A Letter from Danielle for March ’26
Hi Everyone,
Hope the winter is easing up a bit as we head into March. Winter hasn’t left us yet, and spring hasn’t arrived, but by now there are little hints of it, and the deep, bitter cold of midwinter should be disappearing.
At the beginning of the month, you’ll find Felicia’s Favorites in hardcover, a book I REALLY had fun writing. Five grown daughters each have a different relationship with their mother. Their mother is a strong, loving, quiet woman, dedicated to them. She leads a simple, quiet, modest life. Her daughters think they know her well. She’s their mother, after all. After a freak event takes their mother from them, they make discoveries about her that they never could have dreamed. She is not the person they thought at all! She kept enormous secrets from them, and she was very, very different from the woman they knew so well, with no mystery to her or so they thought. It raises the question, “How well do we know our mothers?” Something to think about—maybe our mothers have secrets we would never expect. Once they lose her, they have to adjust to the secrets they discover and how they impact them and their relationships with each other as sisters. She leaves each of them a letter, explaining it all. I really hope you enjoy this book, and it might just give us all new insights into our own mothers. (A French friend of mine, when her mother passed away, discovered trunks in her attic containing an arsenal of World War II guns and weapons. She then discovered that her mother had been an active spy behind enemy lines in the Resistance during World War II. She never talked about it, and my friend never knew, and she was stunned by her mother’s bravery.) And once you solve the mysteries, we not only know more about our mothers, we learn more about ourselves.
At the end of the month, A Mother’s Love comes out in trade paperback (a convenient size to carry if you’re traveling or commute to work—you can put it in your purse, briefcase, or backpack). Don’t be misled by the title; it’s about the trauma some people suffer at their mother’s hands and how it can affect you for a lifetime. When a woman’s purse is stolen in a criminal act, the long-healed scars of her childhood are revived and haunt her. Recovering from abuse is an enormous challenge, but it can be done. The toxic people who wound us physically and emotionally as children can’t hurt us anymore once we’re adults. But we have to walk through the remembered pain to get to the other side and heal at last.
I hope that you enjoy both books and that they resonate with you for a fascinating read!
With love,
Danielle