A Letter from Danielle for January ’25
Hi Everyone,
I hope you got through the holidays, not too exhausted, and satisfied by how they went. The holidays can be so challenging, exciting, happy, but sometimes disappointing too, or stressful in families. I hope that yours were peaceful, happy and fun.
January is always a quiet month for me. Like a bear, I hibernate, the weather is cold, even miserable sometimes, and I am happiest staying home, working on new books. The fall is heavy writing time for me too, but much harder to do then. The weather is still great or at least good in September and October, and there is that electric back to school feeling after the summer, and I want to play, but I lock myself up and write hard from September until December. In January, it’s so cozy and nice to be home, and it’s a great time to write, all the way until spring, and then I come out of my cave.
Nothing too exciting happens in January, so it’s easy to stay home.
I have new books for you this month, which IS exciting. Upside Down came out in paperback on Christmas Eve, December 24th, so if you didn’t snatch it up to read the minute it came out, you can catch up in January. It’s about ‘contrasting’ relationships, an older woman with a much younger man, and a young woman with a much older man, and the challenges those relationships can present. In this case, the older woman is the mother of the younger woman in the book, and people are less startled by older men with younger partners than older women with young men. I hope you have fun with the book!!!
My new hardcover is on sale today: Never Say Never. A woman with a marriage she trusts and relies on, and a great job she loves, plans a month-long trip to France with her husband to celebrate their anniversary. And by the time the trip rolls along, her husband has left her for another man, which comes as a huge shock to the entire family. She decides to take the trip to France anyway, to stay in the house they’ve rented, with a romantic history (it was built for a king’s favorite mistress), and once there, she learns that the job she loves has been terminated, and as her world appears to have crumbled around her, she gets trapped in France during the pandemic, in the lovely house she rented for the anniversary that was canceled and meets another person who has gotten stranded in France, as she contemplates the next steps in her future. Nothing has happened as she planned, but the new surprises turn out to be good ones, and doors open to her that she never expected, and could never have guessed at. I do love that book, and hope you do too!!!!!
And in two weeks, my historical novel Only the Brave will come out in paperback. It’s one of my favorites, a World War II book, and the twists and turns of fate that happen to a young woman during the war, and the courageous steps she takes for her own survival, and the good of others. She loses touch with her family, her father is killed by the Nazis as a dissenter, she winds up in a concentration camp, and through it all, she selflessly helps others, taking refuge in a religious order, and risking her life again and again to save others. It’s an action-packed story with all the challenges of wartime for a young woman to face. I hope you love all my new books in January!!! There’s nothing better than curling up with a good book while the winter storms rage outside. I’ll keep writing, and you keep reading, and before you know it, spring will be here!!!
Love,
Danielle