Dear Friends,

First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who reached out to me on social media in the aftermath of my father’s passing in December. I shared my journey because this is a journey every adult child goes through. Anything I learned along the way, I wanted to pass on. And I think it’s always good to know we’re not alone—and I know I’m not, because of all your sweet, heartfelt sympathy!

Now it’s a new year. I admit I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate the holidays this year with all that happened; I needed to rest up and recharge and not force myself to be jolly and merry. So the day after Christmas the decorations came down and I felt a huge weight fall off my shoulders. We’re all going through so much as a society, of course, so I’m still being cautious and mindful of managing stress and finding small joys wherever I can. I hope you are, too.

I’m thrilled that The Children's Blizzard will be released in paperback today—that’s a joy, for sure!  

And there’s a lot to celebrate. I might not be doing any in-person appearances, yet again, due to the surge in Covid cases, at least not until later in the spring, but there’s an awesome virtual event with some other authors in February that will be a lot of fun. But we have some exciting things going on anyway. My publisher is running a delightful contest for book clubs where you can enter to win a basket of cold weather goodies and a chance for me to talk to your book club—enter below!

I’ve also added more content for book clubs on the book club-specific page on my website (there is one of these for all my books, if you didn’t know).

And I’d love to send a signed copy of the new paperback edition to five random subscribers! I’ll be doing a drawing on Friday and will alert the winners then.

As always, you can follow me on social media and catch up with me and my good friend and fellow author, Edward Kelsey Moore, by listening to our podcast Who the Hell Are We? 

Stay warm—yes, our daffodils are coming up here in Williamsburg, but we did have a frosting of snow last week!—and keep reading, and I’ll be back in touch soon!

Melanie

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