Long and Short Reviews welcomes Ashlyn Kane who is celebrating the recent release of her newest release His Leading Man.

I’m here with a confession. Bear me out. This isn’t easy to say. Ready? Ok. Here it is: I’m lazy.

I hate cleaning. I don’t like gardening or yardwork. Cooking, sure, grocery shopping; I’ll do that. Laundry, because I enjoy not smelling like a hockey bag and I’m just a little too cheap to pay someone else to do it. Dusting? Vacuuming? Trying to get dog drool off the ottoman? Noooooo.

A few weeks ago my future sister-in-law idly asked if any of the regular, horrible minutia of everyday life—paying bills, talking to your boss, negotiating a wedding with your future in-laws, keeping the dog’s vaccines up-to-date—gets easier. I laughed (belated apologies to my sister-in-law) and said you just get better at faking it. Maybe some people are Real Adults—my parents seem to have their ducks in alphanumeric order—but the rest of us are just experienced at hiding our Impostor Syndrome. Fake It Til You Make It: Adulting Remix.

And yet sometimes you just gotta buckle down and adult up, and then brag about it afterward in a guest blog post to remind yourself that you’re an Adult! You are a moderately functional human being! No matter how small the victory, we all need to feel like we’re doing something important, useful, and we should be able to take pride in our accomplishments. So here you go—my adulting triumphs to date for 2018.

1. Finishing our deck. Hubby and I have been in the process of redoing our deck for three years. Our previous deck had rotten boards. It sagged. It needed repainting. The dog chewed on it and we were concerned he was gonna give himself indigestion. So Hubby had the bright idea to rip it out and install a new deck made of composite materials that would need zero maintenance (and hopefully be less appetizing). He hoped that the frame underneath would be stable and we could just apply those fancy Trex boards to the top and be done with it.

I believe the kids these days are saying: “lol.”

When we took the top off the original deck, everything underneath was not only rotten but also so underbuilt we felt lucky no one had gotten seriously hurt. So we rebuilt (overbuilt) the entire thing. We finished the deck top the first year. Then we lost steam and interest and gathered procrastination, and didn’t start the built-in bench or put on the fascia til last year. This year we finally built the stairs and put the fascia on the bench and it’s done! Some yellow jackets are already building a nest in it. That’s what you get for adulting successfully.

2. Cleaning out my closet. (I’ll give you a minute to hum the song if you need it.) I’ve needed to do this for at least a year, maybe two. I still had a bunch of teaching-appropriate clothes when I work at home now and rarely have occasion to wear anything fancier than leggings and a T-shirt. This also turned into an excuse to get rid of hockey merch for teams I don’t like anymore (confession: I kept the jersey… to sell on ebay). The good news is I found the Swarovski crystal earrings that have been missing for seven years in an old purse! The bad news is my closet’s super bare and I really need to go shopping.

3. Going to the dentist. As a survivor of many years of orthodontia, and a fairly normal person when it comes to my reaction to metal scraping on my teeth, I hate going to the dentist and successfully put off going for almost seven years. But I’m hypochondriac enough to realize that’s not really a great way to live your life if you can help it! So I went and got my teeth cleaned, and hey, I didn’t even have any cavities!

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5. Rebuilt half the garden shed. See #1. We originally thought we only needed to replace the siding—the previous homeowner had left a piece of wood leaned up against the bottom of the shed, and the wood siding had rotted because it got wet. But when we took it off, we found that the wall studs behind that had started to rot too. So had the floor and the 4×4 floor supports. And the window frame. (Let this be a lesson to you all: build your outbuildings with proper drainage.) It was a zillion degrees, there were old spider egg sacks and centipedes, and I got sawdust in my bra. All so that the shed probably won’t fall down or become host to a family of opossums in the next five years.

But look. After all this, as I was washing my hands and arms (sweaty and thus a magnet for even more sawdust) in my powder room, the &^%#@* towel rack fell off the wall.

I left it. The towel sits on the edge of the sink now.

I’m only human.

Anyway, I know it’s the season to get stuff done (at least in the northern hemisphere). You might also be doing a lot of gritty, hot, sweaty, unpleasant work around the house. And in the southern hemisphere, maybe you need a story to keep you warm at night! Either way, when you need a break, why not take a mental vacation? After all, Hollywood’s about as far from my day-to-day life as you can get….

He wrote a comedy. Fate directed a romance.

Drew Beaumont is bored of the same old roles: action hero, supervillain, romantic lead. He’s not going to let a fresh gay buddy comedy languish just because they can’t find him the right costar. No, Drew bats his eyelashes and convinces everyone that the movie’s writer should play Drew’s not-so-straight man.

Aspiring writer Steve Sopol has never had a screenplay optioned. Now one of Hollywood’s hottest properties wants to be in a movie Steve hasn’t finished writing—and he wants Steve as his costar. Turns out the chemistry between them is undeniable—on and offscreen.

Drew swore off dating in the biz, but Steve is the whole package: sharp, funny, humble, and cute. For Steve, though, giving in to the movie magic means the end of the privacy he cherishes. Will the credits roll before their ride into the sunset?
Buy it on the Dreamspinner website or on Amazon.com.

About the Author: ASHLYN KANE is a Canadian former expat and current hockey fan. She is a writer, editor, handyperson, dog mom, and friend—sometimes all at once.

On any given day, she can usually be found walking her ninety-pound baby chocolate lapdog, Indy, or holed up in her office avoiding housework. She has a deep and abiding love of romance-novel tropes, a habit of dropping too many f-bombs, and—fortunately—a very forgiving family.