A Look Back Over 2022; A Christmas Letter

If you already received this letter inside a Christmas card, just disregard this, it's the same (except for the pictures):

Twenty-twenty-two has definitely been a better year than the two that came before, at least for us. Our first great-grandbaby was born on October 10: Rey Marie. She was a big girl at over 8 pounds, and was born to Brooke, Wayne’s granddaughter, and her husband Colt. They’re the pair who live in St. Croix, so we have not seen this new baby whom Wayne has already named Sugarpie to compliment his nickname for her mom, Honeypie. They are coming to Texas in January so we will finally get to lay eyes on this precious addition to the family. 

Also in October, the 30^th Anniversary Edition of LILY came out in trade paperback. Hard for me to believe it has been thirty years already since it debuted, but time does march on, as they say. It has a lovely new cover and I’m pleased that it was printed in big bold type so more people can read it and enjoy it again. Maybe it will find new readers, who knows. 

In August, in celebration of Wayne’s 75^th birthday, we returned to our beloved Florence, Oregon for a week of seafood and beautiful views. The VRBO we rented overlooks the Siuslaw River (pronounced Sigh-You-Slaw) a mile upstream from where it empties into the blue, blue Pacific. We spent a lot of our time just sitting out on the balcony watching the harbor seals and shore birds, as the tide came and went. We especially enjoyed watching cormorants dive for food. The water is so clear there you can see them underwater as they dart after the little sunfish they seem to relish. They’re terrific fishermen but it also turns out they’re gluttons. I stopped counting at 14 minnows one bird caught in 45 minute. 

We would love to find a way to move to Florence permanently, but the disparity in housing costs will probably keep us here. We have put our little bay house on the market, but we needed to do that anyway. Insurance on that place cost three times what our house in Yoakum costs, and I have tired of holding my breath all the way through hurricane season every year. We’ve had it eight years and I will miss it as my writing retreat.

Our flight from Eugene Oregon back to Austin went fine until right before we landed, when our flight was suddenly diverted to Houston Hobby. There were supposedly supercell thunderstorms in the area, although we later learned there were also some mechanical issues with the plane. They put us on a new plane in Houston and we got back to Austin at 2:30 in the morning instead of 10:30 as scheduled, and still facing a two-hour drive home. Several other planes had been diverted and it became a free-for-all in baggage claim. I was wearing a mask but Wayne was not. And of course, two days after we got home, after being completely vaxed and double-boosted, we both came down with Covid. It was, thankfully, a light case for both of us. Our doctor prescribed Paxlovid (a miracle drug) and within a few days we were well and testing negative. 

April was another big time for us. Mid-month we left on an 8-day cruise up the Rhine River. Stuart and Mark met us at the Amsterdam airport and we all shuttled to the boat. This was our second Viking cruise and we really love the excursions, the slower pace, the fewer passengers at only 225 people, the delicious gourmet food. These river cruises are a relaxing, easy-going way to travel. We loved the Rhine but think we loved the Danube in 2019 just a teensy bit more. We have now traveled to 13 countries and figure we need to add one more to get to a luckier number.

Also in April, my book FOR LOVE AND GLORY came out. It has been a long time coming and I was thrilled to finally see this novel I worked on, intermittently, for nearly 20 years come to fruition. I loved my editor, my designer, but have learned how hard it is to get a book noticed now, and into bookstores and review magazine. The publishing industry has undergone a dramatic change since my last book came out, but as I tell all my friends “I’M BACK, BABY.” I have been surprised at how many of my old fans have sent me texts and messages with well-wishes. 

In April, our cat Sam turned eight. It’s so hard for us both to believe he could possibly be that old already. He brings us loads of joy, and is still the same silly, lively play-kitty he was when we got him. In fact, I don’t think he realizes he’s not still a kitten. 

So here’s to another great year! I hope everyone flourishes and finds new joy in their lives!

ONWARD....🍷🍷

11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour

World War I, aka The Great War, began in 1914, between the European powers. American got into the war in 1917 after German U-Boats started attacking our merchant marines. So for the first three years of the War to End All Wars, so-named by Woodrow Wilson, the United States was neutral. By the time we got "Over There" France, England, Germany, Italy, Turkey, etc had already lost millions of soldiers to the war, a brutal affair where the military command was still fighting in the warfare style of the 18th and 19th centuries against 20th century weaponry, a fact that forced armies to seek cover down inside elaborate trenches. It was a bloodbath.

It didn't take long before America began to rack up casualties too, losing in about eighteen months more men than a decade of fighting in Vietnam would years later. Germany had thrown all it had at the war effort, men and materiel. On November 11, 1918, at 11 o'clock in the morning, the antagonists signed an armistice, or a ceasefire. For the next 36 years, we commemorated November 11 as Armistice Day, and in some places, Remembrance Day. Armistice Day was what my parents told me it was called when they were growing up. After World War II came and went, the veterans from that war thought they deserved a day of commemoration too for their great sacrifices, and in 1954, Congress changed the name of the national holiday to Veteran's Day. 

But what does it mean now? Where I live there isn't even a Veteran's Day parade anymore, like the ones I remember as a child living in Corpus Christi. My family is full of veterans, mostly from WWII. Almost all the men I knew growing up, family and family friends, had served in some capacity in that war: my dad, my grandfather, several uncles, close family friends, even some of the women enlisted in various causes, and those that didn't still did SOMETHING, like taking old tin pots to a collection area to have them melted down for ammunition. Everyone gave up things to help the troops. People were issued ration books for groceries and blackout curtains were hung over windows. My mom told me about a U-Boat scare in Corpus Christi Bay when she was a girl, and the air raid sirens that would sound as drills. Her high school yearbook is filled with pictures of men in Navy uniforms, classmates or enlisted seaman from the Naval Air Station nearby. 

It was nothing, even when I was a child, to see men with empty sleeves, or on crutches or in wheelchairs from limbs lost. My dad's closest friend was a double amputee who had been shelled in a foxhole during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the precursor of the more famous Battle of the Bulge. Another good friend of Daddy's had been hit by fire during the amphibious landings in the Bay of Salerno during the Invasion of Italy. My grandfather drove landing craft in the South Pacific at Leyte Gulf, and during that battle prayed to God that if He would see him through he would hand over his life. Shortly after he got home, my grandfather went into the ministry and became a Baptist preacher for the rest of his life.

The children of those 16-million veterans, my generation, were steeped in World War II. It was absorbed into us without having to be mentioned. It just lingered, everywhere around us, even in the row-house neighborhoods built for all those veterans and their new families. The kids played World War II in the streets, interspersed with Cowboys and Indians, of course. We knew how to make the sounds of ack-ack gunfire, and machine-guns, and bombs falling. A kid down the street could mimic perfectly a trench mortar letting off a round, so we even had a bit of the First World War thrown into our WWII street battles. I supposed kids are still playing war but doing it on the computer screens now, with realistic gore and trauma. Somehow it doesn't feel the same. 

I sometimes wonder what in the world my dad, and all those long-gone veterans would think about the so-called division in our country now, or the January 6th insurrection. The last time he flew in a plane was to his squadron reunion in 2003. He got pulled out of the security line and wanded, all over his body until they located the problem: a roll of Tums in its foil wrapping inside his shirt pocket. Daddy looked the TSA agent in the face, and with a disappointed smile on his face, said, "I served in World War II. You think I'm a terrorist?" He was so insulted by the episode he never took a plane anywhere again. 

In the 1970s, I married a man who enlisted in the US Air Force. The salary for an E-2, his rank just after Basic Training, was so low, we not only qualified for Section 8 housing, but also for Food Stamps, known now as SNAP. After he got out we found a little house we wanted to buy, and since he qualified for a VA loan, our down-payment was only a single dollar bill. I remember watching the mortgage banker paperclip that dollar bill to our loan application, happy to be so lucky.

So let's celebrate and honor our veterans, but let's also continue to fund and support the GI Bill, which we have not always done readily. Let's give them the highest quality health care available instead of always skimping on that, even closing down military hospitals so veterans who are unable to travel long distances end up shut-out of the system. Let's provide mental health rehabilitation so they don't feel compelled to seek anti-government militia groups for camaraderie. It's too easy these days to forget about our veterans who may have been traumatized by the realities of modern-day guerrilla warfare. Let's provide enlisted service men and women with skills they can use once they're out of the military so they can continue to contribute their patriotism and their sense of duty and fairplay to American society. And for God's sake, let's stop using them as pawns in the game of political gotcha, or slapping magnetic signs on our cars that say "I support the military," a brag that has just become another meaningless slogan. 

Happy Veteran's Day, America. Fly your flag!

Onward...

My Cat Got a Flea

Last week my spoiled but lovable cat, Sam, had a personality change. It happened on Monday. Sam isn't allowed outside at all unless he's on a leash or in his Kitty Walk enclosure. He is 8 years old and would not have made it to 8 months if he had been allowed to roam free. Too many dangers in our neighborhood from cars and other stray cats, and dogs who sometimes race unaccompanied through the streets. I started walking Sam on a leash when he was 4 months old, and he loves it, rushes from anywhere in the house when he hears the jingle of the harness. He even jumps up in a chair to make it easier on the walker to fasten the harness and leash, and once it's on him, he dashes for the nearest door. But he didn't seem much interested in our Monday walk. I had to pick him up and put him in the chair to get on the paraphernalia, and at the door, he hung back. Not the norm for Sam. He never holds back for anything.

Tuesday, he wouldn't eat his morning treats. They're called treats because that's what he has always considered them: TREATS! He wasn't interested in wrestling on the raggedy rug in front of the sliding door, his favorite MO for play. It goes like this: I push a stick under the rug and he comes in hot, sliding under the rug after the stick, and giving the rug a few killing kicks with both hind legs. Sometimes he even turns a somersault. Not Tuesday. He sat in the middle of the room and stared at me like I was from Mars and simply blinked at the end of the stick poking out from his beloved rug.

Next, he wouldn't eat his kibble. Or his wet food. And he kept yowling from a distant room. I told Wayne if he wasn't better by tomorrow I was taking him to the vet. I know my cat. None of this was normal behavior. He seemed agitated. Grousing. He stared at us, seemed to want something from us and it wasn't the usual things like going out, or food, or play. I went to bed that night worried sick over poor Sam. Wayne chastened me, accused me of being a helicopter mom, which I most certainly am NOT. I do pay attention to my cat, and I can tell when all is not well. It definitely was NOT well.

On Wednesday, I noticed Sam licking excessively, and biting at his legs. And he was fierce about it, so I thought he must have developed an allergy of some sort. I thought about the new litter we had bought when our grocery store quit carrying his old brand. When I petted his head, he turned it and leaned into my scratching hand. So I checked his fur, down to his skin. Not an easy task but I saw nothing. I combed him but only came up with some loose summer hair he hadn't yet shed. And still he was grousy and indifferent to all the things he so much loves. I carried him around a lot. I thought he seemed feverish. He was certainly pitiful. And then....and then! While I had him in my arms, a flea walked out from the hair just above his eyes. A flea! A disgusting burrowing flea. On my mostly inside cat. 

Wayne drove over to the vet for one of those ridiculously expensive topical applications you put behind your cat's head. Sam hates those things. He resents us for hours when we have had to apply them, so if we happen to be in the vet's office for a visit, I usually ask the doctor to do it. I would much rather Sam hold a grudge against the vet than me. 

But anyway, Wayne brought one of those vials home, so we put Sam in his carrier, and through the top trapdoor I applied the topical between his shoulder blades. We made him stay in the carrier until it dried so he wouldn't lick it or rub it off on furniture. He was unhappy with us. He hollered at us every time one of us passed his carrier. For the rest of the day he hated us.

But...but...on Thursday morning, he got up a different kitty. He pranced around with his tail high, loving and happy, doing figure-eights through our legs, jumping in our laps, ready to wrestle with the rug, ravenous for his treats and kibble and wet food, eager to go out on the leash, back to his silly but sweet old self. 

Guess it's time to spray the yard. Who knew a single, solitary flea could cause such misery and disruption? I'm just glad to have my old Sam back. And to maybe contemplate the possibility that... ah-hmmm...maybe there's a little bit of helicopter mom inside me after all.

LOL.

Onward....

The Oregon Trail

 It has been a miserable summer in Texas. It shows all over our yard and in our gardens. The tomato season was abruptly interrupted at the end of May, an unreasonable date for production to end, but we had already had several 100+ degree days by then, and the plants were dying. Birds were eating the tomatoes as fast as they could make, while they were still green. In total aggravation, I gave up. I tore the plants out of the ground, filling up the composter! I have never had such a disastrous tomato crop, ever!

Now, three months later, record temperatures have been broken over and over. Sometimes the indoor/outdoor thermometer in my kitchen shows as high as 115 degrees in the backyard. The grass is barely alive, and that is after running up the largest water bill to date on this house, just desperate to save the roots. Most of my potted plants have also died. A neighbor and I have noticed that even with watering every day, some of the plants have simply shriveled in the hot wind. Last time I paid attention to the news we have had 63 days of temperatures of 100 or more, and that is also a record. The lack of rainfall since the beginning of this year has made it all that much worse. In July we got .02 of an inch, and August so far hasn't been a whole lot better.

People started talking about global warming in the 1970s. Maybe it was sooner but that's when I recall hearing about it for the first time. Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House, which of course, Ronald Reagan had removed almost immediately. The petroleum industry turned the whole matter into a political issue and so it has remained for some reason, because people don't always recognize when they are being manipulated by big business. But I don't see how anyone can deny the weather is changing. They point to the fact that we have these blistering cold snaps, another thing that never happened until recently, so global warming is a hoax. But that happens exactly because the polar caps are warming and that arctic air droops down into areas of the world it never used to reach when it stayed nice and firmly frozen in place, sort of like how your glass of ice water gets the coldest just before all the ice has melted away.

Anyway, this heat – desert creep, I've heard it called by meteorologists – has Wayne and I yearning for the wonderful summer weather we enjoyed when we lived in the Southern Rockies. The problem for me there was the altitude, not the weather. I couldn't breathe and it didn't get better. The longer we stayed the harder I found it to get a breath. So we came back to Texas – and both of us have pretty much been complaining about it ever since we arrived. 

In 2019 we took a trip to Oregon – because I had never been and we both wanted to see Crater Lake. I've always had a fascination with the Pacific Ocean so we made sure to spend a lot of time on the Oregon coast, and we both fell in love with a little town midway down the coastline named Florence. We stayed in a B&B style inn on a hill with a fabulous view of the town, the harbor, and close enough to walk to Old Town restaurants. Our room had a little kitchen so we visited a local supermarket and made a charcuterie tray and drank some wine from one of the Willamette wineries we had visited. We slept with the windows open. It was a gorgeous weather, blue skies and cool nights. We walked on the beach. We noticed a lot of retirees there. We even came back at the end of our circular trek around Oregon for a last look before we flew back to Texas. 

Then the pandemic struck. We daydreamed about that October in Oregon. And we planned another trip as soon as travel became a reality again, This time, we vowed we would stay in Florence the entire time and use it as our base camp. In 2021, we did just that.

This time, October again because we were spending our "anniversary" there – this time, the weather was horrendous. A howling wind came off the ocean and ravaged the deck on the VRBO we had found online in Old Town. We didn't even venture out at all for one entire day other than to dash across the street to have dinner. We moved all the deck furniture up against a wall to keep it from flying through the picture window. Once the brunt of the storm had passed, on our second whole day, we drove up to see the Sea Lions we had missed on our first trip. The ocean was misty from the crashing waves rolling in. It looked like a scene from a science fiction movie, something from outer space. I could barely keep my fearsome, awestruck eyes off of it. The sea lions, of course, were nowhere to be seen. They're not dummies.

And yet, this fascination with Florence, Oregon has not abated. We are headed back in one week. We have been scouring Realtor.com and Zillow since May. We have been giving worried glances at all the stuff we have accumulated since we've been back in Texas – not to mention burdensome real estate we have attached ourselves to. We are actually, at our age, thinking of a big cross-continent move from Texas to Oregon – if we can figure out how to make it work. We will be doing yet another HUGE downsize if we do this, but we've got an appointment with a real estate agent while we're there, and we will see just how committed to a move we feel once this trip is over. If we do it, this will absolutely be the LAST move for us so we have to find a place that is awesome – a place that ticks all the boxes, as they say on HGTV – a place that makes enough sense to us to plan another god-awful long-distance move. 

Onward…

Maybe You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover

 My first novel LILY will be reprinted later this year, 30 years after the first edition came out in 1992. It's going to be great to have the book back in print. Electronic versions have been available but the book went out of print around 2001 and since then, only used copies could be found on various bookselling sites. I almost never see copies of the mass market paperback out there. I suppose those aren't worth anything anymore. But at any rate, LILY will be out this time in trade paperback and with an all new cover. 

I like the new cover. It's always hard to get used to something new, but I think the cover is pretty and does invoke the story -- a thing a cover is supposed to do to my mind. I've had some book covers I wasn't wild about. I was actually never wild about the original LILY hardcover art. It's reminiscent of Marc Chagall, but for me it always made the book look cartoonish, and since it has a 15-year-old protagonist, the inclination of reviewers was to categorize it as a YA novel, which it most definitely is not. There's too much sex, for one thing, enough in fact to get it banned from some school libraries. But that's a story for another blog post. The point being, the writer doesn't always, or often, have much say with traditional publishers about the cover art of their book. I did manage to get them to take the sequaro cactus the artist had originally drawn into the background out to be replaced by the hillock and trees. The artist was from Spain, and I guess had watched too many Sergio Leoni spaghetti westerns. The part of Texas, Bastrop County, where LILY takes place is rolling hills and lots of pine trees, so the second try came out better, although those trees look suspiciously like cypress trees to me. Ah well...

When foreign rights started coming in on LILY, it was interesting to see that the Spanish version opted to use the same cover but changed to the title to La Inocencia de Lily, a charming change, I thought. I never had a chance to see the cover art for the German version, but British LILY was moody blue and more adult, sort of mysterious. I liked it well enough. They published in both hardcover and soft simultaneously, something that didn't take hold in the USA until recently. And of course, this was way before the eBook revolution. But on all these cover, Lily herself was all wrong. She was never a blonde as in the Chagall-like version, and British LILY is far too mature-looking, although I did like that the British cover seemed to take the book more seriously as literature.

The mass-market version was done in a lovely way, with a stepback cover and a vellum overlay that lets a smoky image of the stepback seep through. And it was cool how they highlighted my name at the top with a banner beneath. And they got Lily's hair color correct.

Anyway the point is the cover art, what to expect, the initial reactions when you finally see it, all of those are part of the anticipation and excitement of having a book come out. I'm getting used to the latest cover art, and liking it more and more. I hope it will bring a new generation of readers to LILY.

Onward....

  

Stepback cover

Why I Like to Review Books

 After my divorce, when I moved to Victoria Texas, I happened to meet the op-ed editor at the local newspaper. He was speaking at an organization meeting and a friend introduced me to him. As a nice friend will do, she told him something about me, namely that I had had (at that time) four novels published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a publishing house with a great reputation throughout the publishing world. He asked me if I ever did book reviews, and I answered not really, just some reader remarks on Amazon pages. He then asked, "Would you like to? It doesn't pay much but we need another reviewer." And so I said yes. He then invited me to come to his office at the newspaper, have my picture taken, and look over the books that were stacked on a shelf there waiting to be reviewed. He told me that once I had reviewed a book, I could keep the book, sell the book, or give it to the library. Gee whiz! What a great proposition for a nutty book person like me.

I don't remember the first book I reviewed, but I had decided that I wouldn't give scathing reviews to any book. If I hated it enough to give a decimating review I would simply take the book back to the editor's bookshelf and let the other reviewer have a go. My thinking on this is that my job was to give readers (a diminishing group of people, right?) a reason TO read a book not an excuse not to read one. That's not to say that I gave all glowing reviews. I didn't. But to trash a book, I decided, wouldn't do anybody any good. I reviewed for this newspaper until a new editor took the helm, one who did away with the book page in the Sunday edition, or began using boilerplate reviews lifed from other sources. So, in all, I reviewed for a little over two years. I was sad to see it end. I liked going into the newspaper office to pick up my books. It made me feel a little bit like Clark Kent, all those busy reporters at their computer screen. And no, I did not get wealthy. In fact, my writing has never made me wealthy. I had a bit of a run with my first novel, but it wasn't like having an oil well in my backyard or anything. 

Since then, I have reviewed books on a more serious scale for Amazon, although I have never made it to their recognized Top Reviewer status. And now, I am reviewing books for Reedsy Discover, an online review page. I have only done one review so far, and am on my second one. The way they do it is they send you a list of books that have been submitted for reviews, and you get to select the ones that seem interesting to you. They let you have three at a time. These are supposed to be pre-reviews meaning prior to the publish date of the books in question. They like to be one of the first post-production review sites after a book launches. This means when you pick up a book from their list of available books, you get a deadline along with it. I don't like deadlines much, so I chose books that have a longer than normal deadline, although I find myself feeling sorry for those that are approaching deadline and haven't had a reviewer chose them yet. So this week I picked up one of those and am madly reading to try to complete the book and the review by June 2, which is just around the corner. Why do I do these things to myself???

But as a writer I know that book reviews can really help a book fly. I'm not sure that the old traditional way of submitting to all the newspapers in the country works anymore. So many papers have deleted their book review sections. If you're lucky enough to get one in the New York Times, well great, because they have a vital and energetic book section, as do some of the other big players. But everybody is vying for those reviews and they're not so easy to get. It's probably difficult to decipher how book reviews translate to book sales. I know I have seen books touted as Best Sellers that later end up on remainder tables at Dollar General, so there seems to be a lot of falsehood in the book selling business period. And it is the one industry where returns are acceptable at any time for any reason in any amount. If a book store orders 30 books because they're having an author event, and they only sell ten copies, they can return the other 20 and reverse the shipping charges. It was an old mis-belief that if the author signed all the other copies for the store to sell as "signed copies" those books would not be returned, but that turns out to be just another wife's tale. I have seen returns go back to the publisher with the author's signature on the inside page anyway. 

It's a dicey business, and all the cards are stacked in the favor of everybody else besides the writer, which seems strange to people who don't know this, because without the writer actually writing the damned book there wouldn't be anything for anybody to sell in the first place. But alas, the trouble is publishers are overwhelmed with manuscripts coming at them from all direction. This is why few will take an unsolicited, or unagented, manuscript in the first place. And even still there are thousands that end up waiting to be read by some underling "reader" and hopefully passed on up the chain to an actual editor. The odds are against us all. And anybody who thinks they can write a novel because they learned to parse a sentence in language class in 5th grade—well, there's a little bit more to it than that. However if you're serious about it, keep writing. After you've written a couple of million words, you might get lucky. Off the subject of reviews, but felt it needed to be said—again. I'm sure I'm repeating myself by now.

Onward....

Promised Recap of River Cruise on the Rhine

 The worst part about travel to Europe is getting there. Airline travel is not what it used to be, even 25 years ago. You're crammed into the smallest space possible. There isn't even room anymore for my carry-on and my purse, which I have been sliding under the seat in front of me for all my adult life. My carry-on had to go in the overhead, and that left barely enough room for my purse. We were on United. I didn't know I would be wishing for that itty bit of leg-room when we got on the return flight eight days later.

But....Amsterdam. As we flew in I saw all the canals, but at that time, didn't know what they were for; I would soon learn. My first impression was that it was so flat and feature-less it reminded me of my hometown, Corpus Christi, and the surrounding wetlands there. We found the boys in the Amsterdam airport, and we caught our shuttle to the ship. Boat is really a more correct description, or even barge. They call them longships so I guess I will too. This was our second Viking cruise so we knew what to expect. The rooms are small but adequate. We had a balcony this time, which we used once.

The boys had booked us a reservation to a famous tulip farm and we barely had time to shovel some food into our mouths before our Uber arrived. The drive there was chaotic and traffic-bound, but we made it just in time for our reservation. What we all had forgotten about was that it was Good Friday. The place was absolutely packed with humanity. Soon forgotten, however, when we laid eyes on the spectacular tulips gardens that awaited us. We had to have been there at the peak time. It was almost overwhelming is was so fabulous. 

When we got back to the ship our rooms were ready so we had showers and got dressed for dinner. Two two best things about a Viking River Cruise are the food and the service. The staff onboard these ships are outstanding, as is the food. The third best thing is these ships only hold 125 people roughly, so there are no long lines for anything, no sitting in crowded places with strangers. We grabbed a table for four and that table was ours for the duration. 

The next day I finally learned what all those canals are about, and how carefully the Dutch people manage their water, since they live below sea level, it is a necessity. We drove through a polder, visited a cheese factory, and saw some centuries old windmills. Our guide was fantastic, funny, and really made the excursion memorable. 

The Netherlands turned out to be one of the highlights, as was Cologne, Germany where we had a fantastic Kölsch lunch of pork knuckle and potatoes. Another highlight was Strasbourg, France seeing the storks in their trees, walking through the old town with all the half-timbered building. I had been there before, and liked it even better this second time. A last real highlight was a drive through the Black Forest to the cuckoo clock factory, watching a glass blower at work, and a demonstration of how to make a Black Forest cake. All super fun and all great memories. 

We got sick, both Wayne and I, but it was allergies. Europe was in bloom and a crisp wind was blowing. The Viking staff tested us daily for Covid so we knew we were safe. We love the Viking cruises, but hate the travel days equally. The trip home was murderous, Lufthansa packed us in even tighter than United had, the only saving grace was Lufthansa serves better food. If we weren't such cheap-skates we would have sprung for Business Class seats, or at least Economy Plus. I'll remember it for future trips.

Onward...

It's All About That Book, 'Bout That Book

So my first review came over the weekend. It's in Reedsy Discovery, an online book review site and man, it's a really good review. I'm psyched up about it. For eight days we were in Europe (more about that later), and the book was far from my mind, or anyway, it was in deep background. Home last Friday. We had a petsitter, and she had to drag in the boxes of books that came while we were gone. I had told her, via text, to open one and sure enough, THE BOOK was inside. She was so excited, I told her to take one. It looks great. I'm happy. And tomorrow is the official pub date. So since I'm being all egotistical, here's the review:

 

Reedsy Discovery ™

Discover something new to read

_____________________________________________________

For Love and Glory

By Cindy Bonner

 

Must read 🏆

A beautiful tale of purpose, courage and love that transcends time periods and generations.

Cindy Bonner’s For Love and Glory follows Lange DeLony, a young man who loves to fly. He avoids his problems as he searches futilely for purpose and happiness. After a tragic loss, Lange is even more determined to escape his painful reality and decides to join the Royal Air Force during WWII in a fight that isn’t even his own. Along his journey he meets ferry pilot Mackie MacLeod, and discovers more about himself and how to truly find what is missing in his life.

 

 

The characters are so real and seem to explode off of the pages. Lange especially shows tremendous change as the readers see him thrive on his strengths and battle with his weaknesses. What is interesting to note is that so many different characters affected by the same war have such varied attitudes, desires and motivations. This makes the reading very intriguing as the reader watches each storyline and sees how each character makes choices and deals with the consequences afterwards. 

 

 

The language and writing style are as varied as the characters. At times the words are witty as seen by, ‘“Excuse her. She’s not used to being polite.”’ On other occasions they are thought-provoking: “It is not necessary to be a hearing person to know when anger has won.” Action scenes are written with sharp, short sentences which create that intense, adrenaline filled feeling: “His legs trembled. Heart hammered in his ears.” Bonner’s constant language and style changes keep the readers locked in and make the storytelling more impactful.

 

 

For Love and Glory explores themes related to Identity and Purpose. Readers should be able to relate to the characters who are trying to find themselves in the midst of chaos and war. In this way, the plot goes beyond a Historical Fiction set in the 1940s and hones in on the truth about humanity despite the age or time period - there’s a need to be accepted, to be loved and discover what makes one thrive in the world in which one lives.

 

 

The story has lots of information and facts which may elude some readers and cause them to be lost at times. But Bonner does a great job in maintaining the authenticity of the time which makes the story so realistic. Readers who enjoy Historical Fiction or stories about love, war and purpose, should definitely read this book.

 

REVIEWED BY

Renee Padmore

 

 

Published on April 26, 2022

110000 words

Contains mild explicit content 

___________________________

Onward....

 

 

The Last Time I Saw France

In the late 1990s I made two back-to-back trips to France. This was before the Euro when the US dollar was 7 to 1 over the French Franc and trips to that country were relatively inexpensive for Americans. I absolutely fell in love with France. Both trips were, ostensibly, research for my novel RIGHT FROM WRONG, which came out in 1999 and deals, in part, with the First World War. At least a third of it takes place in France, but there was an awful lot of sightseeing, eating, and most of all wine-drinking that had little to nothing to do with the novel. When I got back home after the second trip, I figured my France days were over, so many other places to see and explore, and in the ensuing 20+ years, I have done that. But here I am, sitting at my desk writing this, and I am days away from seeing France one more time. And I couldn't be happier.

This time it will be combined with a couple of other countries, those that have banks and bridges along and across the Rhine River. We went on a river cruise of the Danube before the Pandemic, and had this trip scheduled to take place in August 2020. Well, we all know what happened. Everything got canceled in 2020 but we are going now. I hope we are in a Covid window here, and it will be as good of an experience as the last river cruise. The cruise line is requiring passengers to be totally vaccinated, and there will be regular testing throughout the trip. But ... France ... again. And probably finally this time. 

I've been to most of the stops on the Alsatian border of the Rhine, but there's always something missed. What I remember is ancient castles, medieval castles, the big unruly nests of storks on platforms high over the houses. I remember the Vosges Mountains in the distance, and that the Ill river conjoins with the Rhine at Strasbourg somewhere near the European Parliament building. There's an unfinished cathedral there in Strasbourg, with a missing spire, and inside the cathedral, a huge astronomical clock with hundreds of moving parts. I stood and watched that clock for most of an hour. I remember the half-timbered architecture and the good sauerkraut and sausages I had there. 

And then there's Colmar, another half-timbered city, La Petit Venice, because of the houses that sit right on the Lauch River which runs throughout the old town. Riesling and Pinot Blanc and Gewurtztraminer (pronounced "Girls Are Meaner"), and an effervescent wine with the word Alsace in its name. I remember walking through the streets with all the lovely windows dressed by the merchants: knotted loaves of crusty bread, and sweet cakes with cream toppings and fruit slices arranged perfectly on top. French people appreciate the beauty of their country and their pride in it shows in the care they take to make everything beautiful. I'm so happy to be able to spend a few days there again. I wish my French hadn't got so rusty, but I'm sure we'll be with French-speakers so I shouldn't have to worry. 

We will also be floating through The Netherlands, Germany, and ending in Switzerland, but I left a piece of my heart in France in the 1990s. Maybe I will find it again next week. 

En avant ...

A Long Long Wait

It has been 22 years since I had a new book launch. I've done a lot of writing during those years. I've had an agent, well, two agents actually, who have worked with me, one I found and one who found me. I've written book reviews, lots of them, for newspapers and for Amazon. I've written a screenplay that's being passed around, and I've kept this blog (granted not as much in recent years) since 2009, but that kind of writing doesn't count much to readers. It's book they want. And it's books I want too. 

At my core, I'm a novelist. I need that long form to create a believable world, and that time to bring characters to life. I will never be a mystery writer, or a horror writer, or anything that requires a heavy plot line. That just isn't my style. It isn't even the kind of books I read. I don't fit easily into a category. My novels are too literary to be genre romance, even though they are romantic. But they're not literary enough to be classified in that category either. They're historical, but not generic historical romance. They don't always had happy endings. Sometimes I like to write from the male point-of-view. A few times, the entire book has come from the male point-of-view. The main thing for me is it has to hold my interest. I figure if I can hold my own interest -- someone so easily distracted by life -- then maybe it will hold a reader's interest, too. 

Anyway, the point of this blog post is, my 22-year drought is about to end. I have a new book, my fifth one, finally coming out in just a few weeks. The official pub date is April 26. Here's the cover art. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited. I'll let you know when you can go buy a copy, because I just know you will want to do that, right? 

I started working on this novel in 2000, made two research trips to England, read a hundred-gazillion books on World War II. I sat in the cockpit of a Spitfire, and watched one fly in an airshow in Duxford where the Americans of the 8th Army Air Corps were stationed. I met the president of the Hurricane Fighter Pilots Association, who showed me all around the south of England to what remained of old airdromes. And I made friends with an American WWII fighter pilot, a real-life one, who flew and fought over the skies of Europe, a generous gentleman who gave me so much material it overwhelmed me. He opened his home to me after a single email, showed me his war chest full of souvenirs like his flight helmet and his bail-out kit, all still intact. We became real friends, phonecalls, lunches, library visits. He lived in San Antonio, it wasn't a far drive for me. I do so wish I could give Jack a copy of this book, but sadly he passed away a few years ago. I know he would recognize some of the good ideas he gave me. Our WWII heros are passing quickly. We have to cherish and honor them. They saved the world. (I believe the world is going to need saving once again. And soon.)

But back to the journey I traveled writing this book. In the middle of it, I got a divorce. My 34-year marriage, when it ended, stopped the writing. And then I met a new man, fell in love at age 54! and that stopped the writing, again. Who has time for writing when you're falling in love, learning about a new person, making trips together to places like to Ireland, and Montana, and Alaska? Oh, and did I mention getting a "day" job, which required, you guessed it, hours and hours on a computer. Last thing I wanted to do when I got home was sit in front of a computer for another few hours. In short, for the past -- let's say 15 years anyway -- I have been living my life, and mostly daydreaming about finishing this book. I even took to calling it The Endless Novel before I heard a line in an old WWII song and the real title finally came to me: 

"It's still the same old story, a fight FOR LOVE AND GLORY, a case of do or die, the world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by...."  

That's all. My big announcement. Next, comes the part I hate -- promotion. But that's a little bit of what this blog is all about, promoting. So I hope I haven't bored you to tears, or seemed too full of myself. It's more relief that it finally got done than beating my own drum. Now, let's see what happens with it. Keep. your fingers crossed for me!

Onward...

The Need for Stories

 I have been told I should get back to blogging, so here goes:

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole business of reading, writing, yearning for stories and knowledge, and what drives it inside of us. Stories have been around since man came along. Our ancestors told stories through folklore and cave paintings. The need to hear and learn about other people, places, adventures is part of being human and having big brains. Our big brain is what separates us from other creatures on earth. Other animals have the capacity to learn. You can teach your dog to fetch or to do his business outside, but humans are unique in having stories in our brains that we retain, enjoy, repeat. (On another note: I would really love for my Sam-cat to tell me a story. The thought of that gives me a smile.) 

I found this need for story when I was a young child. I loved hearing my grandparents tell about their childhoods, or my parents tell about theirs, hearing Daddy's "war stories." Since I was a baby boomer, those war stories abounded in my childhood. I can't think of a single man in my orbit who had not taken part in some way in World War II, so it was still all around me, and I was curious for the details. 

Before I could read I pestered everybody in my house to read for me. My mother once told me I drove them crazy on car trips asking what every sign we passed said. Back then, people didn't expect children to learn to read before they started to school. I think I was probably ready to learn much earlier, but I didn't come from a scholarly family. They were Depression era, hardworking, public-school educated rule-followers. If the rules were that kids learned to read in first grade, then they weren't going to start any sooner, and kindergarten was something unheard of in my world. 

Two weeks before I started first grade, my mother sat me down to the kitchen table with a piece of paper and a pencil and taught me to write my name. She made me memorize our address and phone number, and the address and phone number of my grandparents, since they lived in the same city and could substitute in an emergency. I learned those lessons so well--TE5-0170 and TU2-6926, respectively--that there are still stamped in my brain, 60-plus years later. 

My first grade teacher, Miss Hopper, sat the class in small circles, handed out our primer, See Spot Run, and we learned slowly how to sound out the simple, LARGE print words on the pages. I adored that part of our classes. As far as I was concerned, I could have sat in that circle for the entire day. I couldn't wait to read that whole book to see what happened. I'm sure it was predictable. I didn't care. 

However, I didn't come from a family of readers. We had a set of World Book Encyclopedias and that was about it. Once Daddy went up in the attic and brought down a battered, water-stained children's picture book called Water Babies. He must have known it was up there and climbed up there to find it for me. I read that one book over and over, memorized it backwards and forwards. Mom set me up with a subscription to Highlights for Children. It came once a month, and within a day or two, I had read all the stories, worked all the dot-to-dot puzzles, and colored all the pictures of farm animals, etc. I loved my Highlights! I really think my accountant parents didn't know what to make of this child of theirs with the hunger for books. I'm pretty sure they would have better understand if I had been a math-whiz like they both were, but they did their best for me. The whole family did.

Twice a month, my brother walked me down to the end of the block to the church parking lot where the book mobile stopped. He helped me get my first library card there, and allowed me to check-out three books. He was five years older and thought he knew what was best for me. I thought he knew, too, so I followed his rule, but I was always ready for three more books within a couple of days. 

By third grade, the family was giving me Nancy Drew books every birthday and at Christmas. By the time I outgrew them, I had the whole set. And by the time I was through with all six years at my elementary school, I had read most of the books on the shelves in our tiny library room. By about 5th grade, I started to write my own stories, in a spiral-bound notebook I bought at the drug store. Oh, how I wish I still had all those early writings. Only one has survived--a romanticized version of Ponce De Leon. I was already writing historical fiction, even way back then. 

There is no point to this narrative, other than to come back around to the need people have for story, for the neatness a story gives--beginning, middle, end--to help us make sense of the world we live in, the people we encounter, to escape to places we may never go otherwise, to situations far afield of our own lives. And of course, to learn. The smartest people I know are readers. My dad probably never read an entire book, but he was always reading something, science journals, stock market reports, newspapers and all those magazines he subscribed to. His accountant mind required that he date-stamp the upper right corner of those magazines, and check off the articles in the Table of Contents as he finished them. 

When Dad was in his late 80s he was still learning. We had long backyard conversations over a beer maybe, or a glass of wine, while watching his dogs. We discussed astronomy, foreign wars, foreign places, politics, and the psychology of human nature. Often, he surprised me with his knowledge of current fads and trendy subjects. I remember he watched the entire royal wedding when William married Kate, and talked about it for days afterwards. Another story, understanding the world, and always striving for knowledge. I hope to do the same.

Onward...