Elizabeth Hand is a wonderful author, her prose other-worldly and lush.  Elizabeth Hand uses the word crepuscular.

I love the word crepuscular.

I actually associate the word with her, because I’m quite sure I first read it in one of her books.  It’s the kind of word she uses a lot, with great authority.  And great verve.

(For those of you, who, like me, were not intimately familiar with the word at first glance, here’s the definition: of, relating to, or resembling twilight.  Now isn’t crepuscular a much more interesting word than twilight?)

She also uses words like moleskin and knickers and peignoir.  And paroquet (which I have to go look up) and verdigrised, and even if I don’t know what they mean, I still love the look of them on the page, and the sound of them even better.

I was a huge Elizabeth Hand fan a few years ago, after reading Waking the Moon and Glimmering, but then I lost sight of her.  In truth, I forgot about her books, and I’m not sure why.  So I am very grateful to the cool site I found that reintroduced me to her.  Its called the Great American Book Giveaway and you can check it out here.

Every week you can enter to win one of five featured books.  Even if you don’t win, you get introduced to great titles you might not otherwise find.  Cool, huh?

This is where I was spied Hand’s latest title, Generation Loss, which is not quite released yet.  I have a hold on it at the library, and meanwhile I am reading her novel, Mortal Love.  It’s in this book that I read the following description of an American visiting London that blew me away:   

"The dandyish, souk-colored clothes suited him: not world-weary journalist but knight errant, wide-eyed, slightly stupefied in the dazzling sunlight of an older world."

Slightly stupefied in the dazzling sunlight of an older world.  Damn, I wish I’d written that.