Dear Friends,

How are you doing now that we’re past the first month of the year and into the second? I hope everyone is staying safe. I do feel some hope now that we’re into February. With any luck, the vaccine will be more widely available. We signed up to get it here, but there’s no indication of when we will get an appointment. My 89-year-old father did get his first shot, so once we’re vaccinated, we can safely drive up to Indianapolis to have a good long visit with him; we haven’t seen him since August.

And we had snow in Williamsburg! Even as the backyard camelias are starting to fade and the front yard camelias are just about to start, there was some snow. It was pretty, we were happy to see it (especially Loki, as you can tell!).

But we were even happier when it melted the next day!

Now that the initial craziness of launching The Children's Blizzard is over, I’m getting back to reading more. I’ve started a biography of Mike Nichols by Mark Harris (whose books about the movies I absolutely love), I finished Julia Claiborne Johnson’s Better Luck Next Time, which was very funny and moving, all about a dude ranch for women who come to Nevada for a quickie divorce during the 1930s. I have The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett ready to go (I know, I’m late to this, and I really loved her first novel The Mothers). I’m also looking forward to Jane Smiley’s Perestroika In Paris. I would never compare myself as a writer to Jane Smiley, since she’s brilliant. But I do think we’re similar in that none of our books are really the same; we explore lots of different subjects.

Like The Children's Blizzard, for instance; kind of different from The Swans of Fifth Avenue! And speaking of my latest, I’m giving away five brand new audiobooks to five subscribers; I’ll draw names on the 14th and notify the winners by email. Cassandra Campbell, who narrated the beloved novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, narrated my novel, too, and she is just terrific.

And please consider buying The Children's Blizzard, if you haven’t already!

It’s going to be featured at the Read it Forward Book Club for February; you can go over to the Facebook Page, click “Join,” and see when I’ll be popping in for an interview and discussion.

Also, a reminder—if you want to!—that you can follow me on social media (links below), listen to the podcast I do with Edward Kelsey Moore, and tune in to Instagram every Friday where I recommend a book and movie pairing, called “Melanie’s Flicks and Picks.”

That’s all for now! Are you going to watch the Super Bowl this year? I don’t know. I think I may decide to paint one of the bedrooms instead.

Off to get some paint swatches,

Melanie

Read about my books!