapt my vocabulary to the audience. There are so many words I miss, like obsequious. When I was team lead of the night crew at the SBA after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, I asked my crew what jonesing meant. It started a weekly contest. They taught me slang, like bougie, and I taught them my favorites, like supercilious. We would see who could use their new word the best, with a blue ribbon changing hands every week.

    • Yep, talk down to them all day!! 🙂 My problem is that a lot of words I know I’ve only seen written and not heard them so when I do hear it I’m all confused. Like how Aziraphale said ethereal. That’s not how i heard it in my heard. 🙂

      • If you want to be confused, try having a sister who occasionally throws a french pronunciation on a common word because she likes how it sounds. So while I usually pronounced the word in question with a long a, short u, the French pronunciation is short a, long u.

  26. No matter what the topic or how it relates to books or life, your posts are one of the highlights of my day. There is always something relatable, reference-able or downright gut busting funny and I treasure the chance to read them and all the comments from our BDH.

  27. 1) and most important if you were normal I wouldn’t buy every book you write,
    AND recommend them to my bookstore customers.
    2) Your contractors need to be fans of yours…that way you could pay in signed
    books!

  28. So relatable! I have a habit of suddenly spouting facts that are a continuation of the conversation that took place 20 minutes ago. After many years of marriage my husband doesn’t react anymore except to say “that’s nice dear”. ????

  32. I’ve been irritated all morning because I find myself yet again shampooing carpets because people don’t take their shoes off at the door.
    I take a break to read this and burst out laughing. Thank you for being my shining light of laughter in my morning

    • I might have gotten the wrong impression from media, but why do people in the West have carpets? Is it because of the cold?

      • That question has a TON of answers, depending on the time period in history and exactly where in the West you mean.
        So, here goes: sign of wealth, protect / insulate the floor due to cold and to hold heat in, protect feet from splinters or hot surface, sound insulation (fabric absorbs sound, so it makes the room & footsteps less noisy), give you a soft place to sit (especially children who are learning to crawl/ walk), for plays & movies it gives a sense of time period, location, etc., adds a sense of style to the room, or my child’s favorite answer: “it’s cute”.
        There are more reasons, but that covers (pun intended) a bunch of them.

    • If you are going to require guest to remove their shoes, then you should tell them and provide foot wear for inside. Some in our family leave shoes at the door and that’s fine, but I do not want to go barefoot. Socks work great.

  33. My Team Leader’s last name is Wolfe. She is very big on team work and learning to help each other out. We are scored against other teams for quality and call resolution.
    So every time she talks about not leaving each floundering on a call or waiting for a supervisor. My brain says: ” the lone wolf(e) dies but the pack survives courtesy GRR Martins GOT books.
    I told her one day. Now she says it and makes us repeat it after team meetings ????????????
    The few of us nerds love it the rest just roll their eyes

    • Wait until she finds out about Kipling. Imagine having to chant:

      “Now this is the Law of the Jungle, as old and as true as the sky;
      And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
      but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

      As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back,
      For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
      and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

      At the end of team meetings…

        • It’d probably be something Kate would say that neither Derek nor Julie would get. Then they’d roll their eyes and call her weird.

  34. I would say that other people are the weird ones for not knowing this type of stuff and finding it interesting but it gets me in trouble with those self same people. Which kind of adds to their weirdness but hey.

    Also as an autistic person supposedly I am the weird one. Weird. But then if we’re going to be like that I’ll own it and say that yes, I am the master of wyrd and how would they like to die? But that gets me in even more trouble sooooo….Maybe ignore me.

    Word origins are always fun and to prove it here’s a joke:

    “People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in a way I can’t put into words” 🙂

  35. For Halloween we had a small outdoor trunk-or-treat with some of my sister’s friends who also have kids. We were the Mandalorian, Cara Dune, the child, and decorated our trunk as outer space. The trunk was a ‘choose your own kyber crystal’ (rock-candy) with a color coordinated blow-up kids lightsaber….
    No one understood the theme and the response was, is that a tv show or something? … And parents don’t let their kids have sugar now-a-days either. 🙁

  36. It me.

    I don’t really understand why this makes us weird? As far as I’m aware, most people’s brains are doing this stuff all the time – it’s just that some of us *say* it because our running monologue happens to be useful, funny or interesting. Repressing how you end up with bad digestive health and high blood pressure. So there, unappreciative family and/or friends!

  38. I relate to this, I am not a writer- but my friends and family constantly comment that you need to speak my language to really get to know me. My language mostly consists of describing things/words I can not think of in the moment.

  39. Two things about the Buncombe story.

    !. Thank you for the back story on the word Bunkum. I always thought it was an Anglo-Saxon hangover.

    2. My sister and her husband used to have a game which would have gone, “Buncombe! 15 minutes (or 2 hours, or 2 days) indicating how long it took to remember the word.

    Which lead to a second game where they designated a male and female celebrity as stand-ins for names they could not remember, to prevent derailing a conversation. So … “You know, the Secretary of State under Reagan, Eric Clapton.”

  41. Ahhhh brain farts…my brother had a doozy a few years ago. He phoned me and said “I have a report due in the morning and I can’t remember how to spell a word and my laptop is dead along with my cell…can you help me? I’m on the land line in my office.” I said sure, what do you need to spell?

    “When.”
    “Uhm. Now?”
    “No, no. That’s the word. I can’t remember how to spell ‘when’! It’s driving me crazy!”

    We still laugh about that.

    • i used to ask someone how to spell something and they’d say look it up in the dictionary. but sometimes i’d have to tell people, how can i look up a word in a dictionary if i can’t spell it? sounding out doesn’t always help.

      • When I was in gradeschool my mom picked up a book from a Scolastic book fair. It had common misspellings with the correct spelling next to it. Seriously handy when proofreading essays before turning them in. Also a big help when fighting with autocorrect(which just wanted to correct itself with autocracy).

  42. Okay. That was really funny to read, I’m pretty sure I love Ilona even more as an author, and I’m happy to know that I’m not the only one who is weird in this way. All of that could have come from me as well.

    That are actually a lot great things that make me smile for one post. Thank you! 😀

  45. My sister is my savior for when I can’t remember a word or the name of someone! She gets it 95% of the times!

  46. I often wonder at why people question the fiction you write. I just sit back and escape into that wonderful universe. Sometimes I misread your words, but that’s OK, it will eventually get to that hole behind my eyes and between my ears. It might take goading with a wet noodle and that’s OK, but it’s sometimes embarrassing being out in the open for all the BDH to see.

    Keep at it, exactly the way you are doing.

  48. Oh come on!!! I keep seeing all of these little references to Innkeeper sprinkled throughout your newsletters and each time I hope it will contain a reference to when you’ll write the next book in the series! I’m DYING here!! I LOVE that series and am begging you to finish it! PLEASE!!!!

  49. Oh, I surely understand. Words go missing only to emerge days later by weird association during a completely unrelated conversation. I also talk to myself because frequently I am the only one who understands what I am talking about.

  50. What does it say about me when you said Tusken, I was already thinking sand people!! He he he.

    Thanks for the great Monday laughs!

  51. I have woken up to send texts (scheduled to be delivered at a decent time) of things I suddenly remembered the name of/story about/etc. from conversations had previously. And it is not always the night directly following the conversation…..

  52. Perhaps Jeaniene Frost and Gordon were admiring the word and your recall?

    I admit to watching Bernadette Banner’s sewing videos sometimes just for her vocabulary and elocution.

  53. There are so many things to learn. I have never read a book that I didn’t learn something from. Since I am 71 I am given to remembering scifi books I read when very young. What is sad is that they are so relevant to our present situation. In high school I had an English teacher ask me where I had heard a vocabulary word as she had never seen it. Sometimes it is hard to hide ones vocabulary under a bushel. I too get strange looks from my grandkids. Thanks for an enjoyable Monday morning read.

  54. When I can’t remember the right word I call it, mental pause. My friends and family call me squirrel and dolphin. Squirrel because I will take off in the middle of a conversation to a whole other subject. I am the queen of digression. Dolphin because, apparently, I look very calm on the outside. Meanwhile I am a complete mess on the inside.
    At least you remembered the word during the same day and with the same people. Me, I remember it around 2:00-3:00 in the morning. I love that picture of the tree. Stay nerdy.

  55. I love the nerdiness! Some of my favourite posts are when you geek out on genetics and language for us and dig deep into your research. Makes my day, thank you. 🙂

  56. Hehehe.
    I have noticed that anytime I try and to describe the wonderful sci-fi or fantasy book I’m reading, it sounds a bit like your conversation with your nice contractor.
    Thank goodness for this blog and BDH!❤️

  57. In computer science, isn’t there a phrase “system working in the background”? So while you, Gordon, and Jeaniene were discussing another subject, your brain was going through memory files for the information you wanted.

  59. I feel your pain. The historian comes out in me, and I tell people things that they may or may not know. I get the “that’s nice look” and the eye roll.

    Good to know there are others out there! ????????????????????

    • I have prepared lectures on certain topics. I have one of “The Impeachment Process and How it Works” right now… I’m considering just typing the entire thing up. (I have a BA and MA in American History… altho I don’t actually *do* history except for fun)

      • I have a BA in History. I focus primarily in early American history. I understand about what you’re going through.

  61. Courtney Milan posted a Halloween costume she made herself when she was 12 (on Facebook). She’s wearing … well… Playboy bunny ears but she said they’re Donkey ears. And her dress has patches which are “oats”. She’s Donkey-oat-y.

    I say Geeks of the world unite!! And write more books 🙂

  62. Thank you for this! As a dude who has a lot of words in his heads, most of which do have the correct meaning alongside – I also find that getting older is separating the 2 things. The chicken art is wonderful and now puts me in a mood to read the Innkeeper series again. (I can’t wait) I’ve been trying to get my kids and one of the gf’s to take a chance and read one of yours. So far they have resisted and it may be because I am a parent figure and all of that.

  63. LOL I totally love it. This is where you get that amazing sense of humor from. Totally works with Gordon’s and why the humor in your books is so great! Thanks for sharing. I’m also very impressed bu your memory! My youngest daughter is like that with Egyptian, Roman, and Greek information. I think she was reincarnated LOL.

  64. Thank you for making me smile today. I love your posts. They make me feel like I am part of your family. It is especially comforting when I have to deal with the stress of writing disciplinary letters for misbehaving Federal employees. It can be very depressing. Thank you for sharing your life’s moments. You are a blessing.

  65. Thank you for sharing and making my own nerdy weirdness and love of word origins feel more normal.

  66. This made me smile. I did not know either of your first two trivia facts, but TIL, thank you! I too come up with weird facts that other people don’t know. Mine tend to be science and biology…And the space chicken is an adorable philosopher, as always.

  68. Thank you, Ilona Andrews, for the post. I understood you immediately as I am a Star Wars fan. I wouldn’t have thought of Italy. That’s just life though.

    Snickered about the nice contractor conversation. I have similar conversations with delivery people about how to deal properly with a large dog. Memphis was a large Black and Tan German Shepherd trained to protect females. He bit every male he could except 2, My father and my local hay farmer who was also fireman. He never made a sound as he silently approached and chomped. I did not put up beware of dog signs for chuckles.

  69. I just wanted to say…. I have been re-reading Hidden legacy series and came across the conversation between Edward Sherwood, Cornelius and Nevada….

    “The average person rarely pays attention to how much we owe antibiotics. They simply take for granted how few people die from infection following surgeries. Strep throat, pneumonia and UTI’s are unpleasant inconveniences, but rarely a cause for panic. Despite extensive travel we no longer have plagues and epidemics. We’ve gotten comfortable. It’s a mistake.
    ‘Nature always finds a way’ Cornelius said.”
    …….
    “Soon a routine visit to the hospital for a respiratory infection or a relatively safe surgery, like appendix removal, may end your life.”

    Again the Andrew’s have a close to reality prediction – I’m sure you wish otherwise.

    Let’s keep the faith (distance), wash hands, and wear face masks when necessary. I’m in the UK and in the NHS so please everyone – be nice to each other- it’s free!

    • Caroline, thank you and your colleagues for all that you have done and continue to do in this relentless situation.

    • Thank you for everything you do. I’m sorry we’re not all being properly appreciative in our country to our NHS workers, be they nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, and I want you to know as a fellow Brit staying home in London and having just lost loved ones this month, I am truly grateful for your service in every way. Thank you.

  71. I felt this so much. I have aphasia from migraines and from brain injury post concussion syndrome. I’ve been off work since the injury in May and my husband has learned to roll with whatever my speach and cognition feels like doing at any given time. But I got the sandpeople immediately! And I love the space chickens. I just reread Maud’s book the other day.

  72. Let’s trade I’ll tell you the only statement I know in Tuscan dialect/accent if you let me hear the Tusken !

  73. Thanks, I didn’t know ‘Buncombe Speeches’ – as for the rest, what’s weird? Isn’t that how everybody thinks?

  74. I just finished rereading Sweep With Me yesterday! And now I’m all fired up over learning about Maud’s Mysterious Past. I hope, as you two figure out your publishing schedule going forward, that we can return to this topic. I’ve just started rereading the Edge novels, and I’m SO INTRIGUED by the little glimpses of character crossover between the Edge and Gertrude Hunt. You guys are such TEASES! ????

  75. I love how your mind operates. Segue-who needs that. Thank you for a smile and a chuckle. The coops were brilliant.

  76. Hilarious! Lovely to sense you guys are more relaxed and having lots of fun. You make me laugh so much. Thank you!

  78. Ha ha! Love the Buncombe bit. I was just in Buncombe County last year (right before the pandemic, my last travel of 2020) to provide oversight on their landfill’s carbon offset project (talk about random). I’m going to remember that forever now! 😀

  80. My husband’s standard reply to these kind of conversations is: “This is something you should speak to your nerd friends about.”

    • Impressive!

      Well deserved congratulations on this non-pecuniary (since we’ve been talking about vocabulary) reward for House Andrews!

      I have to be careful about typos when I post on a website I moderate. The denizens have occasionally been frustrated that they couldn’t find the definition of an unfamiliar word — assuming it was their substandard google skills and not that I might have flubbed my fingers. I’ve taken to openly correcting such typos when I catch them later — I would hate to accidentally change the English language as the presumed new words propagate beyond the original group. 😉

      Propagating old terms like “Bunkum speech” is simple, old fashioned conservation. Frugality even, as it saves the expense of inventing a new one.

  83. Nice! I didn’t know ‘bunkem’ was ‘Buncombe’ and was derived from a Southern Senator. Everything makes so much more sense now.

  84. Remembering a word an hour later is normal business.
    I said NORMAL BUSINESS my dear family. (which always belly laugh when they try to figure out which discussion I am trying to reconnect with)…

  86. How dare the nice contractor person call Oro a monster!!! They need to take that back! Take it back right now!!! Lol!!!!!

  87. LOL. I’m in a travel group, and someone posted that article of the huntsman spider nest in that girl’s bedroom, but said that really, they were a great place to visit and as soon as we can all travel again, you should go!

    my response was to ask if you named them all and had a spider army going forward, and now that group all thinks i’m weird. whatever. they’re just jealous of my spider army…

  89. I laughed so hard after putting myself in the contractors head/position…

    Based on you description the contractor has zero exposure to IA book universe so he has to be seriously…wtf…it’s really funny that innkeeper is the book he asked about while working on your house in Texas that could be run as a bed and breakfast(or close to it)

  90. You have a fascinating imagination and a very interesting life. Keep up the good work, it makes for awesome books. 😀

  92. This is why I always read your blog: what interesting (potentially obscure) topic will be discussed this time…? Love it!

  93. Royal Space Chickens.

    Everyone needs to know about space chickens. They are cosmically amazing, on so many levels. But now I am picturing my own chickens speaking Tuskin, and it’s not far off from their regular calls. I love it!

  95. You are very smart, and just weird enough for me to relate to. Keep writing! We love what you do (and a shameless request for mor Innkeeper)

  97. Hmmm i think your definition of cute aliens and my defijition differ greatly ???? and when you mentioned cute. Custom coops all i could oicture were cushioned grabber claws ????????????????

  98. Why do I have the feeling that when you write “ no matter how many times I say it, they just don’t get it. It’s like I am speaking Tusken or something,” you are referring to the BDH and not the kids (or the contractor)?

  99. My first thought was Tusken Raiders rather than people from Tuscany, so you’re not alone there.

  100. I’ve always been a reader and a bit of a nerd. Also, I was a teen not long ago so when people told me that I sound like a know-it-all, I listened. Then I found Nerdfighteria, and realised that I wasn’t a know-it-all, I just had to tailor my conversation to the company and wait to encounter other nerds to let my tongue follow my thoughts.

  101. I usually say that “thing me jingly” when I forget things. My daughter always says I can interpret mum language. She usually states the right thing. I’ve been forgetting words long before I turned 70.

  102. I do that word/name remembering thing, too, but when I remember in the middle of the night, I text it to the person I had been speaking with. Just to annoy them (especially if it’s one of my kids). ???? We all have our little pleasures. ????????

  103. Thank you for the smile this morning! As forgetting things, my wife has found my glasses in the refrigerator. …

    • My boyfriend found mine perched on my nose. While I was frantically searching for them. More than once. So… Yeah.

  104. This is so true! My sons and one of my cousins are the only ones who know what I’m talking about half the time because they follow the same authors and genres that I do!

  108. Ok I’m officially ashamed that I did not know Buncombe speech or even that reps/senators did that. Sounds like a work-around for filibustering.

    Also, I agree, Ms. Andrews, you are a Very smart woman of whom I’m quite envious.

  109. I own everything you’ve published. I love it all. Gotta say, three or four times a week I check the Innkeeper sight hoping…

  110. Actual statement from a conversation I had with my mom last week:
    “You DO know that I’m a nerd, right?”
    the conversation being driven by how upset she was at the thought that I might have a Superman poster in my house. I do not – the picture she was looking at was taken in a friend’s game room – but I am also offended that she was so bothered by the idea.

    Actual statement from a conversation with my brother after a friend and I chased an injured crow all over campus so we could take it to the vet:
    “I’m glad you’re friends with [her], you seem to have a lot in common. Not like with all of your college friends. They’re kind of all nerds.”
    Ummmmm little brotherling, you’re talking about the sister who fits into sub-genres of academic, music, literary, and pop culture nerd-dom. I absorb nerdiness like an amoeba. I can be friends with BOTH the comic book/video game nerds AND the fantasy novel, animal rescuing nerds.

  111. Off topic – just got around to looking at Release schedule and saw Ruby Fever not coming out until 2022 – WHAAAAAAH!

  112. Ilona! Any chance in the 3rd catalina hidden legacy book we could see more family dynamic especially between rogan and catalina/arabella. I really, really enjoy hearing and seeing it in previous books, especially in emerald blaze when rogan steps out with his coffee to watch albert try to persuade catalina to be with him. I dont have siblings so maybe thats why i love seeing the dynamic between everyone? I feel we dont really get alot of the relationship between connor and nevadas family. Hope im making sense and sorry this was so random. Cheers!

  114. Yep, when I say something that comes to mind that isn’t on anyone else’s mind I usually get the “Well that was Random of you” comment. And you have all those cool fun facts in your head.

    Too funny! Your books are unique and take a little bit of explanation to the normal muggle…hehe!

  116. You guys always seems like you’re juggling at least 3 work projects at once, on top of home/family responsibilities.

    Do you have a system for staying on task and meeting deadlines?

    Question definitely inspired by my inability to stay on top of anything right now.

  117. How wonderful! One of my favorite words is octothorp. It’s the real name for #. No one knows, no one cares, but word are fun. Thanks for the info on bunk. Word nerds unite!

  119. For the record I loved the space philosopher chickens. They reminded me of my family reunions.

  120. Today my middle son was telling me in excruciating detail about something in Minecraft that he saw on YouTube. My retort was to start telling him about the world if the Hidden Legacy series, which brought him around to My Hero Academia, which is at least interesting. Just thought I would share.

  122. Opened an email from Amazon, and what do I see? Blood Heir listed as one of the best science fiction and fantasy books in January. Whoohoo!

  124. LOL! Thanks for that laugh.

    I have an online friend who sometimes laughs his head off about how nerdy we are, chatting casually about all sorts of topics in English (my native language, his second). He isn’t a writer. I wonder if that’s why he keeps finding it so weird.

  125. So, so glad to hear your explanation of what Innkeeper is about! It sounds like the same explanation I start to tortuously give when my husband asks the plot. BTW re-read the scene of One Fell Sweep where Sean and Dina save an entire alien species… with a fart gun. Perhaps that would have helped your contractor appreciate what you do!

  126. I used to be the weirdest one in the room before I had to change jobs. Now I barely qualify as the opening act. ????‍♂️ I’m maybe third strangest in the shop. ????

  127. From the comments, I love that Ilona Andrews have gathered such a wide gap of readers (I’m 34 years i.e) I’ll like to be able to go to a book event someday ????

  129. I was in my 30’s when I said to a coworker, “He’s not very… what’s that word that means you talk well? It starts with an “A”. He cocked his head to one side and said, “Articulate?” Me, “That’s it!”

  130. Thanks. Just thanks. I needed a cute philosopher space chicken picture to make me smile today. Innkeeper is my happy place. 🙂

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