First Blog!
Life is a series of firsts – some of which come naturally without too much effort; first smile, steps and tooth, while others take work and guts. Remember your first bike, first date, and first job interview? The fear and the excitement that shared equal billing as your emotions ran amok.
We all experience those teetering steps over the threshold of our comfort zones for this is how we grow, as a person, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
I recently published my first book – Clementine Court, a book in which the characters became a part of my life - so very real in their existence. I thought that writing my book was the hard part. How naïve I have been, how enlightened I am becoming, as I try to drag myself kicking and screaming with reluctance into the sometimes confusing world of social media and the public eye.
Why oh why cannot I not wallow happily in my anonymity? And why oh why cannot the public at large discover en masse, my book displayed for sale online, and immediately be gripped with an overwhelming need to purchase it!
Once bought they would devour its every page, before rushing to their electronic devices, and with nimble fingers flashing over the keys, they would lavish oohs and aahs, suitably in praise of my first novel.
Oh, if only …
It is therefore the reason why I have chosen another first time novelist Hilary Boyd and her lovely book entitled Thursdays in the Park to be the subject of my first official on my website book review.
Published in 2013, I read this book in August 2014 and it was through a Goodreads list that I discovered it.
Thursdays in the park is a delightful easy read about the joys and pitfalls of a long term marriage and the possibilities of new beginnings. Jeannie, the main character is no longer in the first flush of youth but is far from ready to embrace her senior years, and retirement. Whereas, her husband is happily ambling towards the autumn years, making earnest plans to retire to the country.
With her granddaughter in tow, Jeannie develops an unlikely friendship with Ray as he escorts his grandson for a Thursday in the park.
As the story unfolds, the relationship between Jeannie and Ray blossoms and duty and love become fast adversaries.
Hilary Boyd is in her sixties which gives me hope and delivers the message that one is never too old to start something new.
