HELLO FROM CATHERINE

As you know, this is one of my favorite pages on my website. This is where I write about more personal matters, where I share behind-the-scene details with people I count as being my friends. I've met many of you through e-mails, others on my Bulletin Board or the Guestbook, and others at conferences, the one commonality being that you have become special to me in some way. You've shared bits and pieces of yourselves with me, sent me encouraging letters, and have always been there for me at points of sale when my books are released. When I say that each of you is important to me, please know I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Right now, it is turning autumn here on Cinnamon Ridge. The morning temperatures are growing chilly, we're seeing frost on the grass and lower branches of the ponderosa pines, and the squirrels are working frenetically to store food away for winter, pine nuts ranking high on their list of favorite goodies to collect. It is fun to watch them, but it’s also kind of sad, for I will miss them when they disappear into their nests until next spring. But that is the way of it. Seasons come, and then they go, and each time of year brings with it things to enjoy. The first silver thaw, the first heavy snowfall, the holiday decorations in windows and on front porches, and the increase of shoppers in all the stores. It is always kind of fun to pull our coats and parkas out of storage, frustrating to find the gloves and mufflers, and invigorating when we first taste ice crystals in the air.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas in a different way this year. We will be spending the first holiday with our younger son in Oahu, and then, after a couple of weeks in the Hawaiian sun, we'll all be flying over to New Zealand to spend time with our elder son, his wife, his three-year-old son, and—hear trumpets blowing—a brand new baby boy! I'm anxiously awaiting that moment when I first get to hold him in my arms. I'm also eager to have long conversations with my little grandson, who speaks with a Kiwi accent and leaves me wondering what he said half the time. No worries. He has a great sense of humor and usually ends up laughing when I don't get it. (I suspect that he thinks his nana from the States is just a little dumb. He knows what he’s saying, after all, so why don't I?) It will also be lovely for my husband and me to be with both of our sons for a prolonged period of time. In this hurry-up, pressing world of work, family, kids, geographical separation, and traveling constraints, it can be difficult to gather as a family.

In the meanwhile, I am starting the next contemporary novel about another one of the Harrigan brothers. That’s still in the plotting stage, but I will soon be hard at work writing, and the story will be well on its way to becoming a book for your enjoyment.

I hope this finds each of you happy and well—with a fabulous book waiting on your "to be read" shelf.

Sincerely,

Catherine