Stories with hints of romance and mystery that touch on real-life issues that at times requires the inner strength we sometimes have to dig deep for…starting over and the challenges of new beginnings as we get older whether it’s the jump into the thirty-something years…hitting forty…or finding fifty at your doorstep, children leaving home and sometimes coming back again, sibling relationships no matter how old we are, mother and daughter (and sometimes sons) turmoil and reconciliations, the strength of family and value of strong friendships…and woven throughout are hope, forgiveness, kindness, the promise of second and lasting chances…and love.

I fell in love with books when I was in the 4th grade and my free period was spent volunteering in the school library. I read every Nancy Drew book there was to check out, discovered collections of myths and fairy tales from around the world, Louisa May Alcott and C.S. Lewis, and decided I wanted my own library. By the end of that summer with the supplies our school librarian graciously provided me my books had due date slips, card pockets, book cards, and black electrical tape on the spine with the first three letters of the author's last name. I still have most of those books.

In the hope she could get me involved in something else my mother gave me a camera. Right around the same time my father told me I could use his typewriter when he wasn't using it. The typewriter won. We shared his typewriter but I also filled notebooks with stories scribbled before school, after school, and often when I was supposed to be asleep. Thanks to my mother, who saved just about every single one of those notebooks, I still have them as well.

Several years ago my father gave me his typewriter…the same one we shared all those summers ago. Every time I look at it and the box filled with notebooks of handwritten stories and dreams I remember the young 4th grade girl who was quietly encouraged to do what she loved.