Time to start fresh. A brand-new year of possibilities. That got me thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. Some people are for them. Some people are against them. Where do you stand on the matter? I, for one, am for them. I like to reflect on the past year both personally and professionally. I like to think about goals I set the previous year and see if I met them. If I didn’t, then I reflect on why not and what I need to do to differently? Life is complex. It can get busy and crazy and a jumbled mess if we let it. Happiness is about balance, or so I’m learning 😉 I’m finding the older I get, the more balance I need to be happy. The older we get, the wiser we get. As cliched as it sounds, it’s true! I no longer need all the things I once thought I did to be happy and fulfilled. It’s taken me years to realize my success isn’t based on the accomplishments of anyone else. It’s based on my own goals and working hard to meet them. 2020 hit hard for us all. I never in my wildest dreams imagined we…

As we turn the page from a miserable 2020 into what everyone hopes will be a much better 2021, we’ll look at fiction that involves people trying to rebuild their lives after the even-greater tragedy of World War I—which traumatized the world by adding the first global pandemic on top of an already-horrific war.  In settings varying from England to France to Italy, this month’s collection of stories demonstrates that nothing is stronger than the human spirit’s will to survive. We’ll begin in England with THE POPPY WIFE by Caroline Scott.  Three brothers, Harry, Will and Francis, head off to war, leaving behind family and Francis’s wife Edie.  Only Harry returns.  But while Will’s death is confirmed and Harry was present when Francis was wounded and was convinced the wound was mortal, Francis is only “presumed” to have been killed in action.  When Edie receives a photo of Francis that appears to have been recently taken, she’s convinced he must still be alive.  She enlists Harry, who is working in France for grieving families who hire him to photograph the gravestones of the men they’ve lost, to help her look for Francis. As the story moves back and forth between…

I have a love-hate relationship with the New Year. On the one hand, it’s a brand-new time—full of possibility, a fresh start, and a time to plan and think about all the things that could happen in the coming months. On the other, we live in a society where the New Year signifies a time of intense diet culture (which is really just body shaming and misogyny), insecurity, and whatever else deemed wrong and in need of change. And let’s not forget we’re still in the middle of a world-wide pandemic and political turmoil. Thanks, 2021! In spite of all of that, however, good things have been happening (more on that later), and by good things, I do very much mean GOOD BOOKS. Here are a few of my favorite opening lines from some of my fave books of 2020, as well as a few from the 2021 books I’m looking forward to coming out! The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa (2020) My phone’s text tone chirps like a robin—which fails to prepare me for the clusterfuck on the screen. ANDREW: Everything you said last night made sense, M. Thanks to you, I can see the truth now. I…