A Letter from Danielle for March ‘19
Hi Everyone!!!
Happy March!!! I hope there is a whiff of spring in the air wherever you are. By now, we’re all tired of winter, and a hint of spring would be nice. The big holiday in March is Saint Patrick’s Day, which I can lay no claim to, with no Irish relatives. But it’s a holiday that a lot of people seem to enjoy!!!
And the big event for me this month is a new book coming out in hardcover (with a beautiful cover. My publisher works hard on the covers, and we all work hard to get it just right, and some of them are especially lovely. I like this one a lot!!) The book is called Silent Night. It’s an interesting book about two sisters who are totally different. The one, serious, responsible. She’s a psychiatrist, unmarried with no children, and an impeccably orderly life. She has a boyfriend, but doesn’t seem keen on the idea of marriage and kids for herself. The other sister, more disorganized to the point of being irresponsible, always wanted to be an actress and didn’t quite manage it. She has a child, a little girl, and lives vicariously through her 9-year-old daughter, who is a child actress on a hit TV show. Her mother is the classic stage mother, driving her around to voice and acting lessons and infusing the child with her own ambitions for the stage.
The psychiatrist sister loves her niece, and her sister, but the two adult sisters differ in opinions about almost everything. And in a careless irresponsible moment, the sister with the child does something foolish and a tragedy results, a terrible accident, the little 9-year-old is severely injured, nearly doesn’t survive, her mother is killed, and the little girl is cared for by her aunt (the responsible psychiatrist sister). It is a love story in a way between the little girl and her aunt, who drops everything in her life, and dedicates herself to her niece, to her recovery and to helping her re-learn all the skills she has lost and forgotten from the accident, walking, talking, all memory of her life. She remembers nothing of the past, and loses the most basic skills. She loses her place on the TV show, and must struggle to come back to life and the life of a normal child. The bond between aunt and niece is powerful, and both learn from each other, with creative solutions, incredible determination and courage, and both of them learn something important about themselves, and a lot about each other. It’s also a story about modern family, where not all children in a family were born of those parents. Not all children have two parents, or a mother and father. And in this case, an aunt and a niece share a mother/daughter love that brings the niece through terrible trials. They do it together. The book is about courage and love, and how people can recover from severe injuries. It’s a very touching story and I hope you love it!!!
And Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those of you who celebrate it!!!
Love,
Danielle