Holiday Novels

 

I have completely immersed myself in Christmas over the past few weeks, including my reading.  It's a bit of self-care I'm in need of right now.

Not all holiday novels are my cup of tea, but here's a few I have enjoyed.

Highlands Christmas Wishes Come True by Amy Quick Parrish

• Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

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The Christmas Inn by Pamela Kelley

• Christmas with the Knights by Hannah Langdon

• Tis The Season For Secrets by Kate Callaghan

• Holiday Hideaway A Short Story by Mary Kay Andrews

A Very Irish Christmas by Debbie Johnson

• A Home for the Holidays by Taylor Hahn

• Christmas at a Highland Castle by Rachel Barnett

• 'Tis the Damn Season by Fiona Gibson

• Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

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And now I'm off to search for another . . .

'Tis the Season!!!

Taking the bad with the good, making lemonade out of . . whatEVAH

If you know me, you know I try not to whine.  

I may rant and shout like a sailor.

But I don't "think" I do too much whining.

Well, honeys, this is a whine of a sort to make up for all those past un-whines.

Skip it if, like me, you're pretty turned off by the noises made by a constant whiner.

Pitiful is just not my thing.

And I do not mean this to sound as though it's directed at those of you who have very legitimate complaints.

There are, after all, real reasons for complaints and then there are those who feel as though if they don't "suffer" a drama a day they're not going to get the attention they so need.

THOSE are the people I'm talking about here.



But enough about them - this is gonna be all about me.



All about me whining . . .


Being pitiful . . .


I hope I've made that perfectly clear.  (insert little winking emoticon here)


So.


I was suffering a bad case of the blues about this week.


Thanksgiving.  My birthday.  Happening this week without my mom.


My answer to combating this week of the blues is the same as it is for so many other things.


A week at the beach.


Now, as you may have figured out over time, the beach, the ocean, any big expanse of water meeting the sky is a balm to my soul.


It's not something I simply enjoy.


It's something I truly need.


Need from the very bottom of my feet to the very depths of my heart.


If I had known my ties to the water were so strong I doubt I could have ever left Cambridge where every drive I ever took was, sooner or later, going to have me going across a bridge.  Or have me within just a head's turn to see the water.  Cambridge Creek.  The Choptank River.  I get emotional by only thinking about them.  


But.  Had I never left Cambridge, what are the chances I would have ever met Don Barley?


Or many of the other people I've met on this life journey.  People I'm privileged to call "friend?"


So.  There's my making lemonade out of lemons.  


Oh, hell - enough of that.  


I am here to whine, I tell you!



We were able, on very short notice, to rent a house at Topsail Island.  Our favorite "go to" beach of the past many years.


The house was perfect.


Dog friendly.  Ocean front.  Large deck facing the ocean.  A sunroom in case the weather was a bit too nippy for early morning/late night coffee times.  As long as I can see, hear, or even sense those ocean waves, I am a contented woman.


And there was going to be a bonus this trip.


Because we pass closely to my friends Margaret and Joe's place we sometimes get to visit with them on this trip to the beach.  I was hoping to meet them for lunch today on our way.


But, as chance would have it - that couldn't happen this time because Margaret was already planning a trip to Topsail and would already be there.


Long story short  -  plans were made for me to get together with her for dinner this evening.  The dinner was to also include some of her writing group - The Weymouth 7.  The Weymouth 7 includes Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Mary Kay Andrews, Brenn Bonner Witchger, Katy Munger and Alexandra Sokoloff.  Pretty stellar group, huh?


While all seven were not part of this week's writing retreat at Topsail, Margaret, Sarah, Diane, Mary Kay and Brenn were.  


And my beach bonus was to include dinner with those who were there.  Except Brenn who ended up not feeling well.


Oddly enough, she apparently was pretty contagious with vertigo which she passed along to me.  (is that even possible?!  I don't think so . . .  but I need to place blame on someone and Brenn gets to be it).

<insert another winking emoticon right here>


So.


Not only are we not spending this week at the beach.


I am not having dinner with Margaret, Sarah, Diane and Mary Kay.


Insert every four letter bad word you have ever heard uttered in your entire life right here.


And now do it again with greater emphasis.


More gusto, please!


Believe me, you're not even coming close to expressing the disappointment I feel.



Except for Mary Kay, I know these women.   I was looking forward to meeting Mary Kay because I've been a long time fan.  Loooong time fan.  I lived in the area she used to write about under the name Kathy Hogan Trocheck in her Callahan Garrity series.  And I love the books she's writing now.


So.  A group of women, most of whom I'm lucky enough to know.  Women I admire.  Read.  Women whose work I read for heaven's sake - how cool is that?!   How could I not be sad and disappointed.


I demand a "do over!"  (and Brenn joins me in this demand).


In the meantime, today I'm picking up my copy of Diane Chamberlain's newest book, "Pretending to Dance."  I'll read it and about 6:00 this evening I'll lift my glass in a toast to the women at Topsail who I'll be missing.


<clink>

Summer Reading - Part One

Seems it's that time of year when we start seeing Summer Reading Lists all over the place. And - - since I'm one who cannot for the life of me resist a list, I, of course, have my very own summer reading list. ta da!

The one book I'm really impatiently awaiting and tapping my toe for is Pat Conroy's newest. SOUTH OF BROAD. This surprises no one, I'm sure, after the love note to Pat Conroy I left here awhile back. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd buy one of those ARCs available at abebooks.com for somewhere between $50-$75.00. But, big sigh, I'm not. So I'll just continue the toe tapping thing till August 11th when it will finally be released.

This from patconroy.com:

"Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, SOUTH OF BROAD gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds."

In the meantime, I have some additional books on my Summer Reading List. These are only some of the novels I'm looking forward to reading - we'll do another list in a week or so. But for today, I'm going to kinda stick with a theme - beach related, and southern. Two of my favorite things, in reading and in life.

Here's another August release. One of my favorite series ever. I look forward to Margaret Maron's newest "Deborah" every August. As soon as I get my hands on one, I race through it to see what Deborah's latest adventure entails, then sit down and read it again savoring each word. I welcome Deborah Knott and her family into my home with open arms and talk about her like she's a real person.

SAND SHARKS takes Deborah to Wrightsville Beach. I'm particularly looking forward to this one. Wrightsville Beach isn't far from Topsail Island, where Donald and Harley and I spent a week in May, and blogged about right here. Twice! I'm still finding myself looking at the pictures we took while there and dreaming about being back. It's a beautiful part of North Carolina, and since no one captures atmosphere, or writes a better sense of place than Ms. Maron, I'm especially excited to see what SAND SHARKS brings us. The series remains at the tippy top of my "auto-buy books."

Speaking of Topsail Island. Diane Chamberlain writes beautifully about this enchanting spot. Her latest, SECRETS SHE LEFT BEHIND, is ABSOLUTELY on my list of Summer Reading.



Surprisingly, I've heard very little chatter about the new Rebecca Wells novel. THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILLY PONDER will be released in July. I'm thinking perhaps Ms. Wells' last novel, YA-YAs in BLOOM was a bit of a disappointment to some fans of the earlier Ya-Ya novels. I liked it just fine. Mostly, I think I was especially blown away by the fact that Ms. Wells was able to even write that book while she was suffering dreadfully with Lyme's Disease. I'm excited about reading this one. Amazon.com says "The novel is chock-full of Southern charm and sassy wisdom." Sounds good to me. I'm a fan of Southern charm and sassy wisdom, for sure.

Sticking with my whole "wishing I was still at the beach" theme I can't seem to move beyond this year, I'm also looking forward to reading Patti Callahan Henry's DRIFTWOOD SUMMER where three sisters reunite to save the family’s beach-community bookstore.


One of my favorite writers of "All Things Southern" is Dorothea Benton Frank. She has written a sequel to her very first novel, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND. RETURN TO SULLIVAN'S ISLAND promises a return to a breathtakingly beautiful place, with some of the most eccentric, wild and funny characters you'll ever hope to meet. If you're not familiar with Ms. Frank, do check out her webpage and learn how she came to write her first novel. It's quite the story.

Another perennial favorite of mine is Mary Kay Andrews. Her newest, THE FIXER UPPER finds us carrying on with another of her courageous, outrageous southern women characters who is, by God, going to show the world just how strong she really is. And will have everyone falling completely in love with her while doing it.

AND I'm excited about the next Bobbie Faye adventure. Toni McGee Causey's WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON comes out in August. Bobbie Faye is a HOOT and I love her.



You know who is missing from this list? A woman whose writing I love more than I can even say - Anne Rivers Siddons. I haven't seen any mention of anything new from her, but we'll just cross our fingers and hope it'll be soon.

O.K. - that's a partial list of what I plan on reading this summer. Now let's hear what's on your list!