Reading a Passage from Candles in the Windows

 Here I am reading a short passage from my new book

Candles in the Windows, A Christmas Romance

Enjoy!

Candles in the Windows is Available Now on Amazon!

I'm so excited to tell you that my new book

Candles in the Windows, 

                                A Christmas Romance

is now available on Amazon.com  in paperback, eBook for Kindle, and hardcover. 

Just click on the title above or the cover image below to go directly to the page on Amazon. 

AND...

Please join me for my Virtual Book Reading on November 29th at 7pm ET. via Zoom. The Event is sponsored, hosted, and moderated by The Yoga Sanctuary. I'll read some excerpts from Candles in the Windows and take your questions. Read the full event description below the image. I would so love to have you join me for this fun celebration of the launch of my book!

Here's the event description and the link to register. It's free of course! 

The Yoga Sanctuary is very excited to share with you a first of a kind event for us - A Virtual Book Reading with our own Melissa Goodwin, who is not only a yoga teacher, but also a published author and award-winning poet!

This will be a one-hour, complimentary, interactive online event via Zoom. Melissa will read excerpts from her new novel, Candles in the Windows, A Christmas Romance, and from her poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, give insights on where her ideas came from, and take your questions.

If you know Melissa, she is easy to listen to and lots of fun, so the event is sure to be fun too! She's willing to share with you not just her written words, but also insights on the creative process. Stay as long as you like, and leave when you want. The event is open to everyone, so tell your book-loving friends, your writer friends, your wanna-be writer friends, and anyone you know who wants to share their creative gifts with the world and is looking for inspiration. 

The online event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL! 

Registration Link: Virtual Book Reading with Melissa Ann Goodwin 

I hope you will come - it will mean the world to me to share this celebration with you!

COVER REVEAL!!! CANDLES IN THE WINDOWS

GOOD MORNING!

Today marks another exciting step toward the release 

of my new book,

Candles in the Windows, A Christmas Romance

It's time for the COVER REVEAL!

But first, a few tidbits about the release and an invitation to my virtual book reading!

My book will be available for purchase on Amazon.com in paperback, hardcover, and as an eBook for Kindle. You can also ask any bookstore to order the book for you.

I'm targeting November 25th (Black Friday) for the release date  -  fingers, toes, and eyes crossed! The final, final, final proof is being final-proofed, finally, even as we speak...

AND...

You are invited (please, please, please, please, please come) to my VIRTUAL BOOK READING on November 29th at 7pm ET. 

It will be via Zoom, courtesy of The Yoga Sanctuary. I will read a few tantalizing excerpts and take your questions  about the book, the writing process, or anything else!

It's being hosted by my beloved friends at The Yoga Sanctuary, but it's for EVERYONE! (Yes, YOU!) 

It's free, and all you have to do is register and show up! Here is the registration link - just click on it, then follow the arrows to November 29th, scroll down until you see the event, and VOILA!  So easy!

Virtual Book Reading with Melissa Goodwin

And now, without further ado...

        Well, maybe a little bit of ado...

                    and a drumroll please....

Ta Da !

The cover and back cover text for 

Candles in the Windows, A Christmas Romance

This beautiful cover was designed

 by my niece, artist Olivia Hart

Storyline

Thirty-two-year-old interior designer Michelle Gordon has returned to her New England hometown for a fresh start.

But her homecoming is bittersweet.

Her parents are gone. The house she grew up in looks unloved. The town is changing.

And they're planning to tear down her beloved Stone School, where happy and carefree childhood memories were made.

Michelle's childhood classmate, Steve Corbin, now runs his own construction business after realizing that a job on Wall Street wasn't for him. Ever since his wife's death three years ago, Steve has been living a quiet and lonely existence.

Michelle makes it her mission to save Stone School, and enlists the help of old friends, neighbors, and classmates, including Steve. But with Christmas just around the corner and the demolition clock ticking, do they have any chance of succeeding?

The attraction between Steve and Michelle is obvious and their affection deepens as they work together to save their school. But will Michelle's feelings for an old crush come between them? And is Steve truly ready to move forward and open his heart again to love?

Join Michelle, Steve, and their families and friends as memories of Christmases past bring new hope for love in the present.

EXCITING NEWS - My New Book Will be Out Soon!

I'm excited to share that my new book, Candles in the Windows, A Christmas Romance, will be released at the end of November! 

Today, I'm sharing the storyline as it will appear on Amazon.

NEXT WEEKEND, I'll do a COVER REVEAL! (Very exciting - the cover was designed by my niece, Olivia Hart, who is an art major at Pratt Institute School of Art.)

And on the evening of Wednesday, November 29th, I'll be doing a VIRTUAL BOOK READING EVENT, online via Zoom courtesy of The Yoga Sanctuary! 

Mark your calendars for 7pm and stay tuned for how to register. It's free, of course, and just like a regular book reading event, only online! I hope I will see your face there!

I am so excited about this book, which is different from anything I've done before. It's a wholesome cozy romance, and something of a love letter to my hometown, the people I grew up with there, and one very special school we shared. It's light and fun, current but nostalgic, and I hope, will move you in all the right ways. 

Here's the description that will appear on Amazon:

Thirty-two-year-old Michelle Gordon has returned to her New England hometown just before Christmas. She's thrilled to be back after a long absence and eager to reconnect with old friends, reboot her interior design business, and make a fresh start.

But her homecoming is bittersweet.

The untimely passing of both her parents five years earlier means she has no home base and no one to welcome her back with a warm, embracing hug. The house she grew up in looks unkempt and unloved by its new owners. The Main Street storefronts have all changed, a restaurant is moving in where her favorite bookstore had been, and the old Post Office is now a bank.

To top it off, the town plans to tear down Michelle's beloved Stone School, where happy and carefree childhood memories were made. The thought of it breaks her heart, and she vows to do everything in her power to save the school. 

Michelle's childhood classmate, Steve Corbin, now runs his own small construction business after realizing that a job on Wall Street wasn't for him. When Steve and Michelle bump into each other, the attraction between the ruggedly handsome construction worker and the dark-haired beauty is obvious.

But the path to falling in love is not clear.

Ever since his wife's death three years ago, Steve has been living a quiet and lonely existence. And the presence of Tom McNulty, a charming and successful architect who was Michelle's childhood crush and is Steve's lifelong best friend, complicates the situation. Even as their affection deepens, Steve worries that Michelle will succumb to old feelings for Tom, and Michelle has doubts that Steve is truly ready to open his heart again to love. 

And with Christmas fast approaching, time is running out for Michelle and her friends to save Stone School from the wrecking ball.

Can a small group of determined former classmates save their beloved old school? Can broken hearts mend and love again? Join Michelle, Steve, Tom, and their families and friends, as memories of Christmases past bring hope for new love in the present.

525,600 Minutes

 525,600 minutes

525,000 moments so dear

525,600 minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

(Opening lyrics from Seasons of Love from the musical Rent)

Today I walked the length of Old Silver Beach in Falmouth on Cape Cod. It was a perfect late September/early fall day, with cool air warmed by the sun. Just right with a light sweatshirt, though a few diehards (my kind of folk) were in their swimsuits. The summer people are gone and the gulls and I, and a few other kindred spirits, have taken back the beach. 

A year ago today, we cowered in our home in Florida while Hurricane Ian pummeled us with wind and rain and tore at our roof for almost 10 relentless hours. That day, and the ones that followed, were some of the most traumatic of my life. I'm not going to dwell there. Suffice it to say, it was awful. And awful doesn't begin to describe how awful it was.

As my bare feet squished through the sand and the sun warmed my face today, I reflected on all the miracles that have happened between then and now to put me here, in a place I have longed to be, walking the beach. It is so hard to believe, that I am close to tears of gratitude, joy, and amazement, whenever I think about it. 

In the six months we've been here, we have settled into a nice little home and a rhythm of our days. I have published a book of poetry and a picture book, and am close to finishing a Christmas romance novel that I plan to have out in time for Christmas:  

Candles in the Windows, a Christmas Romance: A young woman returns to her hometown just before Christmas and reunites with a childhood friend to save a beloved old school.

I'll be sharing more about that soon!

I have been to my 50th high school reunion, seen friends I hadn't seen in years, (I mean, we're talking 40 - 50 years in some cases), and seen my brother and sister twice each. 

High School Chums at our reunion - we all worked together 

at the Rose Glen Dairy aka Sid White's 

in the early 1970's 

Dick paints nearly every day, and we have found excellent speech and physical therapy for him. I've taken some classes and we've been to some lovely little concerts and seen a couple of musicals put on by the College Light Opera. I've been in touch with the CLO about volunteering for them this winter, which I think will be really fun.

By the grace of Jennifer French, I am still able to teach a weekly online meditation class for the Yoga Sanctuary, which is a lovely way to stay connected to the students I knew there, and also with some I have never met in person, and to continue teaching. I don't know what the future of my yoga teaching looks like right now, and that's okay. I'm willing to let it evolve. 

Our life is simple and simple feels like such a relief. We cannot travel, and it's okay. I'm so glad to be back here, I really just want to be here. 

So this is what I really want to say: If you are sad, worried, depressed, downhearted, or scared, and think that things will never be "okay" again, think of me, walking a beautiful beach on Cape Cod, a year to the day after one of the worst storms in history blew our world apart. 

Here, Now

Our first family vacations were to Falmouth on Cape Cod in the early 1960's. At the age of five or so, I fell in love with this place and I never fell out of love with it. So living here, now, is a dream come true for me. 

We made our decision to move from Florida back to New England about this time last year, and I was already well into packing up the house in anticipation of selling when Hurricane Ian blasted through in late September. Just one picture because we don't want to have to relive that too much...

I realize now how lucky we were to come away just needing a new roof and some ceiling repair and painting, but it was very traumatic and felt overwhelming at the time. I thought perhaps Ian had blown our move plans out of the water.

But step by step we did what we needed to do to fix the house, and by the end of February everything was done. We immediately listed and it sold in a day - with closing and occupancy in 30 days. 

Our angel-hero Annie Cool Hart (my sister's sister-in-law and Cape Cod realtor extraordinaire) found us this ridiculously perfect place to rent within two days. 

I organized the move and we landed here on March 29th. We were staying at an inn, waiting for the movers to arrive and move us into our condo on April 7th. I'd had my first two good nights' sleep in months,...when suddenly, everything fell apart...

Five days before closing, the sale of our Florida home fell through because the sale of the buyer's home fell through. I was devasted, terrified, petrified. I went numb emotionally - sort of shell-shocked - like after Ian, but maybe even more so because since all the pieces had seemed to fall easily into place, I had thought the universe was on our side and supporting us. This felt like a cruel trick.

My sister, Jess, said, "There's a silver lining to this; we just don't know what it is yet." I knew she was probably right, but boy, it was hard to have faith in that moment.

Well, she was right - there was a happy ending so I'll make the long story short. Some very dear friends who were in a transitional situation of their own decided it would be a smart move to buy our house and live there while they sorted out their plans. Also their 3 cats specifically asked if they could live in the house with the pond so they could watch the ducks and bunnies. 

By mid-April, we had closed on the sale and I could finally breath again. 

I didn't share this part of the story until now, because I simply didn't have the juice. Everyone was happy for us getting back here, and I didn't have the emotional energy to talk about it - happy ending or not. I was utterly exhausted and depleted and it took me a while to come out of it.

Still, good things were already happening...My brother, Tom, came and helped us unpack. Jess came and helped me get things to storage and to give away. I hadn't seen either of them in over three years, and then I saw them both within two weeks. Without their help, I'd still be unpacking.

And suddenly, we LIVE here! We discovered that we are four minutes from Old Silver Beach - an absolutely gorgeous beach on Buzzard's Bay. All through April and May, I walked it daily in every sort of weather, letting the wind and crashing waves knock the accumulated stress, anxiety, and grief out of me. 

And now, four months in, I can tell you that I feel the the happiest I have felt in a very long time. My heart swells with the morning birdsong (a pair of Cardinals greeted us immediately upon arrival), the profusion of summer flowers, the shingled Cape Cod homes, the food, the cool air, summer concerts, winding roads, Boston accents, the smell of sea air. There are far more Peace and Save the Planet bumper stickers on cars here than...well, you know.

Here are some pictures around our condo and neighborhood.

Our back deck

And back yard...

There's a bike/walking path across the street

We live near this Cheese Shop...(waaaaay too near!!)

And this restaurant...

And this excellent church thrift shop...

After Ian, I wondered if I would ever be okay again. And it took some time, but it's such a lesson in that whole "this too shall pass" business. This is my blog, so it's my story. But almost everyone I know has been through hardship and suffering of some sort this past year and more - storms, crashes, the loss of  parents, partners, pets, or other loved ones, devastating diagnoses - you name it. No one escapes; we are all in this together.

So we just have to hold hands and take one step and then another, even as we have serious doubts that things will ever be "all right" again. I've learned over and over in my life that they will be, but I had to learn it again, because when you're in it, it's hard to remember and to believe. The wheel of life will turn as it always does. But I'm HOME. And I am very, very happy to be here and I'm not going to worry and fret this time away. I'm just enjoying being Here, Now.

Come Fly with Me

Come Fly with Me

Take my hand and fly with me,

the wind will whisk us o'er the sea

We'll float above the clouds so high,

and soar across the evening sky

Like meteors and shooting stars,

we'll zoom past Jupiter and Mars,

We'll sail forever and a day,

until we touch the Milky Way

 So....

I have one more post in the "What I did during the Pandemic" category...something a little different from what you've come to expect from me!

I've published a rhyming picture book for the little ones, called Come Fly with Me. It's the poem above, for which I created illustrations.

How did this come about, you ask? I'll tell you! During the pandemic, I led an online summer yoga for creativity workshop series for The Yoga Sanctuary. 

One of the challenges we used to stimulate creativity was doing something other than our main creative activity. So, a painter might decide to try writing poems, a musician might try calligraphy, a sculptor might try painting...or gardening...or cooking...you get the idea!

My challenge was to see if I could create illustrations to go with my poem, so I sat down at the dining room table and started sketching...badly! But I played with it a little every day, and after a while, things started to take shape. The characters started flying around, and from there, I just had fun with it! 

Dick suggested using watercolor pencils, which was a great idea because it gave me the chance to color like a little kid. Then you use water and a paint brush to blend the colors and it comes out looking like a watercolor painting. Very cool!

Once we were settled back home here in Massachusetts, I decided to take the leap and put my work out in the world again. I started with my poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, which was the topic of my last post. That worked well, so I kept leaping and tried making the picture book - and this is the result! 

A little sample from inside:

So this book is for the little ones. If you have kids, or grandkids, or nieces or nephews, or friends with kids, grandkids, or nieces and nephews in the picture book age, I hope you'll consider my little book for them. It's available in paperback on Amazon, 6" by 9".

I have a beautiful and sweet great-niece named Goldie Elizabeth Goodwin, whom I have yet to meet. She is the first grandchild of my siblings (the daughter of my brother Tom's son, John, and his wife Jill).) So I dedicated this book to her. I will meet her at Thanksgiving and can't wait!

Here is the link to the book on Amazon: Come Fly with Me

Coming Home

I have created a poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House, which is now available on Amazon.  The "chapbook" approach honors an old tradition in which poets handed out small handwritten pamphlets of their poems on the street. I don't really want to do that, so I made a little paperback book instead! Read on for background and more information. At the end of the post is a video of me reading the title poem, because poetry is always meant to be read aloud.

Coming Home

I am home again. To me, "home" means pretty much anywhere in New England, but we have landed on beautiful Cape Cod. 

I am grateful for the journey of the past 20 years, which took me to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico, all over the place in a motorhome, and for the last 10 years, to the palm trees, beaches, and hurricanes of Florida. This unexpected journey (I never thought I would move so much!!) helped me grow and evolve in ways I never imagined for myself. And, like every life journey, some of it was extremely challenging and some of it was wonderful. 

The road took me where I needed to go, and now it has brought me home again. Of course there is no "geographic cure" for life's challenges, so we bring many of those with us. But now I feel like I can face them with my feet planted on familiar ground. 

My new poetry chapbook, The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House,  is the culmination of an exploration of poetry writing that came during the forced isolation of the pandemic. Like everyone else, I was looking for things to do with my time, so I challenged myself to write a poem a day for  the whole month of October 2020. That effort produced a lot of gibberish, along with a handful of  poems that won awards in international poetry competitions in 2021 and 2022. 

The title poem won second prize in the 2022 Oprelle Coming Home competition and is about a place that was special to me in my childhood. The love of  this place was shared by my brother Tom and sister Jessica, so I have dedicated this book to them. My niece, Olivia Hart, who just finished her first year at Pratt Institute School of Art, created the cover for me. So, a family affair :)

The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

The book is available only on Amazon. If you've been moved by the poems I've shared, perhaps you'd like a copy for yourself, or for someone you know. If you would like a personalized note to go with the book, I have created cards on which I to do that, so contact me through Facebook messenger and I will be happy to send one to you.

Click on the book title to go to the page on Amazon: The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

YouTube video: 

The Brook in the Woods Behind Our Old House

 

Walk up the dirt road that runs alongside our old house. When

you crest the hill and the road curves, step into the brush. Plow

 

through a mess of sumac and blackberry brambles, then down

a small slope and into the trees. It’s cooler here under

 

the cathedral of limbs and leaves, where sunlight, only now

and again, sneaks through to sprinkle stars in the brook.

 

This is where I came when I was small, to play.

This is where I came in teenage years, to cry.

 

And this is where my brother came on a bitter January day

to bargain for Grandma’s life, even though the

 

thermometer read nine degrees and he had to wade,

half-blind with tears, through deep snow, the wind biting

 

his face, and the thorns on the dead

blackberry canes tearing at his sleeve.

 

Don’t misunderstand – all favors won’t

be granted, or all grandmothers saved.

 

But the trees will shelter you while

the brook’s pulse lulls you to sleep.

 

Open your sticky eyes to sunlight weaving a path

through the leaves, just to caress your face. Wash

 

away your crusted tears and let the soft breeze dry your cheeks.

Fill your empty pockets with acorns when you go.