Because I REALLY Needed This Today

As tomorrow (Chris D-day) approaches, emotion is precariously close to the surface. Every. Minute. Of. The. Day. The strangest things will set me off. Completely unrelated things. An oriole flying across the front yard. A commercial. My grandson explaining a game neither of us has any idea how to play.

And then, this morning, there was this:

The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (and their Muses) is a book set in the latter part of the nineties in a retirement home that is especially for famous writers, editors, publishers etc. The home was dreamt up by two writers, one who has passed and who one has finally come back to the mansion to live out the rest of his days among his contemporaries. In this story we follow a few of the writers, namely Alfonse Carducci and Olivia Peppernell, lovers in the past and good friends now and one of the orderlies named Cecibel who lives on the grounds and is dealing with issues of her own. She forms a camaraderie with them and serves as the muse that ignites their passion for writing again as they deal with the breakdown of their bodies in the aging process.

This book is probably a contender for being one of my favorite books of this year, for sure. I loved everything about it. I loved the writing style, which was elegant and just evoked the feeling I love to get when reading a great piece of literature. There are alternating perspectives all told in the third person and I loved following different bits of the story from each of the characters. UGH THE CHARACTERS…they were so good and I love them all to bits and I just want to gather all of them up and hug them to me forever. This story was beautiful and tragic, comfortable and romantic. These are literally all of the things I felt when I curled up in bed and read this book. It was a gloomy, rainy day out when I read it which was just absolutely perfect. After reading this book I was torn between reading one and writing one.

I really loved that this story was told through our main narrative but also includes the story that our characters are writing interspersed throughout. It was a wonderful thing to be able to experience that alongside of these characters. Ugh I loved this book if you can’t tell and I can’t wait to read it again. As someone who loves to write stories, I enjoyed every single moment where the lives of the aging writers was discussed and I loved reading about them writing. I could go on and on but I won’t, I’ll let you read this book and discover it’s magic yourself. If you love stories about writers and beautiful characters, read this book!! 5 stars from me!

Ms. Nose In A Book (reviewer)

Niagra Falls, Frankie Angel. (If you get the reference, you get a gold star!)

I don’t share all my reviews, but this one? I had to. And I wanted to put it here where I could go back and read it FOREVER!