Tues. Dec. 31, 2019: Reading Ending and Beginnings

image courtesy of Larissa-K via pixabay.com

First of all, Happy New Year! May the New Year bring you many blessings, literary and other.

For me, the first book of the year is a huge, huge choice. I sometimes feel it sets the tone for the coming year, so I want it to be wonderful.

Well, every time I pick up a book, I hope I fall in love with it!

I often buy a new book on New Year’s Eve. Even if I haven’t finished the stack I received for Solstice/Christmas, I often buy a new book, carefully chosen, on December 31.

I start reading it a few minutes after midnight. Unless I’m at a party. Then I start reading it when I get home.

I chose my book yesterday: Blood and Blade byLauren Dane. A kickass book to start a kickass year.

Happy New Year!

Tues. Dec. 24, 2019: Jolabokflod

image courtesy of TizzleBDizzle via pixabay.com

A few years ago, I learned about the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, The Yule Book Flood.

What I didn’t know until I read it on ReadItForward.com was that, the Iceland Publishers Association delivers a catalogue of all the books published that year to every household.

People give each other books on Christmas Eve and settle in to read.

We’ve been doing that my entire life in my house, although I didn’t realize it was a tradition. I love Iceland, their bookshops, and their commitment to literacy. So it feels right to continue the tradition.

We open the bulk of our gifts on Christmas Eve anyway, European-style, and have stockings on Christmas Day. There are always books involved in the giving — both under the tree, and, the next morning, a paperback tucked into the stocking.

But it’s always been the tradition to unwrap the gifts, enjoy them, and then curl up with one of the new books. I’ve done that ever since I can remember.

A few years ago, on social media, I also saw the “Book Advent Calendar” — meant for kids, but good for anyone — where 24 books are wrapped, with tags, at the beginning of December. You unwrap the book for the day each morning. I have not yet gotten my act together to do that, but I would like to start that tradition, too.

I don’t know which book I will unwrap tonight and curl up with. I do know that it will fill me with a sense of peace and well-being.

Have a lovely holiday.

Tues. Dec. 17, 2019: WINTER SOLSTICE by Rosamunde Pilcher #ReaderExpansionChallenge

Winter Solstice. Rosamunde Pilcher. NY: Thomas Dunne Books. 2000.

I blew it this month. Instead of expanding my reading repertoire, I went back to an old favorite, Rosamunde Pilcher’s WINTER SOLSTICE.

I love winter holiday novels, where a bunch of people who don’t feel like they belong anywhere find kinship with each other. I am still trying to write my perfect version of it. I’m a sucker for the multitude of winter holiday romance novellas that come out every year (although many of them wind up frustrating me, especially when the woman’s only reason for existing is to marry and have kids).

My mother is an enormous fan of Rosamunde Pilcher’s work, and has all her books. She re-reads them regularly. THE SHELL SEEKERS is the novel that Ms. Pilcher is probably best-known for writing.

But I love WINTER SOLSTICE.

I forgot how long it takes to get to the meat of the title. Whereas if I submitted a novel structured like this, I would be told to start it about half-way through where this novel starts, Pilcher starts slowly, bringing Elfrida out of London with Horace, her new rescue dog, to a small English village and following her as she rebuilds her life there, after the love of her life dies. She goes through months of settling in, and then visits her cousin in Cornwall for a month. She returns to find that the wife and daughter of the couple with whom she made the closest friends (the husband of which she cares about a little too much) have died in a car crash. The wife left the house to the sons from her first marriage, who put it on the market and tell Oscar, the husband, to leave.

Oscar owns half a house up in Scotland, along with his cousin, and convinces Elfrida (and Horace) to join him there, while he works through his grief and tries to figure out his life. They plan to spend a quiet winter and ignore the holidays.

From there, the holiday circle grows to include Elfrida’s cousin’s daughter Carrie, recovering from a broken heart, and Carrie’s niece, Lucy. Lucy is fourteen. Her mother is off to America with a new boyfriend, her father’s new wife doesn’t want her around, and her grandmother is too busy to bother with her.

Throw in Sam, recovering from the dissolution of his marriage by going back to his wool-mill roots to revive a local mill, who meets Oscar’s cousin and gets the key to the house from him, and you have a band of kind people who need each other.

That is one of the joys of this novel. No matter what life throws at them, how life tries to break them, at the core, all of these characters are basically kind. In this day and age, when too often the cruelty is the point, reading a book where the kind characters triumph by living their kindness is uplifting and reassuring.

Modern critics would say the stakes are too low in this book, but when it comes to the heart, only the person whose heart it is can really make that determination.

I had forgotten how enjoyable and warm the book is. If you want a warming read for a cold winter’s night, I suggest reading, or re-reading WINTER SOLSTICE.

This is the last Reader Expansion Challenge. I hope you’ve had fun over the past few months. I certainly have.

Next year will be a mix of author interviews, pieces about favorite bookshops, and responses to books I read that I’m excited about. They’re not reviews, but personal responses.

Have a lovely holiday season! I will be posting over the next two Tuesdays, even though it’s a holiday, so I hope you will join me.

 

Tues. Dec. 3, 2019: GRAVE REACH releases December 5th!

GRAVE REACH, the 4th Coventina Circle Novel

Lesley Chase fought her way free from an abusive marriage, thanks to Coventina Circle. After her ex-husband’s murder, she took a sabbatical to study yoga, meditation, and dreamwalking in Costa Rica. A passionate affair with Sam Pierce helped her self-confidence and healing, but she insisted they break all contact when she returned to New York. She’s stunned when she runs into Sam, who has an office in the same building as her therapist. He convinces her it’s just a weird coincidence, and he won’t try to rekindle their passion. But when Lesley’s dreamwalking crosses into dangerous territory, and her ex-husband starts stalking her from beyond the grave, Sam is determined to set her free, once and for all. Of course, Sam has a few dark secrets of his own, on both sides of the veil . . .

Lesley is mentioned in the first book in the series, Playing the Angles, although she does not physically appear. Originally, when the earlier version of PTA was going to be a stand-alone, I regretted not being able to explore Lesley’s story further. Once the decision was made that there would be a series, each featuring a different member of the Circle as the primary protagonists, it gave me a chance to work on her story in relation to the other members of the circle (in The Spirit Repository and in Relics & Requiem). She appears in Relics, when Phineas dreamwalks to solve a murder.

In Grave Reach, Lesley comes into her own. She is rebuilding her life, back in New York City after a five-month sabbatical in Costa Rica. She had a passionate affair there, with Sam, but they agreed to let go when they left and not be in touch. She misses him, but she needs to rebuild on her own. When she runs into him again by accident, and then their paths keep crossing as the pagan community in New York is threatened in their dreams, they need to work together to solve the crisis. Lesley realizes how little she knew about Sam before their affair, and some of his actions make her wonder what else he’s hiding.

The series is paranormal romantic suspense, so most of the fun is taking the journey with Lesley and Sam to see how they overcome their obstacles together, even when they disagree, and when others try to get in between them.

The Delacourtes are back, too — don’t worry, eventually they will be the center of their own stories. I’m happily surprised with how popular the Delacourte clan is with readers.

Here’s an excerpt from Grave Reach:

She felt beautiful with Sam. Smart, desirable, funny. She embodied the fantasy of the best self she’d always wanted to be.

Had she been a fool to cut off contact?

No. Nothing could sustain the fantasy once she returned to real life. It was better this way.

This way, returning to New York was a complete fresh start.

She walked up the graceful stone steps to the grayish-blue stone building on 18th Street and buzzed Dr. Granger’s unit. She got the unlocking buzz, and pushed the door open.
This had once been a mansion, housing one family. The graceful marble staircase still led to the second floor, and a chandelier lit the hall. Dr. Granger’s office was in the back of the ground floor, where it was quieter.

She didn’t check her reflection in the hall mirror, but she turned, trying not to flinch, as a man used a key to open the front door. The frosted glass, covered on both sides with wrought iron, hid his features.

Used a key. Nothing to be afraid of, she reassured herself.

She turned to the back of the building, wondering what she should talk about in today’s session. Dr. Granger also wanted her to participate in a group session as part of her recovery. Lesley preferred Coventina Circle as her group.

She hesitated. The person who’d entered was male, which made her wary. She was back in New York, after all. But the energy felt familiar. Comforting.

She hesitated again, just past the bottom of the staircase, near the mirror. She glanced at her reflection, and saw her own worried face stare back.

The man who’d entered had his head down, looking through his mail, as he started up the stairs to the second floor.

She’d know the tread of those footsteps anywhere.

It couldn’t be.

He promised her.

“Sam?” she croaked.

He was part of the way up the stairs. He lifted his head, looking first up for the voice, then glanced over the rail to meet her eyes. He paled, and his own hazel eyes widened in shock. “Lesley?”

“You lied to me!” Lesley burst out. “How could you lie to me like that?”

“Lesley, I had no idea, I didn’t, I–”

“You can’t tell me this is a coincidence!” She fled down the hall into Natalie Granger’s waiting area, where she burst into tears.

***

Want more? It releases on December 5, 2019 on multiple digital channels for $3.99. Visit the Grave Reach</em> page on the Coventina Circle website for buy links, or use the book’s universal buy link.. More options will be added as the book goes live on additional channels.