"Two wrongs may not make a right but a thousand wrongs make a writer.”

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

I GOT BOOKS!

What the UPS guy brought me yesterday!




Now that I have my advance copies,  I'm counting down the days to the release of my novel on April 2nd. I'm extremely nervous about how the public will receive it. I practically have the darn thing memorized, but what you think is what matters.


"Let Evening Come is penned by author Yvonne Osborne in the literary style and the interpersonal drama and coming-of-age subgenres. Author Yvonne Osborne has crafted a truly emotionally resonant novel that delves into themes of loss, displacement, and cultural conflict. The up-close and detailed portrayal of Sadie and Stefan's budding romance against the backdrop of their respective struggles was both captivating and poignant. 

I loved the way their unique dialogue was presented and readers will feel the dynamics between the lines. The exploration of cultural misunderstanding and the challenges faced by Indigenous communities was an incredibly poignant touch that is really focused on and never used as a gimmick, fostering genuine empathy and understanding. As the characters navigated adversity and sought connection across borders, I found myself deeply invested in their journey, rooting for their love to transcend the obstacles in their path. Overall, Let Evening Come is a recommended read and a compelling tale of love, resilience, and the human capacity to overcome adversity amidst cultural divides."  

--Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite


I understand it can be intimidating to leave a review. Even if you enjoy a book, it puts you on the spot. But honestly, it doesn't have to be long. It can be one sentence, or even one word!  They mean so much, especially for a new, unknown author.  Editorial reviews might carry more weight but reviews from readers are more personal and meaningful to the author.

This Daylight Savings Times gives us late morning darkness but my inner clock tells me it's time for a cup of coffee! 


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Graveyard Hierarchy


My son asked how much a tombstone costs
as we trace ancestry through the graveyard
and calculate dates—how common it was to bury babies.
 
Some lucky souls merit saintly companions
who guard their tombs with outstretched arms
or a wrought iron fence to ward off vagrants.
But look how the monied died just as young.
 

At the rear of the yard are the stones we can’t read

all the names swallowed up by the cold.

Bare of epitaph, they lean against each other,

even their stones are tired.

 

Then there are the markers that only bear a number,

like the tattooed at Auschwitz.

One straggler is off alone and we wonder

if he wanted it so.

The rounded stone juts white from Earth like a tooth.

And what of those who couldn’t even get inside the fence—

separated from the gilded, even here.



To celebrate Swedish Nobel Laureate Tomas Transtromer, dVerse's Bjorn Rudberg asked us to write a poem of exactly 144 words, including a line taken from one of the Nobel writer's poems. In case you can't guess, it's all the names swallowed up by the cold.

More at dVerse on this renowned poet and how he captured the long winters of Scandinavia in his writing.


Note: All the photographs herein on my own. No peeping AI on my shoulder with his shudder eye.

Friday, March 8, 2024

She Took Venice

She bought a sarong in Venice where everyone is beautiful
though the surf smells and seagulls scour the tideline.
All along the shore the ocean unfurls its soul.

Beer with salty clams to peel, dip, and swallow.
The bar faces the ocean with a poolroom where poets rhyme.
She bought a sarong in Venice where everyone is beautiful.

One size fits all with three ways to fold, wrap, and tie.
In Venice, where guitarists skate the boulevard
all along the shoreline the ocean unfurls its soul.

Sea birds ply ocean weed, piles of shell, and salty form.
Bougainvillea drapes the cafes. She collects all she finds.
She bought a sarong in Venice where everyone is beautiful.

She took the ocean home - salt, shells and sun coils.
Maybe he'll come over with a hank of garden lettuce or another sign.
Because all along the shoreline the ocean uncurled its soul.

On the whisper of her sarong she crosses the wooden floor
and watches him cut grass, sun on his shoulders, tasting salty brine.
She bought a sarong in Venice where everyone is beautiful
and all along the shoreline the ocean unfurls its soul.




Tasked with the challenge from Poets & Storytellers to write a poem about a sensual piece of clothing, I immediately thought of a  trip to Venice Beach where the beach was littered with what the ocean didn't need, where sarongs were as popular as sun hats and, yes, where everyone was beautiful.


Saturday, March 2, 2024

The Uprooting

The fate of a rose planted by my grandmother a hundred years ago released by Flapper Press



The Flapper Press is a literary magazine of Useful Words, Inspiring Stories, and Eclectic Perspectives and I'm very happy to be a part of it.


Also shared with Poets and Storytellers's "Lasting Impressions". No one makes more lasting ones than mothers and grandmothers.  




Saturday, February 24, 2024

The Boomerang That Came Back


As with writing, learning to throw a boomerang requires perseverance and discipline, the subject brought up this week at Poets and Storytellersthe power of discipline.  As it has an important, if 
symbolic, place in my novel, and in anticipation of my April 2nd release date, I thought I'd repost the poem I wrote back when I was first throwing the idea for a novel around in my head. (No pun intended.) 

Some of you may remember the G-Man and his Friday Flash 55 challenge to write fiction with a plot in 55 words. He inspired me to write flash poetry.  You could say, in a convoluted way, that he inspired me to write Let Evening Come.

The birth of a novel in 55 words.

Even as a child, she was drawn to the night
when the air was soft and fraught with life.
He, too, a child of twilight—
mysterious boy boomerang in his belt
Was my father’s he said,
dog circling, divining the night air.
Fingers entwined, he taught her to throw
so it would always come back.


Thursday, February 22, 2024

The Newspaper City

We walk to mass along sidewalks
slick with mist from the ocean bay.
Hulking shapes huddle in doorways
where the sun won’t ever shine
to shiver the whole night through
under newspaper blankets.
 
We hasten into church to kneel and pray
with Asian, Latin, and Creole speakers
as incense wafts over the pews and candles twinkle
like the flickering of the holy spirit
descending on the fortunate.

 

With the transubstantiation of altar bread and wine

there’s a rush from the back for the body and blood.

Confused at the lack of decorum

  (do they fear the chalice will spring a leak?)

we ease our way into the jostling line of supplicants

like automobiles jockeying for an off ramp.

 

With a finger dipped in the font at the door

we exit into the misty morn of a cash-strapped city.

Beggars await us on the steps with their outstretched cups.

Father always dropped a five in the tin can of the gaunt man

who sat wrapped in wool at the top of the exit ramp

on trips into a different city.

 

We walk back to the hotel

past darkened storefronts and empty streets.

Silent except for the rustle of newspapers. 


Written for dVerse in memory of Kurt Cobain, the legendary alternative rock musician whose birthday was this past Tuesday. Nirvana's lyrics were known for metaphor and emotional depth. Challenged to use lines from one of the songs posted in the prompt, I chose a couple that would fit this poem.  Check out Melissa's post at dVerse for more on the enigmatic Cobain, photos and lyrics. And the poets at What's Going On who've asked us  to write about "Color" so taking liberty, as this is more about the absence of color.  There are other more beautiful poems about color passing through so head over. 

Thursday, February 15, 2024

I Saw A Ghost Today

 

I saw a ghost today.
A shadow in the shrubbery
a lurker behind the shed.
A floater in the corner of my eye
or am I growing a cataract
like everyone I know
mistaking angels for ghosts
seeing something where there’s nothing.
 
My father said he had a guardian angel
and his name was Joseph.
Father talked to Joseph.
Such intimacy, like the whisper of a lover.
Maybe I have one too.
 
Call me a cynic—I looked it up.
But why wasn’t Joseph watching over him
when he lost two fingers in an auger.
Or when he rammed a nail up his foot—
a rambunctious boy—
and nearly died of blood poisoning.
 
I thought I saw a ghost today.
An anomaly in the fog
A lurker in the lilacs
When in the doorway bloomed.
Do I just flat out ask—
Hey! What’s your name?


Written for Shay's Word Garden using words from her word list taken from "The Waste Land and Other Poems" by TS Eliot.  And for d'Verse's Open Link Night (with a little twist of Whitman's lilac). And it's a secret (for Poets & Storytellers United) I guess I don't mind telling now as my father is with Joseph.
 
 

Friday, February 9, 2024

The Flow Of Water

Waking up in the lowlands with the murmur of the teakettle, a pour-over coffee, and a ticking clock. Within a short drive of Lake Huron and a stone's throw of the creek that trickles into the Black River that flows into the big lake which rushes to the ocean. 

Contemplating this business of publishing, royalty gigs and division of the pie with so many forks, and me with nothing but words in my head, phrases and ideas, passion and pain, spinning, weaving, plotting, scheming. 

Why do I wake up in the middle of the night? Thinking about the old man on the tractor and the woman with the broken broom, the man who trekked over a mountain with his youngest on his back to stay ahead of the soldiers, and the teen who enlisted for glory only to stowaway on a boat for foreign lands. Then there's the biologist who lives in a tent and studies the die-off of amphibians, and the reporter who only wants a story but comes face to face with a second chance at love.

Beyond our yard and across the pasture there runs a creek, which flows into a river that crosses the plain and enters the ocean. Currents collide, the Labrador meets the Gulfstream to merge with the Canary to circle a globe without borders. 

One story I wrote that's out of my hands but still won't let me sleep is about an Indigenous son who lost home and family and a motherless farmgirl who is simply lost.

Which brings me to the end and mention of my favorite modern invention which Rommy at Poets and Storytellers asks us to write about. Has to be the Universal Book Link.

A coming-of-age story in times of distress available now at  Your Favorite Digital Bookstore 


Thursday, February 1, 2024

And This Is What I Know

In the quiet splendor of a predawn morn
the moon gilds the hoophouse in shiny opulence.
Lace-riven cloud formations circle the sky
with the moon at their apex high above the earth
circling quiet, like a giant snow globe.
How could anyone have ever thought this world flat?
And I, an inconsequential ant of a being
invade the quiet on a shuffle across the snow
in my husband’s boots and a hand-me-down coat
and my daddy’s hat with the flashlight
of my mother’s trepidation
in my pocket just in case.


How's your life today on Planet Earth? the poets at  What't Going On? ask. "Those of us who write frequently might give ourselves a break on days when we simply show up."

As I once heard a wise person say, half of life is showing up."


Monday, January 29, 2024

The Waiting Game

The time span between a preorder being announced by your publisher and the actual launch date is filled with angst and self-doubt. Waiting for advance reader copies, waiting for the data to be disseminated to libraries and bookstores, waiting for reviews (for a star🌟🌠), waiting for your fingernails to grow back as your hair turns gray. With the winter weather that gripped most of the country last week, I reckon my ARCs are still somewhere between Portland and Michigan.

In the meantime, I have a Universal Book Link This is a truly remarkable invention, a link that will take a reader to their preferred digital store, from America to Australia and all points in between. Like magic, the digital age at your fingertips. Check it out. This is also a great tool if you are self publishing. 

I mentioned Shepherd before, the new site for discovering and sharing books. My page just went live today! I chose the template for my three favorites of the past year. If you want to give your three favs a shout-out (with a spot for your own published or soon-to-be-published book if applicable), they are taking submissions until July of 2024. As a Goodreads Author, I'll be doing a giveaway to celebrate the book's launch, and if you follow me or have added my novel to your Want-To-Read List you'll automatically be notified about the offer. These actually work. I received a free book in the mail last week. speaking of free, if you are in a book club and you choose my novel, you will receive a free autographed copy, bookmarks for everyone, and a box of my homemade truffles. 

Finally, I have an interview online here  by the Awesome Gang. I tried to amend an, ah, inappropriate word but didn't have the opportunity to do so before it went live. I still like the interview overall so decided to share it, but hope I don't offend anyone with my off-the-cuff comment.

Thanks for reading. I am deeply grateful.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

A City, A Country, A Gift

dVerse (the pub where the poets hang out) has asked for a city-inspired verse. 

Turning Down The Linen

The lost sunrise, rare coin, I now lament.

So too, its flaming slide at end of day.

I can’t escape my farm girl sentience.

Unleash me over those fields of fresh mown hay,

Not here, where brick and steel climb up the sky,

Where wren and hawk have flown a quick retreat.

Gray smoke and stacks alike tarnish surprise,

Over a city that rumbles beneath my feet.

This busy beast that swallows every sound

With clotted breath. To water’s edge I’m drawn

Where stars appear from out the black surround.

Like fields of wheat, waves undulate in song.

 

And then there’s you with power to part the night.

You turn the linens down and dim the lights.



That's the only sonnet I've ever written. Now, living where I do, I have to say this cold country sky is on fire!🔥 Streaks of crimson flood the windows, coming in from all directions, a sky made more beautiful by the dark sentinel trees and the white ground beneath. How is such a thing possible on a dark winter morn in the northern hemisphere? Window to window, I draw back the curtains. A blue jay is rocking it in the bare branches of the maple tree, and the fleeting shadow of an owl escapes over the shed. A quiet house, a cup of coffee, jays for company, a rural morning.


To go with the gift of a new day, my novel is on Barnes and Nobel!! It's also now on Amazon but somehow the B&N makes me more excited. Maybe it's the brick and mortar? I feel like they've given me an early Valentine's gift. 💝💘💕  

I am also now officially a Goodreads Author.  Please consider signing up for my newsletter where I'm sharing what I've learned on this journey from idea to draft to an ISBN. I will have a drawing for signed copies from the subscriber list on April 2nd to celebrate the launch of


I'd also like to mention a new site for discovering and sharing books called Shepherd. They're awesome. I love his little staff and hat-you gotta check it out!

In looking back, I've been blogging here since 2008. I laugh at some of my first posts. (What's Under The Bed) It seems so long go. I've had some ups and downs but stuck with it. The writing has been an exercise in itself. I cringe at some of those old posts but am also proud of a few. 

In closing, I just want to say thank you to all old and new friends and followers who have been so kind and supportive. You who have been generous with sharing your own writing and expertise, especially those at dVerse and Poets and Storytellers.  I wish I could have you all over for a drink. The house is small but I'd make it work!

Over and Out,

Yvonne
Human

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

INDIAN HORSE A review

In awe of an expertly bound book, I ran my hand across the smooth surface of the Milkweed edition of Indian Horse, the feel of it a tactile pleasure. From front to back, I fanned the pages, intrigued by the page numbers elegantly printed in cursive on the bottom left, and the smell of print. I leafed through themI couldn't seem to stopthe promise of a story captured between the covers of this book.


Indian Horse is the beautifully written story of the Ojibway youth, Saul Indian Horse, who is trapped at an early age in Canada's residential school system. The story is an affirmation of Saul's perseverance and resilience as he struggles to survive the horror of the school and the demeaning actions of those who felt compelled to subjugate and drive the savage out of the Indian. In testament to the endurance and spiritual wisdom of his people and the grandmother he remembers, Saul battles to reclaim the dignity he was endowed with. I loved him and cried with him.

I just realized there was a movie made and it's on Netflix. I recommend it. But read the book first, if you can. 

Gifted to me at Christmas, owning and reading this novel has made me realize how personal books are to me.  Books have been my best friends since I learned to tie my shoes. Stages of life bookended by the books I read.

Now we have eBooks, the epitome of inanimate. They aren't booksI would arguebut devices. They are screens that need battery power to light up. They need electricity to turn the pages. They smell like nothing. But they are cheaper than print (and friendlier to the environment), thus the way of the future. 

I gave up my eight tracks for cassettes and my cassettes for CDs. I confess to the convenience of Alexa sitting on a shelf, devoid of rizz even when she's plugged in, but she has her place, like an electronic reader on an airplane or in the dark of bedtime. But my bookshelves sag with that which I will never give up. Books that remain readable when the power goes off.

It's early in the year, but it will be difficult for any novel to unseat Indian Horse's number one position on my shelf.


Poets and Storytellers,  invited us to "de-retro" our vintage vocabulary with a post, including the Oxford word of the year for 2023 - Rizz,  an informal noun defined as style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner. 

I stuck it in above. Did you notice.


yvonneosborne.com


Friday, January 5, 2024

BEGINNINGS Newsletter Signups (what's in it for me?)

Everything must have a beginning … and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. – Mary Shelley.

This Friday's prompt from Poets and Storytellers is to let the idea of Beginnings inspire us in our responses. For me, 2024 marks the beginning of being a published novelist, the birthday year for LET EVENING COME 

This beginning is linked, as Shelly says it must, to all the years of reading that went before. From Island of the Blue Dolphins and Ramona to the latest novels on my nightstand, which somehow, somewhere along the line, gave me the impetus and courage to write a novel of my own. 

Now it's time to say, I’m proud of this thing! This is hard because, like most writers, I’m humbled by the process of putting my writing out there. Humbled that people would want to put down hard-earned money to read it. There are no words to express the gratitude I feel.

I started a newsletter to share the process, the bump and grind of a publishing journey in hopes readers would find it interesting and to help get the word out. I know it takes an extra step to signup for a newsletter, and there is so much noise out there, advertisers, bloggers, "influencers" (I hate that term). I get it. I've been there.  So it takes a leap of faith for which I may or may not be worthy of, to sign up for my newsletter. But I promise to focus on succinct, interesting content. I will not flood your inbox with drivel. Most importantly, there will be two drawings from the first fifty subscribers for a signed, first edition book, and, honestly, (alert: arm twisting) there are exactly 8 spots left.  

The sign up form for my mailing list is here . Thank you for your trust and support. 

Finally, I'd like to plug an author's two best friends. The library (this is me recently at the one in Rochester) and independent bookstores. Both form mutually beneficial relationships with authors, readers, and their communities

To new beginnings in 2024!  

Yvonne,
 Human

Monday, January 1, 2024

GOOD NIGHT IRENE (review)


Good Night Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea is the untold story of the Clubmobile women of  WWII.  Though their official assignment was to make coffee and donuts in their kitchen-outfitted clubmobile truck, they drove the front lines, from Normandy to Bastogne, Belgium (the Battle of the Bulge) to Germany itself. How did someplace so gorgeous come up with something as ugly as they did? They saw combat, brandished rifles and tommy guns, dodged bullets, and suffered injuries and loss like the men they stood beside, comforted and bandaged. Sometimes the dearest thing to a soldier is a hot cup of coffee  and a little friendly banter. 

These are your sisters and the GIs are your brothers and we expect you to treat them as such. Win this war with your decency. Because we are Americans. And this is what Americans do.

In contrast to the horrific scenes from Buchenwald when the allies first entered the town, (the stench was unrecognizable and visceral)  Urrea has composed the most beautifully written love scene between Irene and her pilot while in the south of France that I've ever read.  From here, can you  smell Africa? Spain?

Even if you've read accounts of the European theater and the brutality of the Nazi regime, Good Night Irene is a singular accomplishment that sings of the unsung female heroes who may not have received purple hearts but were as deeply wounded, physically and mentally, as any American GI.

This is my five-star read of 2023. On my bedside table now are INDIAN HORSE and THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE, and in the works is  LET EVENING COME, my breakout novel. 😊 Which I hope will soon be on yours.

Over and out and into the New Year wherein the idea of peace and prosperity beckons like a steaming  cup of coffee and a donut, or as mother called hers, friedcakes!

Thursday, December 28, 2023

WOULD IT MATTER?

When the nightly news is a barrage
Of bluster and bile, bombs and debris
Gutted out buildings and leafless trees
Where it never rains or it always rains
And children line up for water
With wary looks at their surroundings

I wonder. 
If there were no religion
would it matter?

Would the flowers at sunrise

call to the butterfly

to come among the blooms

with downy stroke

and the bee to drink from

what was fermented in the night

while thrushes forage for seeds

and stay out of sight?




For Poets Here . . .  a prayer for peace

Monday, December 18, 2023

The Likeness

A Ghost Story   Molly grasped the railing for balance. In the dim of the hallway light, the family portraits that lined the stairwell hung curiously ajar. She straightened her grandmother and descended the stairs, realizing they'd all been moved.

Perplexed, she hung them back where they belonged. The next night it happened again—ancestors jostling for position. Only her baby picture remained unmoved, the curly-headed likeness gazing intently at the camera. Then, on the morning of the shortest day, they were stacked at the bottom of the stairs. Hand to her throat she stared at the only one still hanging by a nail.

__________

In keeping with an old British tradition of telling spooky stories right before Christmas, I wrote this 100-word story for Loren Eaton's Advent Ghosts storytelling event at I Saw Lightning Fall. 

__________

For Christmas present..... my novel, Let Evening Come is available for preorder.  (I actually have an ISBN which made me as giddy as old Scrooge on Christmas morning!) The description and bio is now up on the publisher's site.

Thanks to all and a happy winter solstice (the joyful return of the sun) and loving holiday season to all. Especially to all the poets and writers at The Storytellers. Now for a brandy ball, a snort, and a little fresh snow.

Yvonne

yvonneosborne.com


Tuesday, December 12, 2023

REMEMBER SNOW

 
I remember the year it snowed
on the drive home from Midnight Mass.
Walking to the car, snowflakes on our tongues
the slap slap of the  wipers
noses pressed against the window
dizzied by the storm swirling around us.
Will rain remember being snow?

This is a Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words) written for the challenge at dVerse to write one including the given word, snow. Twas easy to do. Even though we don't have any . . .  

I remember when it was otherwise. And the poets at What's Going On are asking us to share a poem about looking back.


Thursday, December 7, 2023

Pet Peeve #3 December Rain

 

The Pet Peeve #3


December rains flood the bird feeders—how will they eat?—but doesn’t wash the blood off my porch, the carnage scattered from door to window; tuffs of fur, a chewed-off leg, entrails, a tail. My dear husband cleaned it up with his shop broom and what all. But what, you ask, does this have to do with the rain the rain, the rain?

It’s my opinion that if it were snow falling gently from these iron-gripped skies to pile up in fluffy banks around the porch, drifts swirling and forming barriers along the drive, then perhaps these nocturnal creatures, whatever they are, would eat their dinner in their riverbank burrows, cubbyholes, and woody enclaves, (I want no Invitation to the Party!) instead of spreading it across my front porch for the UPS and Fed Ex guys to look at askance, as at the scene of a murder, checking the soles of their boots before climbing back in their trucks.

So, call it what you want: global warming, climate change, or normal fluctuations in weather patterns, I want my winters back. I want the cardinals and the juncos to flit among snow-laden boughs instead of flapping their wings like ducks in the newly formed ponds where there was once a yard. And I don't want dead things on my doorstep.


For Poets and Storytellers and their Seasonal Writings, asking us to include the title of a book we're reading this December in a piece of poetry or prose. An Invitation to The Party  was a perfect fit!


Friday, December 1, 2023

A Path To Publication and Preorder

THE OFFER

As those of you who are familiar with my blog know, I have long been on the winding road to publication, ever since the Indie publisher, Unsolicited Press first notified me back in September of 2021 that out of thousands of submissions, my manuscript was selected as one of 40 projects to fill out their 2023/2024 list.

From that initial euphoria to signing a contract, to multiple angst-filled edits and settling on a cover, to the gally proof I now have in hand, it has been an arduous process. But, all of a sudden things are happening. Fast!  So I come back to you with an update and the big news that Let Evening Come  is now available for pre-order! 


A BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Let Evening Come is the love story between the son of an Indigenous family displaced from their ancestral home on the Tar Sands of Canada and a motherless farm girl from Michigan who struggles to overcome loss while navigating the pitfalls of young adulthood. Together they combat suspicion and bigotry on both sides of the border and the cultural differences that separate them 



PREORDERING

Preordering helps the author like this: When you preorder a book, it seeds excitement. It tells bookstores people want this book, which makes them typically stock more copies of the book, which of course means more people see it and buy it. Not only do publishers look at preorder numbers to determine their print run, but early sales are key. Experts say the first two weeks of a book's shelf life are the most important.

So, if there is a book coming out from one of your writerly friends 😊 via traditional publishing, or one that sounds interesting and you plan to purchase it anyway, the best way to support them is to preorder.

I never used to know any of this. I never knew anything. And yes, I'm shamelessly groveling. 

I appreciate all of you who make up this vibrant blogging community and, truthfully, I would have faltered on the path if not for the ongoing encouragement and generous sharing of time, support, and ideas.

Thank you,

Yvonne

Human

(Because in these times I think that needs to be said.)

P.S. I have a newsletter sign up form on my website and there will be a drawing from the first 50 subscribers for free signed copies!! 💖💖 

P.S.S. The Friday prompt from Poets and Writers is to be inspired by Don McLean singing Starry, Starry Night, his lovely song about artist Vincent Van Gogh. There might be a heavy cloud cover overhead but it's a starry, starry night for me and I hope for you, as well.



Monday, November 27, 2023

FOX & I - An Uncommon Friendship


I loved this book. The author, a former park ranger, earned a doctorate in biology and zoology then built a small cabin on an isolated piece of land in Montana and plotted her next move. 

As she accepts research projects and teaches field classes and leads groups of undergraduates through the Wilderness areas surrounding Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, we tag alone to learn things about the natural world that couldn't be taught inside a classroom.

But the main focus of this astounding book is her unlikely and inexplicable friendship with a red fox who visits her isolated mountain valley cottage at 4:15 every day. With traits that only humans should have, you will never view these small creatures the same again.

Fox & I is on my list of best reads of 2023.  My other top five to date (of course you're interested!😀) are: 

1. The Slow Horses Series (Mick Herron)

2. The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones)

3. Lessons In Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)

4. Bear Town (Fredrik Backman)

5. An Invitation To The Party  (MJ Werthman White)

Tis the season for reading and writing and gift giving. I'd like to hear what some of your favorite books of the year are.