Thank you to Charles F. French for this marvelous review of A Ghost and His Gold. It is so completely wonderful when a reader experiences your novel’s journey exactly as you intended and sees the underlying intentions and purposes of the plot and story.
A Ghost And His Gold by Roberta Eaton Cheadle is a brilliant, thoughtful, and deeply emotional novel. In this book, which is a historical paranormal novel, she weaves together the plots of a distant time period and shows how they connect to the present. Her historical research is impeccable, and her characters draw the reader completely into the story.
A Ghost And His Gold is a tale of love and hatred, the impact of the past on the present, greed and decency, war and peace, and sinning and redemption. Weaving such an intricacy of themes could easily be difficult, but Cheadle is extraordinary in her narration. She moves the reader seemingly without effort from one time period to another, and confusion is never a problem. Her plotting skills as are strong as are her character development.
This novel is set in South Africa, both in contemporary times and during the…
Alicia Collinson poses a surprising question to her dinner guests:
“Do you think lying is endemic in society today?”
They all have different answers based on their experiences, but what was the purpose of Alicia’s question?
She was separated from her twin brother, Tom, when they were eight. Tom graduated into a life of violence, while Alice found a life of fortune and wealth in her partner, Mary.
But when Mary unexpectedly passes away, a new person enters Alice’s life – someone who seems to know every detail about her.
Soon, her past and present lives collide with life-changing consequences.
My review
This book is an interesting and complex story about twins, Tom and Alice Collins, who enter the foster care system at a young age and are raised separately. The book starts with Alicia Collinson, aka Alice Collins, and her sophisticated boyfriend hosting two friends for a dinner party. Unknow to the dinner participants, the ghost of her brother Tom, known as Bobby Brown among his peer group, is also in attendance. It is obvious from the start that Alicia is a woman of good financial circumstances who mingles with the elite of London’s society. It also becomes evident quite early on, that Tom’s life has followed a very divergent path and he was a member of the mafia-styled criminal class.
The book follows the paths of the twins and how they come to end up in their different circumstances and lifestyles. Alicia is a well-know and talented photographer who owns her own home in London and has plenty of money. Tom has money, albeit ill gotten, but he dies the death of a criminal.
Tom is a conflicting character as he is a man involved in high class prostitution and other shady and illegal dealings. Despite being a seasoned criminal, his narration of the story reveals a different side to his character. One that questions the life he lived and celebrates the good fortune and success achieved by his sister.
Alice or Alicia has the great good luck to become the protegee of a wealthy single woman with no children who effectively adopts her and sets her on the road to success in her chosen field of photography. Unknown to the naïve Alicia, her benefactor isn’t everything she appears to be and some of the people she socialises with are infamous for their continuous promiscuous behaviour with the same, or the opposite, sex. In a contrast to her brother, Tom, who is in the centre of the debaucherous lifestyles led by the wealthy upper classes of London, Alicia hovers around the edges, not realising what is right in front of her.
The author has an in-depth knowledge of the illicit behaviour of the British upper class and paints a detailed picture of how greed, selfishness and a complete disregard for the values and ethics of society lead to the downfall of people.
This book will make you question what success is all about and whether it leads to contentment as the stories of the many characters unfold. This is thought provoking tale as despite the huge difference in the siblings financial and social positions, both of them end up with money but neither of them have good reliable partners or simply and happy lives.
Daniel Kemp’s introduction to the world of espionage and mystery happened at an early age when his father was employed by the War Office in Whitehall, London, at the end of WWII. However, it wasn’t until after his father died that he showed any interest in anything other than himself!
On leaving academia he took on many roles in his working life: a London police officer, mini-cab business owner, pub tenant and licensed London taxi driver, but never did he plan to become a writer. Nevertheless, after a road traffic accident left him suffering from PTSD and effectively–out of paid work for four years, he wrote and self-published his first novel –The Desolate Garden. Within three months of publication, that book was under a paid option to become a $30 million film. The option lasted for five years until distribution became an insurmountable problem for the production company.
All seven of his novels are now published by Creativia with the seventh–The Widow’s Son, completing a three book series alongside: What Happened In Vienna, Jack? and Once I Was A Soldier. Under the Creativia publishing banner, The Desolate Garden went on to become a bestselling novel in World and Russian Literature in 2017. The following year, in May 2018, his book What Happened In Vienna, Jack? was a number one bestseller on four separate Amazon sites: America, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Although it’s true to say that he mainly concentrates on what he knows most about; murders laced by the mystery involving spies, his diverse experience of life shows in the short stories he writes, namely: Why? A Complicated Love, and the intriguing story titled The Story That Had No Beginning.
He is the recipient of rave reviews from a prestigious Manhattan publication and described as–the new Graham Green–by a highly placed employee of Waterstones Books, for whom he did a countrywide tour of book signing events. He has also appeared on ‘live’ television in the UK publicising that first novel of his.
He continues to write novels, poetry and the occasional quote; this one is taken from the beginning of Once I Was A Soldier There is no morality to be found in evil. But to recognise that which is truly evil one must forget the rules of morality.
I’m doing Thursday Doors on a Thursday which is a sign that my work life is a little more balanced this week. I saw my doctor this afternoon so that my blood pressure and heart rate could be checked. They were both normal. He wasn’t impressed when I told him I’d worked the past 8 weekends. In fact, he said I needed to get a life. He is right.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
Warwick Castle is a medieval castled that was originally a wooden fort built by William the Conqueror during 1068 and was rebuilt as a stone castle during the 12th century.
Warwick Castle is situated in the town of Warwick on a sandstone bluff at a bond of the River Avon. I visited it with my family in 2018 on our way to Stratford upon Avon (birthplace of William Shakespeare).
A few random doors at Warwick CastleMother in the mirror with the door behind herThe gallery with its double door
I’ve always been into dragons and magic and gallant knights. My family is very strictly sci-fi/Fantasy readers, so I guess I just grew up surrounded by it. The first “long book” I ever finished to completion was The Dragon and the George, and after that it was The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Hogfather, Mort, Reaper Man, Harry Potter, Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl… and the list just kept getting bigger.
But truth be told, I never considered being a writer. I guess I did win some kind of writing award in middle school, but I had only entered it because my parents pushed me to actually “finish something” for once, so even though I’d received the highest possible award for it in the whole school, I didn’t really care. I just wasn’t ready to embrace it, I guess. My Language Arts teachers hated me all throughout primary, middle, and high school. I was dyslexic, a slow reader, had an awful memory, and was always the worst of the class. Nothing they did could get me to pay attention for more than two minutes. I didn’t understand metaphors until I was nineteen, and even now, there are so many idioms I had no idea existed–and yet everyone else seems to know about them. My actual positive experience with writing didn’t happen until my first year of college at the Art Institute of Atlanta.
For some background, I was majorly into manga and video games, and was dead set on being a video game designer. The story for the NecroSeam Chronicles was originally going to be for a game I’d always dreamed of creating. But I’m a sub-par artist, honestly, so my “vision” of the characters and scenery could never quite be captured by my unsteady hands, so when I took a creative writing course for some extra elective credits, I twisted the story a little to fit a “book format” (at the time, I thought it would make it easier on me to throw them in a high school and see what would happen), then wrote one chapter at a time every week for a grade. It was extremely different than what it is today, mostly because I hadn’t taken it seriously at first and just made the simplest setting I could think of so I could focus on my other class projects. I won’t lie, it was horrendously stupid.
But WOW, was it fun. I had never, never, gotten such a rush of energy as I did with writing that way. Art was fun, sure, but I could never get the image in my head out onto the page, not like I could with writing. With writing, I realized I had no limits. I could do anything that came to mind, immediately, in vivid detail, without the extreme pain of standing up for hours on end, hunched over a canvas as my hands cramped up to the point of needing supportive braces, drawing the exact same thing over and over and over again yet ultimately failing to get the image I wanted. I just had so many thoughts crammed into my brain that wanted to get out, but I lacked the skill and motivation to do it with art. After that class, I switched schools and majors, and I haven’t stopped writing since then.
What are the other titles in this series? Tell me a bit about them?
After Willow of Ashes, the other titles are Orbs of Azure, Pearl of Emerald, Phoenix of Scarlet, and Blossom of Gold.
For the record, each title represents an ancient Relic found in the five kingdoms of Nirus (the world from the series). These Relics play a major role in NecroSeam, and since the story is an overarching epic journey through all the realms (and consequently, the Relics), it just made sense to name each book after them. Essentially, NecroSeam as a whole is all about accepting change. I’m pagan, and the themes of Death found in most mythology (especially Persephone’s representation of change) have always been a point of interest for me, so I wanted to create a story that focused on what they represented, and it ultimately helped me sort through my own mental health journey. You’ll see a lot of themes nodding to various mythologies about Death throughout the series, but alongside this, the further along you read, you’ll start to see other themes from other pantheons that seem familiar, but are twisted to fit the world of Nirus and its various kingdoms. Overall, it’s a fun adventure that hopefully teaches some deep lessons along the way.
Who is your favourite character in this series?
Xavier and Willow, honestly. You really can’t separate them. The story started with them, and their story ultimately inspired me to pursue the tale in the first place. Without them, there would be no story. A necromancer knight who falls for a warrior-princess of Death, only to have his soul ripped out of his body and sewn into his twin and journeys to find his body and come back to her? I had way too many vivid dreams of those two, they can’t not be my favorite.
Your covers are very eye catching – Do you have them designed? Do you give much input into their creation
We did have these current covers designed by Fiona Jayde. Our input for them was finding stock images we thought would represent Willow well (she recommended making her the cover focus alone for all the books to make it clear they were part of the same series) and let Fiona do her magic on them. The scythe shown is actually a real prop I made for cosplay, we asked her to put them in the covers and sprinkle some epic magic on the blade. She did a fantastic job, too.
What are your goals as a writer over the next few years?
I have way too many goals to list. I can never keep track of all the ideas I have for various projects, some not even for writing. I just finished making Oracle Cards and additional lore for the NecroSeam Chronicles (I have those up for preorder in the NecroSeam store now), last year I finished a children’s illustration book, I have about 5 stories I hope to write this year (2 short stories, 2 novels, 1 novella) but I have no idea if I’ll finish them by the end of the year. COVID means no daycare or babysitters, which means I’m watching a 2-year-old full time, so every other project is slow going. But I’d rather chip slowly at something than not at all, and I for sure would rather not put my daughter into daycare during a pandemic, so I’ll take what I can get at this point.
As for farther down the road, I’m very excited to dig into a middle grade series I’ve been planning for ages that takes place in the NecroSeam world, but in an earlier time period with a different cast of characters. And I guess I should probably get around to writing a sequel for Nightingale that everyone keeps badgering me about.
How are you planning to achieve these goals?
Slowly. Very, very slowly. The pandemic has done quite a number on my anxiety (and everyone’s overall mental health) and it’s been a struggle to not panic about “finishing everything at the same time immediately”. Anything I do fast is usually not good. Professional quality takes time for me. I’m going to go one project at a time, as long as it takes.
Willow of Ashes – The blurb
A necromancer knight. A warrior-princess of Grim. Two destined souls torn apart by death—and one epic adventure awaiting them both.
As younglings, Xavier and Willow promised to wed once they came of age, but when Xavier’s spirit is ripped out of his body and sewn into his twin brother, everything changes.
It’s been six long years since Xavier became trapped inside his necromancer brother. Every night, Xavier dreams of his traumatic past, remembering the yellow-eyed assassin who dangled him over a cliffside as he fought for his life—and the life of his ashen-haired fiancée. Now, as the twins’ final test for knighthood draws near, Xavier and his brother set out on an unforgettable journey to the surface realm of Everland to find Xavier’s true form, meeting new friends and crossing new lands on an epic quest of adventure.
But when he and his brother are targeted by a demon queen and her undead horde, the twins ally with a mysterious lady Reaper named Lilli in the midst of battle and they work together to fend off the demon threat, but being horribly outnumbered, will it be enough?
And will Xavier’s secret existence be revealed when Lilli tells him his beloved Death Princess has come to the surface to find him?
“One of the most fascinating universes I have ever encountered… rich, mysterious, inviting and frightening at the same time. You will want to visit it again and again.” ~Readers’ Favorite Review
Award-winning fantasy author and Amazon best-seller, Ellie Raine, is a voracious BookWyrm when it comes to epic adventures, detailed world-building, and thrilling battles. Since it’s what she loves to read (Brandon Sanderson, Douglas Hulick, and Rachel Aaron especially!) obviously it’s what she loves to write.
She grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, where her family raised her right with a healthy upbringing surrounded by fantasy books, comics, and video games. Her award-winning Adventure Fantasy pentalogy, the NecroSeam Chronicles, was inspired by her favorite fable: the Grim Reaper. It was originally intended to be a video game, but she found the book adaptation to be far more fulfilling and exciting. Her first book in the series, Willow of Ashes, has won multiple awards in 2019, including first place in Fantasy for Writer’s Digest, and another fantasy award for Readers’ Favorite. In 2020, the series finale, Blossom of Gold, was also awarded a silver medal in fantasy for Readers’ Favorite. Her other works include a supernatural detective noir, Nightingale, published with Pro Se Productions in 2018.
Ellie Raine is currently working on several other fantastical projects and only emerges from the depths of her daring tales when she is summoned by her loving king and their darling daughter: the Dragon Princess Felicity.
Last week was a busy one with two birthdays in my family and the 2020 DealMaker’s Awards.
On Monday I had my birthday. I worked the whole day until 7.30P.M. I received two lovely bouquets of flowers, one from my mother-in-law and one from my sister. They were both a lovely surprise as I rarely receive flowers. My green fingered mother took care of them for me and they lasted for a whole week. It was lovely having these cheerful arrangement in my office.
My oldest son, Gregory, turned 18 on Wednesday which was quite an overwhelming milestone age for me. He, of course, is thrilled to now be legal for most things and able to get his license to drive a car this year in preparation for his going to University next year.
This is me with Greg in the delivery room 18 years and one week ago:
My team at work was nominated for three awards at the 2020 DealMaker’s Awards which took place on Tuesday evening, 23 February. The event was hosted virtually and I went to collect the awards and do the photograph shoot for the newspaper on Friday morning.
This is my picture of me with the three awards:
Lastly, I received the paperback copies of A Ghost and His Gold which was very exciting.
All in, last week was very eventful and this week is seeming a little dull by comparison. I did manage to do a short reading from a Ghost and His Gold though.
Journey 2, Penllyn picks up where the first installment, Dead of Winter: Journey 1, Forlorn Peak stopped. The supernatural warning, “Winter is coming!” continues to haunt Emlyn. Her father has heard her utter those words, and he is displeased to say the least. In fact, her family situation in general is becoming more perilous.
My review
Journey 2 of this incredible fantasy is a satisfying 60 pages long and moves the story along at a terrific pace. Emlyn’s visions make an even bigger intrusion into her life and her unhappy home environment becomes even worse due her inability to control her fears while sleeping. She gains some comfort through the discovery of an unexpected and hidden item that previously belonged to her mother and we learn more about her mother’s nature and passions as Emlyn thinks about her and examines her physical memories of her life when it included her mother.
More details are revealed about the restrictive religion that has taken hold in Emlyn’s home town and surrounds and the reader feel Afon, Emlyn’s father’s, anxiety that her strange behaviour could bring tragedy down upon his family and business. He decides to try and take preventive action which leaves the reader conflicted about his real motives and feelings towards his daughter.
This journey is equally beautifully written as Journey one and I enjoyed some of the delightful descriptions. “The milk zinged against the side of the bucket, making a happy sound” and “She couldn’t recall experiencing heavy clammy air in cool weather. The air was strange, unlike ordinary dampness. It felt … greasy.” are two examples of this author’s fabulous writing.
Who is Queen Ailbine and why did she bother with Emlyn? Who is the woman who has the ability to infiltrate Emlyn’s dreams? This journey ends with a cliffhanger and leaves these questions to be answered in the next installment.
I am over at Charles French’s blog today with a post for the Underground Library Society about All Quiet on the Western Front. Thank you, Charles, for hosting me. Charles has some terrific horror books and also books to help writers write better so do take a look around while you are there.
Roberta Eaton Cheadle, or Robbie, is an esteemed member of the U. L. S. — the Underground Library Society — and she is offering her thoughts on another book! Robbie, thank you so much!
Thoughts about All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Overview
This book is a first-hand account of the life of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a squad of German soldiers on the Western Front duringWorld War I. Paul and his classmates enlisted in the army at the end of their high school career as a result of the impassioned patriotism and relentless coaxing of their teacher, Kantorek.
All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of Paul and his friends experiences in the trenches. There is a lot of fighting, death, and…
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
My week was a bit better than the last six, but I had so much catching up to do with doctors and other appointments that I still didn’t make Thursday for this post.
Haworth in Yorkshire, England was home to the famous Bronte sisters. We visited the Bronte Museum in August 2019 and also explored the quaint village of Haworth.
Door to the church in Haworth, with an without us in the picture. There is a plaque commemorating Patrick Bronte above the door.
Some beautiful items from inside Haworth church including a chandelier inscribed with a tribute to Patrick Bronte and plaques in memory of the family and their aunt, Elizabeth BranwellA picture of the graveyard at Haworth
Some random doors in the village of HaworthThe high street in Haworth
Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.
At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.
If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.
We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!
NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!
A LIFE ISN’T WORTH LIVING IF NOT IN SERVICE TO OTHERS by Nonnie Jules
I’d like to begin by thanking two of my fellow RWISA Authors who were also on this tour, Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko and Linnea Tanner, who both had the courage to write about, or reference the ills of our world, that many would like to keep deeply hidden. I speak of hatred and systemic racism. Again, thank you both for your courage to write with such substance and I hope that it is still resonating with all who read both of your pieces. I am honored that your words are a continual ring in my ears.
The theme of this year’s REVOLUTION tour is A NEW YEAR – A FRESH START, and with that theme in mind, I’d like to share my thoughts on what a fresh start in this new year looks like for, and, to me.
My quote above, “A life isn’t worth living if not in service to others,” is what gives my life meaning and purpose. RRBC and RWISA came to be because I didn’t see enough service being spread around the web when I came aboard. I noticed a ton of selfish behavior, “me, me, and more me” attitudes, and a strong indifference to lending a hand to help the next person climbing after you, also reach the top. I felt myself drowning in an ocean of “gimme,” and surrounded by a nation of takers. In my mind, I had to do something.
With the inception of RRBC, the rules of the land were (and still are) that members support members. Some came aboard and quickly embraced the concept, either because it was inherently part of their makeup, or because they realized it was the fastest route to gaining support for their own agendas.
And then, there were the others – the takers and the ones from the land of “gimme.” They came aboard in droves – taking all that they could, and once they realized we were on to them, they quickly abandoned their squatter positions. By the way, we do so appreciate their exits as they made room for the uber-supportive members I’ll reference below.
The members on our roster who are constantly being profiled, promoted, pushed, and honored, are the members who show, by their actions, that they are living in service to others. They don’t make excuses, they make a way.They don’t see a tweet and merely re-tweet it, they click the link first to see how they can support their fellow members even more and even better. They don’t re-tweet only tweets with their Twitter handle included. And their social media feeds? Well, they are clogged with promotion of others!
Their support doesn’t stop there. These members consistently show up to support in a myriad of ways, including the following…
following along member blog tours, leaving comments and sharing the posts on social media
hosting fellow members on their blog tours, such as our “SPOTLIGHT” Authors
sitting in the audience of member interviews on our RAVE WAVES shows,
showing up to our book club discussions to support BOOK OF THE MONTH Authors
purchasing, reading and reviewing fellow member books from the RRBC &RWISA catalogs
sharing members’ books directly from Amazon, along with the purchase links and book covers
visiting members’ book trailers on YouTube, leaving comments, and sharing to social media
following members’ blogs and websites and ensuring that they are active in these blogging communities
and even showing up to participate in club activities, to ensure that our organizations remain fluid and not stagnant and boring.
These are but a few ways that the supportive and active members of RRBC/RWISA ensure that they are exhibiting a life of service to others, especially on social media. We are not an organization interested in supporting those who don’t support others. If you show me that I’m not that important to you, then why would I go out of my way to place you on my special pedestal of support? If you’re not purchasing, reading and reviewing member books here, then guess what, you will never find yourself in the BOOK OF THE MONTH hot seat. Why would we tell others to run out and support you, when you don’t bother to show up to support them? And by the way, showing up is more than just sending out tweets and re-tweets. It takes so much more than that to create success.
2020 was a hard year for all of us, but 2021 rolled right in, giving us a clean slate to write new, more positive chapters in our life stories. Lucky for us all, this new year opened the door wide for us to make positive changes.
So, today, I ask you, what kind of life are you living? When we drop by to support you and we peruse your Twitter feed, will we see that you are in love with you, OR, will we smile when we see how hard you’re pushing someone else? When we look out into the gallery of our RAVE WAVES shows and our monthly book club discussions, will we see your pretty smiley face, OR, will we see only the beautiful faces of those who typically show up with their amazing support? Will you be counted among the many (who do nothing to support others) OR, will you be proudly counted among the few (who do more than their share to push others to the top?) Where will you stand when the roll is counted? With the givers or the takers?
Yes, it’s a new year, and also the most perfect opportunity for a fresh start! If you have been straddling the fence, finding it hard to get down, take that leap of faith and jump right in … somewhere … anywhere you can make a positive difference in the life of someone else. When you support others, you are supported ten-fold within RRBC/RWISA.
Did you make a New Year’s Resolution on December 31, 2020? I didn’t. I made an Intention, and that is, I intend to continue sharing and educating as many as I can on the importance of living a life of service. Less selfishness and more selflessness will continue to be my mission’s slogan.
Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.
At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.
If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.
We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!
NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!
Thoughts on 2020 by Karen Black
RWISA members are an incredible group of authors, who believe in supporting and encouraging each other with the camaraderie that results from a common goal: to strive for excellence in writing.
Thoughts on Two-Thousand-Twenty
Who could have imagined the changes that last year brought to us all? Like so many, I’ve read more than one book that told a tale of life during a pandemic. Scary stuff to be sure, I never expected that fiction would describe so much of that which became reality.
New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday celebration; the end of a chapter and the start of the next one. It is the time to get over mistakes, mishaps, or misfortune that might have littered the past year, and plan for a positive future, with fresh energy and new goals. On December 31, 2020, I looked forward to putting the past year behind.
Like the dealer in a poker game, the universe has a deck of cards. Life deals us each a set of circumstances different from those of everyone else. Some of us are happy with what we face, and some of us aren’t. In 2020, we were all in the game, but against the odds, everyone got cards from the same suit, the pandemic. No one was happy about those cards, but we didn’t fold. Each of us is playing the hand to the best of our ability, with all of us pursuing a different goal on the road to individual victory.
As the new year got underway, and life as we knew it became more difficult, I thought about what two generations before me endured just to get through day-to-day living. From 1914 through 1919, World War I was being fought. As if the war wasn’t enough, the Spanish Flu arrived in 1918, and added to the misery. Back then, the recommendations were much the same as today: wear a mask, avoid crowds, stay home if you exhibit any symptoms, don’t get close to others, adhere to quarantines, etc.
Can you imagine going through the past year with limited medical treatment available, and without takeout, home delivery, curbside service, internet access and twenty-four-hour video entertainment? I can’t. Last year was difficult, but the conditions in 1918 were devastating.
The quarantines and shutdowns affected each of us differently, and we are all aware of the myriad of negative effects. But some good things have resulted, too. Hiking, bird watching, fishing or feeding ducks and squirrels are a few pastimes that took the place of a social network that was substantially diminished. Away from the office and into the outdoors, people found a new appreciation for parks and game lands and the overall benefits of being closer to nature.
With people spending more time at home, often alone, the pet adoption rate has risen. Many are experiencing the companionship of a furry buddy for the first time. They not only discovered the delight of a four-legged roommate, but provided homes for thousands of animals who might otherwise have died.
For some, socializing has been limited to those living in the same household, which means there is more interaction among family members. Rather than telling each other how you spent the day, you spend the day doing something together. Relationships are being rediscovered and people are getting to know each other a little differently.
What scientists learned about COVID and ways to protect against it will help in future research against a variety of diseases that find their way into our lives. Vaccines are becoming available, and before long will be easily accessible. The pandemic will pass, but I will remember that there was some good with the bad. Looking forward to the new year, my goal is to dwell on the positive. I’ll keep looking for silver linings, even those that might be a bit tarnished. In the game of life, I think that’s all I’ll need for a winning hand.
![The Story That Had No Beginning by [Daniel Kemp, Julia Gibbs]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51eGvdQIgBL.jpg)
![Dead of Winter: Journey 2, Penllyn by [Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YpEOBglzL.jpg)
roberta-writes.com 