Their elopement is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and the setting for a tender, bittersweet love story. The two must wrestle with balancing their family responsibilities with their own needs, with coming to terms with old prejudices and with the need to stay close to what is wild in the world and in themselves, despite pressures to age "sensibly." When a life-threatening illness forces them to make a wrenching decision about their future together, they conclude that life, whatever its challenges, is meant to be lived fully to its very end. Call It a Gift dazzles with profoundly human characters and beautiful settings, unforgettable in the way it reminds us that romance and adventure are not merely for the young. The mysteries and poignant intensity of old age have seldom been depicted with such perception nor in a story so eminently readable.
What I've learned in all the years since I began writing is that each of us has at least one special story to tell. Some stories are sad, some funny, but all are as unique as our fingerprints. We are storytellers, every one of us. Some of us just have to write those stories down. I didn't always want to be a writer though. What I longed for most was to be an ice skater, but when I was fifteen I moved with my family from New Jersey to California and there went the ice.
My first short story began with a journal entry written when I was nineteen, after a close friend of mine met with a tragic accident. Many years later, that same story became the basis for my first novel, How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back . Eight novels have followed, with three more to come in the next few years. Writing is the hardest work I've ever done, but by far the most fun.
