An intriguing premise that will challenge your definition of family. I highly recommend this book.

Loved being with kindred spirits at a gathering of Florida members of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. We stayed and met in this gathering of cottages in Mount Dora, a charming and walkable village in the center of the state.

My “go to” place to buy books when I’m at my home in Florida is The Bookmark in Neptune Beach, which is just over the intracoastal waterway from Jacksonville.  Owner Rona Brinlee hosts some great book events there, too.  

Wow!  I can see why this book won the National Book Award.  I’m not sure why it took so long to recognize a woman writer in this fashion, but Jesmyn Ward is also the first female to have won that award twice.

I shaved my head in a nod to badass Emma Gonzalez, survivor of the Stoneman Douglas school shooting.

I visit two places anytime I’m in a city where I don’t live:

• The fun and funky coffee houses
• The local independent bookstores

A recent example:  my trip to E. Shaver, Bookseller when I was in Savannah.

Bonus:  They have cats!

Yes, it is too hot and humid in Florida many months of the year.  That’s why my husband and I want to move to our mountaintop cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  But I must admit that spring in Florida is quite beautiful.

I saw the author, Chloe Benjamin, speak recently at the Savannah Book Festival.  She was as charming as her book is good.  In it, four siblings learn the dates of their deaths from a fortuneteller when they are kids.  The question is:  Was the fortuneteller correct?