Dear Reading Friends,
I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to the New Year
ahead. For our friends in the LA area affected by the catastrophic fires, I do want to express our heartfelt sorrow at your devastation and loss and our sincere prayers for your safety and rapid recovery from this disaster.
Here in Northern Virginia, we’ve been snowed in, which has extended the school holidays for nearly a week to the children’s delight. Years ago, I read an article in the Washington Post in which the author referred to snow days as a “snow sabbath.” I love the idea that being snowed in allows one the guilt-free enjoyment of rest, reading, and catching up on things—like writing this post :)
Counting our blessings in 2024
We were thrilled to welcome another precious grandchild to the clan (33 and counting) last
February and are thankful our family continues to grow and thrive. We still enjoy living in a beautiful waterfront community and, by God’s grace and provision, were able to pay off the mortgage on our condo. My husband Bill hardly feels “retired” as he remains an Elder and Pastor Emeritus of The King’s Chapel, and we’re constantly busy with family and church, where I still serve as a mentor mom for our mothers of preschoolers group. As to our travels, last winter we escaped some of the cold to Topsail Island and also enjoyed a late summer week there with family, as well as our annual Family Beach Week in the OBX, where three of our granddaughters were baptized in the pool. After months of calls and emails, we were finally given back our cruise credits from our previously missed Greek Island cruise debacle, and in September, we successfully sailed from Athens to Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Ephesus, Mykonos, Delos, Rhodes, Crete, and Santorini.
Writing News
Thanks to the Freiling Agency all of my previously published books are now back in print and
available in paperback and e-book formats! The latest release is the re-edited Evasions, Book 3 of The Oxford Chronicles, the WWII prequel to the series, and in my opinion, my best historical novel. The beautiful new cover image (courtesy of photographer and friend Lancia E.
Smith) is of the garden at C.S. Lewis’s home the Kilns, which provided refuge during the war to
evacuees, including my fictional character Annie Little MacKenzie. While researching this
novel, I read the recollections of Kilns evacuee Jill Freud (aka June Flewett), who doubtless
inspired the character of Jill in Lewis’s Narnia books and who interestingly married Clement
Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, later an MP and rector of St. Andrews University, which earned him a knighthood and gave Jill the title of “Lady Freud.” After leaving the Kilns, Jill remained close to the Lewis brothers and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts,
becoming a stage and film actress. (You might have caught her appearance as Hugh Grant’s
housekeeper Pat in Love Actually). For my WWII research, I also had the privilege of
interviewing several people who lived in England during WWII and whose stories of the Blitz
were incorporated into mine. While researching and writing Evasions, fact often intersected with fiction as I found myself “stepping into the stream of history.”
I hope you will enjoy reading Evasions, and as always, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take the time to post a positive review. Meanwhile, I’m still searching for a publisher for my novel Dancing in Hemlock, the love story of Edith and J.R.R. Tolkien, while working on revisions to my murder mystery novella, Death at Clifton Manor, which is set at the country estate of my Oxford Chronicles characters, Lord Stuart Devereux and his new bride Natalie MacKenzie.
Thank you for your support and interest in my books! I pray you will be abundantly blessed in
this New Year.
Melanie
Comments