You Know You Want To

He's really upset about leaving the cabinet because he was in the middle of a great book: Tree/House! 

Go ahead, read it. Some strange urge deep within your psyche is telling you... you know you want to.

You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy...
Wake up with a good read! Really inexpensive, too.


Photos from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

He'll Feel a Lot Better Once He's Read Tree/House

Clergyman approved, Tree/House can even get rid of your headlice problem.

Fashionable Historical Women Love Tree/House!

It's a timeless classic!

Also see the new cover for the Sailing Italy series!

Handsome, Successful Businessmen Love Tree/House!

This is actually a picture of my husband, who enjoyed Tree/House very much and supports all of my writing efforts besides. Thanks, dear!

My husband is the hardest working person I know who does a job he's not especially interested in. When he lost his lucrative position at the big-bad-we-break-your-kneecaps-if-you-don't-pay-your-student-loan place, he didn't hesitate to take a job at a place my dad calls WallyWorld so we could still eat while paying the mortgage with savings. WallyWorld is not an easy place to work for. It is physically demanding: he lost a lot of weight he'd put on because I love to feed him and went through pain relievers like candy because of the aching muscles. It's mentally draining: most of the workers treat the job according to pay level, meaning that they don't care at all. My husband has an inherent impulse to do a good job, so when he was working in grocery the place had never been so spotless, and there had never been so many customers satisfied with the way they'd been treated. There was never a more efficient checker, and when he became a supervisor over the checkers, the place had never run more smoothly.

The situation was not sustainable, because, as I hinted above, the pay is laughably miniscule. We were going to be on the snowy street if we stayed there, and that's one reason we came to Arizona. I know I'm not making up what a good worker my husband is because when he had to leave the Arizona WallyWorld he'd transferred to, they did everything they could to keep him, including offering to hire me in the bakery department. Even with the two small incomes, I'm sorry to say, that situation would have been just as untenable as the previous one in Pennsylvania.

He left that job, which he's called his favorite job ever (!), for something that still doesn't pay what we were used to before economic armageddon, but is just about livable.  It involves working at an office park in the middle of nowhere with scorpions and coyotes in the parking lot, at weird hours, and with an ever-shifting landscape of unpredictable people. And he's doing the best job he can do there, too, and he's so good at it.

He's the thing: when he comes home to me, he really comes home to me. He's with me, present and fully involved, no matter how much his job exhausts him, interested in my day, willing to clean the house, and ever so much in love. I'm so blessed to have such a husband!

Miguel de Cervantes Loved Tree/House!

  Also in Nook. Now you can love it as much as Cervantes did!

Early Twentieth-Century Literati Loved Tree/House!

And -- you were waiting for it -- both books in the Sailing Italy series are now available for Nook/epub! Click here! 

Now Popping up in Pittsburgh!

He can't stop reading Tree/House!

Attention, Pittsburgh, PA residents! Today is the opening day of Fleeting Pages, a "pop-up" bookstore housed in a closed Borders. Get down there soon, because, as a pop-up often does, this one will fade fast and close within a month!

Fleeting Pages is a great way to support indie publishers and authors. Look at the "In Stock" section of the website closely and you'll see one Jessica Knauss. In the store, there are two, count 'em, two copies of Tree/House signed by the author. As with any aspect of Fleeting Pages, you can also shop for these online.

I'm especially pleased to get Tree/House involved with Fleeting Pages in Pittsburgh, PA, because the book is set in Pennsylvania and the haunting black and white pictures now in the print edition were taken in the wilds of that great state.

But, this store is a fabulous idea in any state. I only wish I could support them more. Best of luck to you, Fleeting Pages!