Last week my computer decided to shit the bed. My brand new computer! It just started turning off right in the middle of an Under the Influence interview. I did all of the things one does when technology fails. I screamed into the void. I tapped it affectionately. I lit some sage and then I blew into it like it was a Nintendo game in 1987. Alas. The damn thing is just knackered!
So I made an appointment at the last place I ever want to be, the Apple Genius Bar, and took my sad sack of a laptop there. Sean, the genius who was fixing it was as perplexed as I was about why it just decided to turn off.
I began mumbling incoherently about how I just couldn’t handle not having y computer right now. I am still in the iddle of book tour, I have to zoo into book clubs. There are podcasts to make and books to write. THIS IS A VERY BAD TIME FOR ME SEAN!
“Do people think you’re like a real bartender and tell you all their problems?” Glynnis (who was in town with me for a book event) asked, distracting Sean from his very important task at hand.
“All the time he said. They come in to have me fix their phones and suddenly it’s all about their dad.”
That seems like an NYT styles story that needs to be written ASAP Genius bar people as the new bartenders, but I digress.
The computer is so broken it must be sent off to wherever the Apple dark overlords and elves fix broken things and that means I won’t have it for about a week. I was planning to be on vacation next week any way, but even when I am on vacation I am bad at rest. Now I don’t have a choice. The computer has given me permission to rest.
And so I shall.
No more newsletters this week. Although the podcast is all scheduled for this week.
But naturally you need something to read so let me gift you some books! You’ll need to be a full subscriber to commment here so either sign up or you can buy a Hot Sicilian to get a paid subscription for life.
My novel with Christine Pride, YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE, came out in paperback last week and the cover is so beautiful. I have three copies to giveaway. Drop a comment in here about how you will be resting this summer to win a copy.
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible—a good man by her side, a steady job as a career counselor at a local community college, and a cozy house in a quaint little beach town. It may not look like much, but it’s more than she ever dreamed of or what her difficult childhood promised. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet, grateful. Until something shifts and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: “Is this all there is?”
Daisy Dunlap has had her own share of problems in her nineteen years on earth—she also has her own big dreams for a life that’s barely begun. Her hopes for her future are threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant. Desperate, broke, and alone, she hides this development from everyone close to her and then makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences.
Daisy isn’t the only one with something to hide. When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon’s own past, which she’s gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone…even herself.
As Cinnamon struggles to contain old demons, navigate the fault lines that erupt in her marriage, and deal with the shocking judgments from friends and strangers alike about why a woman like her has a baby like this, her one goal is to do right by the child she grows more attached to with each passing day. It’s the exact same conviction that drives Daisy as she tries to outrun her heartache and reckon with her choices.
These two women, unlikely friends and kindred spirits must face down their secrets and trauma and unite for the sake of the baby they both love in their own unique way when Daisy’s grandparents, who would rather die than see one of their own raised by a Black woman, threaten to take custody.
Once again, these authors bring their “empathetic, riveting, and authentic” (Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling to an unforgettable novel that revolves around provocative and timely questions about race, class, and motherhood. Is being a mother a right, an obligation, or a privilege? Who gets to be a mother? And to whom? And what are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of marriage, friendship, and our dreams?
I am taking my first kid-free trip with my husband to the beach on Lake Michigan this summer. Can't wait!
Celebrating my 70th birthday with a four-month, six-country Balkan and Caucasus journey. Working on blog posts and a book about current and past travels. Though this may all be stretching the definition of "rest."