My mother used to say about her childhood summers in Illinois that going outside was like stepping into a warm, dirty bathtub. I’ve been thinking about that lately as it certainly applies to August in North Carolina, where we take our daily walks early in the morning or not at all. The gym is, fortunately, air conditioned, and lifting weights has never seemed as key as it does now, a month before my seventieth birthday.
As I plan my rock-and-roll party, it’s a good time for reflection. I have loved my sixties, and captured the joys of the decade in a recent guest blog for Rachel Peru. But something about being on the edge of my eighth decade has me in the grip of powerful nostalgia, as memories flood in: What it felt like to sit on a pile of telephone books when I was too short just to sit in a chair at the table. My grandfather’s voice as he succumbed to dementia, decades after being exposed to high explosives in World War I. The sensation of holding my infant twins, one in each arm, back in the 1980s. I understand why, in her nineties, my mother was so connected with the past, seemingly at the expense of the present. I hope to cultivate a balance, honoring my vivid memories and leaving room for this moment and the future.
Tension about time is central to my new book, Vampires of a Certain Age, which launches September 15th. The main character, Marion Chase, has lived for five centuries and has trouble keeping it all straight. Our brains were not made to hold this much, she tells her second-in-command at a Chicago blood bank. The new novel is a time-bending story that carries us back and forth between present-day Illinois and medieval Yorkshire, where in her youth Marion was a healer suspected of witchcraft.
The story touches on familiar themes with a new twist. For example, while many of us wrestle with the desire to look younger, Marion must keep dyeing her hair greyer and greyer to avoid suspicion as decades pass and she does not age.
Between now and the September 15th
launch date, you can pre-order your copy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Once the book launches, you can order a copy from your local bookstore too. I’m hearing from early readers that they would love to read a sequel, or even a series about matriarchal vampires—so who knows? One book at a time…
I’d love to hear where your creative passions are taking you these days. Are you writing playfully? Gearing up for National Novel Writing Month in November? Thinking about a wicked revenge novel? Whatever you write will transform you, and if you share it, your writing will help transform the world.
So keep the pen moving (or the keys clicking), and invite your Inner Critic to cool her jets—even in August.
Wishing you all the best,
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