A Letter from Danielle for November ’21
Hi everyone,
November is a cozy month with the promise of the holidays at the end of it. The weather is cold in most places and it’s a great time to tuck in and read. At the end of the month, we have Thanksgiving—a holiday based on gratitude, inspired by friendship, and a wonderful time to include people who don’t have family and would otherwise be alone. It’s a time to give, and be grateful for all that we have received, our abundant blessings (even if our blessings seem small to us, with gratitude, they seem to grow). It’s a time for gathering strangers, friends, family. It can be a lonely time for some people, and good for us to remember and reach out. It’s also a good time to calm down turbulent relationships within families and make peace, not war.
Gratitude is a healing force for all that troubles us, and can lead to forgiveness, a precious gift. Not to mention all the good food we get to eat if we’re lucky—time-honored favorites: turkey; stuffing; pumpkin, mince, apple, and pecan pie (with whipped cream or ice cream!). And for those whose tables are bare, sometimes on a special year, it’s wonderful to work in one of the kitchens that prepare holiday meals for those who have no food or family to share it with. Thanksgiving is an amazing opportunity to give!!! Of ourselves, of our food, of our blessings.
And I have two new books for you this month: my hardcover for the holidays that I really love. It’s historical, about some of the heroes of World War II, Flying Angels, the flight nurses who worked on a special detail during the war, based in England: flying missions to the front to bring back the wounded from the front lines and save them, if they would never have survived the rigors of being brought back from the front by land. It’s about the brave nurses who flew those missions, many of whom lost their own lives when the rescue planes were shot down, or when they were shot themselves. I LOVED doing the research for this book. It really touched my heart. They were American, British, and Australian women, with an incredible camaraderie between them, as brave as the men they saved. Unsung, underpaid, under-thanked and under-appreciated. They carried out their mission, uncomplaining, risking their lives daily, like the men, giving of themselves, and only acknowledged by the governments they served more than two decades later. I hope you will fall in love with this book, as I did when I researched it and wrote it. It makes you want to reach back into history and thank them for what they did. And through it all they had families, fiancés, people they loved and who loved them, and they put themselves on the line every day. Even all these years later, they are inspiring. I hope you love it!!!
In paperback, Neighbors, about an earthquake in San Francisco, which destroys a street of houses, and a famous movie star (who has been a recluse for years, since the death of her son) who comes out from behind her walls and welcomes her neighbors into her home—and the secrets and dramas that are revealed when she does, and how the neighbors become friends.
I hope you have some cozy nights by the fire, to read these two books. And Happy Thanksgiving!! If yours doesn’t look like it’s shaping up, maybe this year you can make it happy for someone else, which will warm your heart, and theirs.
Love,
Danielle