I know you are thinking... why in the world is she speaking of winters in Boston when summer has not settled in quite yet? As you already know if you are familiar with me I hate the cold and often wondered personally how does a person get by living in cities like Boston in the dead of winter?
I was able to get a glimpse of snowy city streets, and what it is like to lose and then reunite with a long-lost passion. I was able to experience this inside a fictional tale called Waterbury Winter.
Usually, I do not read fiction books! I am always wanting the real stuff... truths, facts, and hard data. However, I am finding as I read this book and learned about the varieties of paint colors, for example, described by the artist Barnaby Brown I realized that I truly was missing out on how beautiful colors could be described. My mind could travel places and I could stay put in my cozy spot and travel outside my own world.
You have never caught me at an old high school reunion, or reading books twice (just the underlined pages). So I was intrigued by how lives from the past can cross and help heal the present. We all have gone through something in life, we may not be living the dream career that we sprawled in our high school yearbooks, but it is never too late to change for the better. Yes, I got all of this from this book. It may not be sitting in the self-help section but we always see a little bit of ourselves in a variety of people even if they are fictional.
This beautiful book written by a fellow Washingtonian Linda Stewart Henely rekindled my love for fiction books. I realized that I need them more than the current realities of life that are unfolding before my eyes. Below is a pre-written summary of the book. If you are looking for something to take with you to the beach by all means add this to your reading list this summer. Be sure to stop by two places: back here and let me know your thoughts and post a review wherever you purchase the book.
Book Summary:
Barnaby Brown has had enough of freezing winters, insurmountable debt, a dead-end job, and his solitary life as a young widower with no one but his beloved parrot Popsicle. He yearns to move to California and reawaken his long-lost early life as an artist. But new troubles come in threes. His ancient car crashes into a snowbank. Popsicle escapes through a window carelessly left open.
A New York gallery owner offers to represent Barnaby’s paintings—but is he on the up-and-up? All of it serves to shock Barnaby into confronting how low he has sunk, and he vows—again and again—to change. He has a few obstacles, starting with his heavy drinking and long-term neglect of his ancestral home.As he takes steps toward a better life, he re-discovers the value of old friendships and latent talents seen in a new light and finds the courage to consider a second chance at love. Rejoining the mainstream of life presents several startling mysteries he must unravel, with a few mortifying but enlightening stumbles.
A heartwarming novel about ordinary people reclaiming their dormant potential, Waterbury Winter celebrates the restorative value of art and the joy to be found in keeping promises.
Find out more about Waterbury Winter by visiting GoodReads or the author’s website. You can also purchase it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org.
About the Author:
Linda Stewart Henley is the author of Estelle: A Novel. Among other honors, it won Silver in the Independent Publisher Book Awards for Historical Fiction and was a finalist for The Eric Hoffer Book Awards as well as for the 2021 Nancy Pearl Award. She lives in Anacortes, Washington