Growing up in the Ozarks, my parents and grandparents used to take me to see Santa at a local department store in the nearest “big” city. My brother and I had our pictures taken with him nearly every year. I never realized the man in the costume wasn’t really Santa until a boy in grade school told me otherwise. “Grow up!” the kid told me. That was a small but seminal moment in my life because it signaled a change from childhood to adulthood.
Why do we have to grow up? Especially when it comes to those magical childhood moments and memories? What do we too often “give up” as adults that we should hold on to?
A Wish for Winter is a novel about believing and having faith in yourself and others. It’s a novel about forgiveness, of yourself and others. It’s a book about that critical moment when we go from child to adult, too often in the blink of an eye, and how that can change us forever.
Like so many of you, I’m sure, I used to make a Christmas list when I was a kid. It was often a long laundry list of every new toy and game. But my Grandma Shipman used to always ask me after we’d visit Santa what my wish was. “Not what you want,” she’d say, “but what you wish for, more than anything in the world.”
After my brother was killed in a tragic accident—much like Susan’s parents are in the novel—my only wish was for my holidays and my life to be the way they used to be. “If I could give any child any gift in the world, I would grant you that wish,” my grandma told me. “But I can’t bring your brother back. No one can. What I can give to you, though, my beautiful boy,” she continued, “is the hope that Christmas and life can be the way you want it to be. It can never be the same, but it can be filled with miracles and beauty and wishes you never dreamed or expected. But you have to gift that to yourself.”
What do we wish for most in life? Not things, as my grandma taught me, but love, happiness, health, home, a passion for what we do. A Wish for Winter is about those simple wishes. It’s about wanting to find love but fearing getting hurt again. It’s about taking chances. It’s about missed chances. It’s also, I believe, my most unique novel to date. I mean, what if you felt it was your life’s destiny to meet a man who had to be dressed as Santa Claus the first time you set eyes on him? The book is populated with a beautifully, kooky cast of characters, inspired by my own diverse, funny, loving family and friends.
A Wish for Winter is also a celebration of books. Susan, the owner of Sleigh By the Bay, is inspired by the real owners of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in gorgeous Petoskey, Michigan, where the novel is set. It’s about how books save us, how bookstores are our heart, soul and community as well as how we too often are willing to believe in happy endings in books but not in our own lives.
My wish for you is that you know how much you are loved! I truly hope you love A Wish for Winter, and I cannot wait until June when my next summer novel (and it’s a doozy!) will publish.
XOXO!
Viola