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One of My Favorite Scenes
*** I’ve been decorating a little bit today for the holidays. I’m feeling terrible, still trying to deal with a chronic health issue, but I’m trying to remain positive and optimistic. Evert time I break out my Christmas decorations, I always think about a particular scene in my first novel, Beneath the Mimosa Tree. The scene unfolds at the holidays after ten years, when two former lovers and next door neighbors are reunited. After years of not speaking and feeling anger and guilt over a mistake that was made, the two come face-to-face in the driveway as Annabelle and her family return from getting a Christmas tree. Michael, home from…
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Friday Fiction: A Short About Reincarnation & Love (and in need of feedback)
I’ve been researching the idea of reincarnation lately. I’m not exactly sure why this particular concept has been stuck in my brain for several weeks, but it has. I’m in between books right now, having begun a new manuscript, but not sure where that one’s going, and the idea of reincarnation—a love story about reincarnation—keeps popping into my mind. Last week, I posted a poll on my Instagram story to see how many of my connections actually believe in reincarnation, and the result was a resounding 50/50. I’m not sure what I believe myself, but the concept sure is interesting. I’ve met people in my life that I have felt…
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On This Valentine’s Day, LOVE
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Today is what life is all about, people: LOVE. And it’s not always romantic love—just love in general. I’ve spent years writing books with love as a core theme. Love for a father, a mother, a grandmother, a grandfather; love for a daughter or son; love for one’s work; love for dear friends; love for life; and letting go of one love to begin another. . We’ve all been there. We’ve experienced euphoric relationships and devastating ones. We’ve felt the waves of a new love and the crushing sensation of a broken love. . People often ask me how much of “me” goes into the…
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Teaser Ads for LITTLE MILESTONES and a Bit About the Novel
Set in beautiful St. Michaels, Maryland, my newest novel delves into the notion of the importance of family, friendship, moving on, and starting over. The idea of bringing in some of the characters from Inn Significant into this new story was an absolute thrill for me, and I did my best to do so for those who loved my previous novel. However, Little Milestones can be read alone—as a stand alone novel—without having previously read Inn Significant. These teaser ads below reflect the style of writing you will find in the book. As a writer, I try to write as realistic fiction as I can, borrowing from people and situations…
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Don’t Forget to Put Some Books Under the Tree This Season
For more about these books, visit the tab about my books, or visit my AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE. Click here. And thank you!
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5 Lessons We Learn From Mr. Darcy
Mr. Darcy, Jane Austen’s proud, authentic, romantic hero of the novel Pride and Prejudice, remains, in my humble opinion, the best male character in romantic literature. I never tire of Mr. Darcy—of how he enters the novel full of pompous righteousness, and ends the novel being a character readers adore—because he begins to see the world, the class structure of people, and people in general in a whole new light as the novel unfolds. At the age of 28, Mr. Darcy begins to grow up and come into his own. Pride and Prejudice is one of my two all-time favorite books (the other being A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).…
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Compare Yourself to a Hopeless Romantic
Do you believe this? This is the prompt I got handed today. COMPARE YOURSELF TO A HOPELESS ROMANTIC. But I AM a bloody hopeless romantic, so I can’t compare myself to myself! Look—some people know they are certain ways. For example, someone who’s a realist looks at the world through that lens—the lens of realism. He won’t allow any mushiness or extremely flowery notions seep into his pores. He just puts all his marbles into things that are real, nothing too touchy-feely, nothing too fantastical, nothing too intangible. Period. End of sentence. Have you ever tried to argue with a realist when you’re not one? You know it’s hard. Don’t…
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What To Do With A Broken Heart
We walk around in a daze. We make up lies and we tell them to ourselves. We go over and over it again in our minds as we attempt to decipher exactly what went wrong and who is to blame. We wonder if there’s any way possible we can fix it. We agonize, stop eating, agonize some more, find we cannot concentrate on work, pull away from people, and go through an intense mourning period. Some folks even go as far as to want to give up. If we’re not careful, we can give up on ourselves. That’s the way it works when we have a broken heart and we…
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The Friday Random Thoughts Roundup
I haven’t been blogging much lately, and I’m feeling badly about it. I’ve been incredibly busy with two kids in high school, teaching at the university, volunteering for things, and serving on committees, in addition to actually trying to fit my new mentality of health and fitness into my daily regime. I wish I could write an insightful, meaningful post right now, but all I have time for is a quick roundup of random thoughts and things I want to share with you. So here it goes… I finally got around to watching the movie Me Before You last weekend which was based on the book by JoJo Moyes. I…
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Finding Love on New Year’s Eve
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about what my final blog post for 2012 would be. After much consideration, I decided to end the year the way I began it: with a love story—or two. The first is not just any ordinary story: It’s the story of my parents and New Year’s Eve. Quite frankly, I would not be here today writing blog posts if my parents had not met on a blind date on New Year’s Eve. Thanks to my parents’ mutual friend, Fran, they were set up on a blind date in New Jersey. The result of that blind date? Forty-eight years of blissful marriage. Their…
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A Delightful Surprise: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Every once in a while, a little film comes along, containing all the necessary ingredients of the tastiest of pies, and leaves you, quite unexpectedly, refreshingly satisfied. This is exactly the way I felt last night after watching “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” a film by director Lasse Hallstrom starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Amr Waked, and Kristin Scott Thomas. The nuts and bolts of the story are as follows: A fisheries expert (McGregor) has been hired by a consultant (Blunt), who works for a wealthy Sheik (Waked), in order to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen. The most noteworthy ingredients of this delectable “salmon pie” were the characters and…
