In which my tired brain tries to recap what happened and reflect on the future. It came. It was here. And now it’s gone. NaNoWriMo is a whirlwind every year, but this year feels like a special kind of crazy to me.  I went in with a plan. I carefully considered every nuance–how past Nanos had gone, what I had learned from them, and what I wanted to achieve this year. I was going to achieve balance with a reasonable goal of a few thousand words per week.  I wasn’t going to write every day. Rest and recovery would be my priority between writing sprints.  And in the end, I…

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo 4 Stars Summary: Ninth House is the story of Alex Stern and her introduction to life as the intern of a mysterious secret society on Yale’s campus. As ‘Dante,’ Alex must monitor the rituals of the 8 other secret houses at Yale. These rituals are bizarre, secret, and frequently dangerous. There’s just one problem. Her mentor, the ‘Virgil’ of her order, has gone missing and no one is certain how to get him back. Nor did he have a chance to teach her everything she needed to know to keep these houses in line. The murder of a girl on campus ends up drawing Alex…