Dear friends:
Happy new year! I hope 2008 has gotten off to a fabulous start for you and that you're ready for a new book from me. SEAVIEW INN will be hitting your local bookstores on February 26.
This is the story of a woman who's run her life as a career woman and single mom with dedication and aplomb. Then suddenly her entire world is turned upside down, first by a breast cancer diagnosis, then by losing her mom to the same disease, and then by having her daughter announce that she's quitting college because she's pregnant. Any one of those things would be enough to set most women back on their heels, but the combination has Hannah's head spinning.
Add in a guy she had a mad crush on back in high school and the return to the hometown she hated and, well, Hannah has more on her plate than any of us should have to face at one time.
I especially wanted to deal with breast cancer because so many of us have been touched by this disease. If we haven't faced that diagnosis ourselves, then someone we know has. I've lost family members and friends to it and have others who are fighting it now. Hannah has the added complication of going through treatment at the same time that her mother is losing her own fight, which naturally adds to her terror about what the future holds.
However, like so many of the remarkable women I have known, Hannah forges ahead with strength and courage, at least until it comes time to make a commitment to a future with the man she loves. She's just not sure she'll have enough time. It takes a lot for Luke and her best friend to make her see that the whole point is to live fully for whatever time she has. It was a lesson that was brought home to me when I heard Elizabeth Edwards talk about the decision she and her husband, presidential candidate John Edwards, had made to go forward with his campaign despite her cancer recurrence. She made a choice about how she wanted to live, rather than thinking of how she might die.
Isn't this a lesson all of us need to remember? We need to focus on living, not on whatever may or may not happen a day from now, a week from now or next year. This moment in time is what we have and we should make it the best it can possibly be.
I hope you'll enjoy Hannah's story and that your new year will be filled with lots and lots of special moments, fully-lived. And, as promised, there will be a new Sweet Magnolias book coming your way at the end of November. WELCOME TO SERENITY will pick up where the first three books left off. More on that next time.
All best,
Sherryl
