We Are Getting Married!

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes, 49 seconds

Sand in Your Shoes

I have never seen such a beautiful beach,” Jan exclaimed as we got out of my parent’s car at Cape San Blas. Her smile expanded so quickly that I feared she might hurt her jaw. You lived here, and you left?

We were a few yards ahead of my parents, and I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “If I had stayed, we never would have met. You, my love, are far more beautiful than this beach!

Being close to the water, Jan pulled off her shoes, rolled up her pants, and waded into the water. 

Jan, be careful it is cold,” my Mom said. 

She was so happy, and I knew it would not stop her.

We walked up the peninsular together. Sometimes, Jan and I would race up the dunes and take a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the cape.

My parents had a camera, and we took pictures of ourselves, the sand, and the water.

I wish we were sharing a bed,” I said to Jan as my parents were several yards behind us. “You look so sexy today!”

“We talked about it,” she said. “I was unhappy with them thinking I was just a girlfriend.”

“Tonight’s the night to tell them. Are you ready?”

“Yes, very much so!”

Jan stopped to put on her shoes as we were about to leave. 

If you have sand in your shoes, it means you will come back soon,” my Dad said to Jan. 

Jan smiled. “I would love to come back to visit with you!”

Jan and I Have News

“Jan and I wanted to thank you for a lovely vacation,” I said after we had cleaned up from dinner. I looked at Jan, sitting next to me, placing one arm around her and holding her hand. 

“We wanted to tell you that Jan and I are getting married next August!”

My parents and grandmother jumped with joy and came over to welcome Jan to our family

“When in August?”

The ninth,” Jan said.

My Mom called my sister and brother. My sister and her family drove over to celebrate with us. 

I felt as if I was looking at a happy family through glass for a moment. Once I realized my family had welcomed my future wife, I felt joy flow through my body like waves crashing on the beach

Jan, are your parents happy?”

We are telling them next week at my Mother’s birthday,” Jan said.


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Three Strong Women

Read: August 2022

Three Strong Women

by Marie NDiaye

Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye is a novel that focuses on three women who say no. Winner of the coveted Prix Goncourt, the first by a black woman, Marie NDiaye, creates a luminous narrative triptych as harrowing as beautiful. With lyrical intensity, Marie NDiaye masterfully evokes the relentless denial of dignity, to say nothing of happiness, in these lives caught between Africa and Europe. I highly recommend this novel.

John Fletcher translated the Kindle version.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

This is the story of three women who say no: Norah, a French-born lawyer who finds herself in Senegal, summoned by her estranged, tyrannical father to save another victim of his paternity; Fanta, who leaves a modest but contented life as a teacher in Dakar to follow her white boyfriend back to France, where his delusional depression and sense of failure poison everything; and Khady, an impoverished widow put out by her husband’s family with nothing but the name of a distant cousin (the Fanta above) who lives in France, a place Khady can scarcely conceive of but toward which she must now take desperate flight.

With lyrical intensity, Marie NDiaye masterfully evokes the relentless denial of dignity, to say nothing of happiness, in these lives caught between Africa and Europe. We see with stunning emotional exactitude how ordinary women discover unimagined reserves of strength, even as their humanity is chipped away. Three Strong Women admits to an immigrant experience rarely, if ever, examined in fiction, but even more into the depths of the suffering heart.


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An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder

Read: February 2023

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An Assassin in Utopia

by Susan Wels

An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder by Susan Wels is a true crime odyssey that explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield. I had read about this historical period in several other books, most recently Civil War by Other Means.

Susan Wels has written an excellent historical overview of a period we often overlook. I highly recommend An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder.

The Oneida Community, even though it was the most successful utopian community, is often overlooked. Ms. Wels connects the dots and places the experiment in the center of a transitional period. It is not merely the connection between Charles Julius Guitea and his assassination of President James Garfield, albeit a brutal crime, that shook America to its core, but all of the other linkages. These include “John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune).”

She also resurrects the importance of the Wormely Compromise and the African-American family that was an instrumental part of public society.

I have found fiction to be something I enjoy, but I knew it was time for a non-fiction book to balance my reading. The New York Times and other publications highly rated An Assassin in Utopia.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil’s garden.

Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed.

From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.

An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office.

Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield’s assassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them in extraordinary, surprising ways.

Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism, epidemics, and spectacle, the book’s interwoven stories fuse together in the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881—at the same time as the Oneida Community collapsed.

Colorful and compelling, An Assassin in Utopia is a page-turning odyssey through America’s nineteenth-century cultural and political landscape.


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The Letter Carrier

Read: July 2025

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The Letter Carrier: A Novel

by Francesca Giannone

In the bestselling novel that has captivated readers in Italy, The Letter Carrier by Francesca Giannone depicts a small town in southern Italy that reflects the experiences of many others. It portrays the lives of women and men—husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters—as they strive to navigate the world while remaining true to their hearts. The Letter Carrier explores the universal theme of connection and examines the consequences that arise when those connections occur at the wrong time.

Salento, Italy, June 1934: A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows each other. A couple gets off: The man, Carlo, a Southerner, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna—his wife—is a Northerner. Carlo’s brother is there to meet them, and he, along with everyone else, can’t help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue.

But Anna is not like the other wives. She doesn’t gossip or attend church. She reads books no one else has ever heard of, exploring ideas that some find threatening. She even wears pants, just like a man, and thinks a woman should have rights, just like a man.

There aren’t many options for a woman with Anna’s sensibilities, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. A female letter carrier? It is unthinkable! But Anna passes the postal exam and soon becomes the invisible thread connecting the town as she delivers letters between clandestine lovers, families waiting to hear news of loved ones away at war, and even helps those who can’t read.

Letters connect people, conveying both information and emotion. But for some in Lizzanello, letters are too little and too late.


Francesca Giannone holds a degree in communication science and studied at the CSC, the oldest film school in Europe, located in Rome. She has published several short stories in literary magazines, both in print and online. Currently, Giannone resides in Milan, but her heart remains in her hometown of Lizzanello, a seaside town in the Salento region of Italy. She hopes to return there to live one day.


Elettra Pauletto translated The Letter Carrier. After earning her MFA from Columbia University, she has split her time between writing about her experiences in Africa—specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Senegal—and translating fiction and nonfiction works from Italian and French into English. In both her writing and translations, she heavily relies on her background as a former political risk analyst who covered Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.



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Good and Evil and Other Stories

Read: September 2025

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Good and Evil and Other Stories

by Samanta Schweblin

Good and Evil and Other Stories” by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, explores characters who find themselves at a point of no return, captivated by the impending tragedy surrounding them. Vulnerable and deeply human, they become ensnared in moments when the uncanny intrudes upon their lives. Some characters transform, others find themselves isolated, and many oscillate between feelings of guilt and tenderness. All are driven by uncertainty.

Schweblin’s prose employs tension and truth to create a literary universe where the monsters of everyday life come so close that we can almost feel their breath. Her writing evokes both awe and discomfort, placing readers in a state of alarm while transporting them to a world that is both recognizable and strange.


Samanta Schweblin won the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her story collection Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, while her book, Little Eyes, and her story collection, Mouthful of Birds, have both been longlisted for the same prize. Her books have been translated into over forty languages, and her stories have appeared in prestigious English publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and Harper’s Magazine. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin currently lives in Berlin.

Megan McDowell is the recipient of a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been short- or longlisted four times for the International Booker Prize. She resides in Santiago, Chile.



Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!


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The Pull of the Stars

Read: June 2022

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The Pull of the Stars

by Emma Donoghue

After Jan’s death and over two years of COVID, The Pull of the Stars might not seem like a good read for me. But I had placed this book on my to-read list a few months ago.  The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue is set in 1918 in Dublin; a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love. It was a page-turner that engrossed me at that moment. When I reached the last page, I wanted the story to continue. 

The details about childbirth, life, and death were riveting. All three of the main characters are ones that I could have imagined in an episode of Call the Midwife. That Dr. Lynn was a natural person underscores the depth of Ms. Donoghue’s research and writing skills. 

Julie and Bridie’s characters were so real it was difficult to believe that they were not also based on natural persons. 

I strongly recommend The Pull of the Stars.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

In an Ireland ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers somehow do their impossible work. In the darkness and intensity of this minor ward, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways over three days. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic but shepherd new life into a fearful world.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.


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Kala: A Novel

Read: June 2024

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Kala: A Novel

by Colin Walsh

Today, I started reading “Kala: A Novel” by Colin Walsh, a gripping literary page-turner from a rising Irish talent. Former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives. Three old friends are reunited in the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, for the first time in years.

Helen, Joe, and Mush were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot center. Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.

Now it’s fifteen years later:

  • Helen has reluctantly returned to Ireland for her father’s wedding.
  • Joe is a world-famous musician who is newly back in town.
  • Mush has never left, too scared to venture beyond the counter of his mother’s café.

But human remains are discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. As past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their involvement in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance.

Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its secrets, in a story that builds from a smolder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging and the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.

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